from Osan elementary school and entered Osan middle and high school. He admired Kim So-wol, who was six years his senior, and got interested in literature. He was a top-scoring student, but he could not enter university because of financial difficulties. In January 1930, he won the first prize with his first novel The Mother and Son (그 모와 아들) in a literary contest hosted by Chosun Ilbo. That made him able to study at Aoyama Gakuin University with a scholarship funded by Chosun Ilbo. In university, he majored in English Literature and also studied French and Russian. Studying abroad, he enjoyed poems of Japanese poet Takuboku Ishikawa and was interested in modernism. Adult years In 1934, he entered Chosun Ilbo publishing department, having graduated from the university. He edited a sister magazine Feminine (여성, Yeoseong) and translated foreign works and papers. He started to work officially as a writer and a translator releasing an essay "Earrings" (이설 귀고리, Iseol Guigori) on 16 May 1934. Translating D. S. Mirsky's paper made him think about how valuable the Korean language is and how to preserve it with poetry. On 31 August 1935, he made public his first poem "Chongju Fortress". On 20 January 1936, he published at his own expense a collection of his poems entitled Deer which was a limited edition of 100. Deer consisted of seven poems which were already published and the others new. On 29 January, a gathering to commemorate the publication of Deer was held at Taeseogwan and eleven people including Kim Kirim and Shin Hyun-jung got involved as proposers. This year, he resigned from the company and started for his new post as an English teacher in Yeongsaeng high school in Hamhung. In Hamhung, he fell in love with Kim Jin-hyang, a kisaeng, and named her Jaya. In 1938, he proposed to her that they leave for Manchuria and live free there. But, she refused proposal fearing that she would stand in his way. She left for Gyeongseong alone. Then, he wrote Me, Natasha and a White Donkey (나와 나타샤와 흰 당나귀, ). In January 1939, he returned to Gyeongseong and met Jaya again. On 26 January 1939 he rejoined Chosun Ilbo and resigned on 21 October 1939. He wrote travel poetry, "Traveling Western" (서행시초, Seohaengsicho) traveling Pyongan and Hamgyong. In 1940 he left for Manchuria and got a job at Economics Department in Manchukuo