Teenage male model Han Hyun-min’s long legs and powerful strut have made him a rising star on South Korean catwalks, but his agent knew there would be a problem in the ethnically homogeneous country: he is half black.
Han, 16, has a Nigerian father in a society where racial discrimination is widespread and people of mixed race are commonly referred to as “mongrels.”
“A dark-skinned fashion model like Han was unheard of in South Korea, so recruiting him was a big gamble,” said agent Youn Bum.
Photo: AFP / Ed Jones
Now Han is posing for top glossy magazines as the country’s first black fashion model.
South Korea has for years sought to foster the image of a modern, sophisticated and tech-savvy nation whose pop culture has made waves across Asia. But behind the facade of an economic and cultural powerhouse lies a deeply-rooted racism — even as its immigrant population creeps up, doubling over the last decade but still only four percent of the population.
Most foreigners in the country are from China and Southeast Asia, migrant workers or women who marry rural South Korean men unable to find local spouses willing to live in countryside.
Photo: AFP / Ed Jones
Discrimination against them is widespread. Many are openly mocked at public transport for being “dirty” or “smelly,” or refused entry to fancy restaurants or public baths.
A government survey in 2015 showed that 25 percent of South Koreans do not want a foreigner as a neighbor — far higher than the 5.6 percent in the US and China’s 10.5 percent. Mixed-race children are bullied at school and constantly taunted as “tuigi,” a derogatory term that literally means cross-bred animals.
Many complain of poor opportunities in many aspects of life, including difficulties socializing, getting a job or finding a spouse. Han was no exception.
GAME OVER
“When I was playing with other kids at school, some mothers whisked them away from me, saying things like, ‘Don’t play with a kid like that,’” Han said.
He was regularly stared at in public, with an elderly woman once asking him: “What are you doing in someone else’s country?”
“I wanted to become invisible,” he said. “I hated that my looks stand out from everyone else,” he said.
He found his escape in fashion, taking part in modeling auditions and posting his photos on social media until Youn spotted the images. After seeing the then 14-year-old demonstrate his “electrifying” stride on a Seoul street for five minutes, Youn signed him up immediately. “Being a fashion model helped build my confidence tremendously,” said Han. “Now I enjoy being looked at by other people, instead of being ashamed or embarrassed.” He hopes to become a role model for multiracial children. “I want to be more successful, not just for myself but also for people whom I represent.”
‘BAD LUCK’
The duo were initially stonewalled by designers and magazine editors, some of whom openly dismissed the dark-skinned model as “bad luck” and urged Youn to recruit whites instead.
“Some of them told me, ‘We don’t do dark-skinned models,’ or, ‘For us, non-Korean models mean white models with blue eyes and blonde hair,’” Youn said.
But a handful of designers found Han’s look unique and charismatic, and he hit the runways at more than 30 shows at the two Seoul Fashion Weeks after his debut last year — an unusually high number for a novice. Han’s slim physique “had a good combination of strengths of both Asian models and Western models” said designer Cho Young-jae, who used him to display his men’s clothing line, Chaos From Undermind.
Neighboring Japan has a similarly homogeneous population, Cho said, but a longer history of immigration and already has a number of biracial star fashion models. Even so, when half-black Ariana Miyamoto was picked as Miss Universe Japan in 2015 she faced open accusations of not being sufficiently Japanese to represent the country, in a stark demonstration of the limits of acceptance.
MONEY AND POWER
South Koreans have until recently been taught at school to take pride in the country’s “single ethnicity,” with one race and language enduring for centuries. A history of repeated invasions by powerful neighbors China and Japan has amplified the sense of victimhood and rampant ethnic nationalism, many analysts say.
In addition, according to Choi Hang-sub, sociology professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, Korea’s ultra-competitive culture “worships those with money and power and despises those without.”
“The rule also applies to foreigners,” he told AFP. “So white people from advanced nations are welcomed with open arms, and those perceived to have hailed from less developed nations are relentlessly looked down upon.” The South has a growing number of foreign or multiracial figures on TV and other public sphere — but almost all of them are Caucasians, whose looks are favored by many South Koreans as “beautiful.”
Commentators on social media, though, have warmed to Han. “He has such good aura around him,” said one. “I hope that our society will become more open to people like him.”
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would