She studied at the Pyongyang Girls' Middle and High Schools, and graduated from Kyongsong Women's Teaching College in Seoul in 1914.

In Japan, she met and fell in love with a married English literature student, Kim U-jin, with whom she had an affair.

Though audiences were impressed by her powerful voice, she was unable to make a living performing Western classical music,[1] and became a pop singer and actress to support herself.

[3] Yun and Kim U-jin committed suicide together in 1926, jumping off a passenger ship en route from Simonoseki to Busan.

[3] Yun's most famous recording, 1926's "Hymn of Death," is considered the first "popular" (yuhaeng changga) Korean song.