So Junghwan

So Junghwan was born on February 18, 2005, in Iksan, North Jeolla Province, South Korea. He is the youngest member of TREASURE and was only 15 years old when the group officially debuted in August 2020.

• Junghwan practiced taekwondo long before he became a K-pop trainee. His martial-arts background gave him strong coordination, flexibility and body control before he ever began learning the highly synchronized choreography required of an idol.

• He was a member of K-Tigers, a famous Korean performance team that combines taekwondo with dance, acrobatics and music. That experience meant Junghwan was already accustomed to turning athletic movement into entertainment rather than practicing martial arts solely as a competitive sport.

• His K-Tigers background helps explain why physical performance came naturally to him during his trainee years. Even when he still lacked the polish of older contestants, Junghwan already understood how to use power, timing and movement in front of an audience.

• Junghwan also worked as a child model and appeared in commercials before joining YG Entertainment. Like Junkyu, he therefore had professional experience in front of cameras years before TREASURE existed.

• He appeared in advertising alongside other young performers, making idol life only the latest stage of a career in entertainment that effectively began during childhood.

• Junghwan attended the same vocal academy as future TREASURE member Park Jeongwoo. Their friendship therefore predates both YG Treasure Box and their time promoting together as idols.

• Junghwan and Jeongwoo auditioned for YG Entertainment together in 2018—and both passed. What began as two friends attending the same academy ultimately resulted in both of them debuting in the same group.

• They reportedly entered YG on the same day, giving Junghwan and Jeongwoo one of TREASURE's most unusual shared pre-debut histories.

• Junghwan had only a relatively short period of YG training before appearing on YG Treasure Box. Like Jeongwoo, he suddenly found himself competing against trainees who had spent several years inside the company.

• His young age was impossible to ignore during YG Treasure Box. Junghwan was still visibly a child compared with several older contestants, making the confidence required to compete for a debut position particularly striking.

• Despite that disadvantage, Junghwan was selected for the original seven-member TREASURE lineup. He didn't enter through the later MAGNUM team; he was among the contestants chosen for the first group announced after the survival show.

• Junghwan's animal nickname is closely associated with a cow, leading to the affectionate nickname "Super King Cow Baby." The deliberately over-the-top nickname became one of the most recognizable ways fans refer to TREASURE's maknae.

• The "Super King Cow Baby" image also plays on Junghwan's love of food and the fact that he was still growing rapidly during TREASURE's early years. Fans essentially watched him transform physically from the small Treasure Box contestant into one of the group's taller members.

• His growth is one of the most visually dramatic among the TREASURE members. Because Junghwan entered the public eye so young, comparing his YG Treasure Box appearances with later tours makes it obvious just how much of his adolescence happened in front of fans.

• Junghwan has a strong appetite, something the members have repeatedly joked about in TREASURE's content. Food-related moments became part of his maknae image, especially while he was still a rapidly growing teenager.

• Despite being the youngest member, Junghwan is highly athletic. His taekwondo background makes him especially comfortable with physical challenges, sports and games that require coordination.

• He has demonstrated acrobatic abilities connected to his martial-arts training. K-Tigers performances often require kicks, jumps and choreographed tricks, so Junghwan entered idol training with physical skills that most ordinary vocal trainees would never have practiced.

• Junghwan attended the School of Performing Arts Seoul (SOPA) while simultaneously promoting with TREASURE, meaning his teenage years involved balancing schoolwork with recordings, rehearsals, international travel and concerts.

• He graduated from SOPA in February 2024. The milestone was particularly meaningful because fans had essentially watched him progress from a middle-school-aged trainee to a high-school graduate while remaining an active TREASURE member.

• Junghwan was selected for TREASURE's five-member unit T5 in 2023. The unit consisted of Junghwan, Junkyu, Jihoon, Yoon Jaehyuk and Doyoung and introduced a noticeably more mature performance style than TREASURE's early material.

• T5's "MOVE" was an especially interesting moment for Junghwan because it challenged his original maknae image. The choreography and styling emphasized a more mature and charismatic side of him, making his development since YG Treasure Box particularly obvious.

• Junkyu wrote and co-composed "MOVE," giving Junghwan an opportunity to perform material created by one of his own TREASURE members. The unit highlighted how much the group had developed creatively and individually several years after debut.

• Junghwan's relationship with Jeongwoo remains one of the easiest friendships to trace through TREASURE's history. They went from attending vocal lessons together in Iksan to auditioning together, entering YG together, competing on YG Treasure Box and eventually touring internationally as members of the same group.

• Junghwan's career is unusual because becoming a K-pop idol wasn't his first experience as a performer. Before YG, he had already combined martial arts with stage performance through K-Tigers and worked in front of cameras as a child model, meaning entertainment had been part of his life for years before TREASURE.

• Fans have essentially watched Junghwan grow up in real time. He first appeared publicly as a very young YG Treasure Box contestant, debuted at 15, attended high school while promoting, graduated as an established idol and gradually transitioned from TREASURE's visibly young "baby" into an adult performer.