1. His full name is Kim Seok-jin.

2. He was born Dec. 4, 1992, in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province.

3. His family consists of his parents and an older brother.

4. He is the eldest member of BTS.

5. He started attending Konkuk University in Seoul in 2011, and graduated in 2017 with a major in theater and film.

6. He is the subvocalist of the group and often has solo vocal parts on title tracks. BTS songs are often characterized by a strong beat for the group to dance to, and Jin usually takes on the softer and more vocals-centered parts. Fans say that of all the bandmates, he is the best at expressing his emotions through song.

7. He is good at hitting high notes -- for example, in “Crystal Snow,” which has a high-pitched chorus.

8. He composed part of the song “Awake” on BTS’ second official album, “Wings,” released in 2016. The song ranked second on the global music-streaming website Spotify in February 2017.

9. He carries around a notepad, which he uses as a diary and also to jot down ideas for lyrics.

10. He wrote some of the lyrics for BTS’ fourth EP, “Most Beautiful Moment in Life Part 2.”

11. He released a cover version of Korean rock band YB’s “In Front of the Post Office in Autumn,” and it became an instant hit on SoundCloud.

12. He plays the piano and the pipe organ. In 2018, he sang and played piano simultaneously for the song “Epiphany.”

13. He is well known for his athletic gifts, which include proficiency in snowboarding, tennis and golf. During a local TV show, he even managed to do well at wakeboarding on his first try.

14. He started playing guitar in 2017. In a 2018 interview, he said mastering guitar was one of his personal goals for the year. Whether he achieved that goal is not known.

15. His dancing wasn’t that good back in his rookie days. According to fans, he seemed awkward. Until 2016, he was never put in a central position and also had no solo dance parts, but in “Wings” he wowed fans with his vastly improved dance skills.

16. Despite his past weakness as a dancer, Jin has won praise as a choreographer both from fans and his bandmates. He choreographed major parts of “Spine Breaker,” and in a V Live performance he even improvised amazing dance moves on the spot at the request of his bandmates.

17. According to BTS’ Japanese fan club, Jin thought of becoming a journalist until his first year of high school. The following year, he changed his plans and set his sights on acting after being moved by Kim Nam-kil’s acting on the Korean drama “Queen Seondeok.”

18. He got an offer from K-pop giant S.M. Entertainment when he was in middle school. He passed the first audition, but decided not to proceed to the next step because he thought the offer was a scam.

19. He eventually became a K-pop idol as a means to have diverse experiences.

20. His was picked as the “world’s most handsome male face” in a poll conducted by Czech doll company CzDollic in 2018. He beat 18,000 competitors from 58 countries. Of the 1.5 million people who voted, more than 1 million voted for Jin. According to the company, he possesses “an oval face that looks symmetrical from any angle.”

21. He was also picked as the most handsome idol by his fellow K-pop idols, according to Arirang TV.

22. His school pictures were released by his college peers, who addressed him as “Seok-jin Seonbae.” “Seonbae” is an honorific title, indicating respect.

23. Jin has picked up many nicknames online as a result of his pictures going viral. He was called “the guy leaving the car” after a video of him getting out of a car at Melon Music Awards 2015 went viral online. The hashtag “#Third member from the left” became popular on Twitter after the May 2017 Billboard Awards. When the group got its picture taken with the Chainsmokers, Jin got nicknamed “Grey hoodie in the middle.”

24. In February 2018, an anonymous foreign plastic surgeon who had analyzed 269 Asian male faces concluded that Jin’s exemplified the “golden ratio” of 1:1.618. This is the ratio of the distance between the singer’s ears and the distance between his hairline and his chin.

25. At 179 centimeters, he is the second-tallest member of the band.

26. He is the first to launch his own show, “Eat Jin Live,” on V Live’s BTS channel.

27. He is the cook in the group. He often shares his cooking through his blog and the V app.

28. Jin is a picky eater. For example, he likes strawberries but does not eat strawberry-flavored foods, whereas he likes chocolate-flavored foods but does not eat chocolate.

29. He boasts that he’s a big eater -- that eating massive quantities is the one thing he can do better than any of his bandmates. He eats around eight meals a day, he once wrote, and can eat around 600 grams of meat at once.

30. His ideal wife is a kind and supportive woman who can cook well.

31. Jin said he overcame his distaste for mushrooms after eating RM’s traditional Korean-style rice with mushrooms.

32. According to fans, he started blowing kisses to the audience around September 2016. Fans say his new practice began with their song “Fire,” which includes a move
where Jin blows kisses.

33. He enjoys lame jokes, aka “dad jokes,” something even Billboard has tweeted about.

34. He reportedly purchased an 87.56 square-meter home in one of the most luxurious apartment complexes in Seoul, Hannam The Hill. The price is believed to have exceeded 2 billion won ($1.8 million). The other members of the boy band currently live together in more spacious accommodation in the same complex.

35. He wants to call his future child “Yu-sun,” after Liu Bei’s son Liu Shan in “The History of the Three Kingdoms.”

36. His distant goal is to be a farmer. He experienced farm life at his uncle’s strawberry farm for a few months when he was in middle school.

37. His beloved childhood dog, a Maltese mix named Jjanggu, lived with Jin and his family for 12 years and passed away in September 2018.

38. He currently has two sugar gliders, Eomuk and Odeng. Both names come from Korean words for fish cakes.

39. He only has one ear pierced.

40. The shape of the bones in his fingers is a little funny. His knuckles are somewhat bigger and protrude more than average.

41. He is good at using his feet. He showed off this unique skill playing games with his bandmates on V Live. On a TV show, he opened snack packs with his toes.

42. He has monolids, meaning his eyelids don’t have a crease.

43. His favorite color is pink. His second album even shows him with pink hair.

44. He has a driver’s license.

45. His favorite hobby is playing computer games. He especially enjoys the MMORPG “Maplestory.” According to interviews with local media, he started playing the game when he was 14. He quit temporarily in college, but took it up again to get through the difficult times he faced after his debut.

46. The first album he bought with his own money was Girls’ Generation’s “Gee.”

47. He is close friends with B1A4’s Sandeul and VIXX’s Ken, and they are all the same age.

48. He is the only member of BTS whose stage name can be written in Hanja -- that is, Chinese characters used in Korean.

49. He lived for a short time in Australia when he was in middle school. He opened up about this for the first time, even to his bandmates, in a 2019 Season’s Greetings video, saying he had felt ashamed of his poor English.

50. He says his life goal is to be happy, and that he has met that goal because he is loved by so many people. He now wants to share his happiness with others.


By Choi Ji-won (jwchoikr@heraldcorp.com)