A poke in the public eye

Yesterday I finally sat down to an interview with famous Korean actor Suk Chun Hong, at his restaurant in Itaewon. In 2000, Hong became the first high-profile person in the country to come out of the closet, though after last eight years, he remains the only one. A charming man, he seemed quite accustomed to telling his story as well as having a microphone more or less invading his face.

Here's a clip from it in which he recalls coming out to his parents the night before going public in a Korean magazine:



He did eventually decide to stay in Korea, and it’s a good thing he did. After a very difficult period of about three years he was back on the air, and in the wake of such serious (albeit negative) publicity, his career rebounded and today he’s busier than ever. In fact, this last summer concluded the end of a 12 part series he hosted called “Coming Out”, relaying the stories of young gay men and women in Seoul.

Korea, despite it's perennial labeling as a 'conservative society', harbors a tremendous curiosity regarding sex and the new phenomenon of alternative sexualities. Open discussion of the topic is so new there's almost no social context within which to frame it. Perhaps that helps to explain why the majority of seats at Seoul Queer Film and Video Festival consistently sell out to straight women. The problem is, there's nowhere to get those images from the real world as very few people desire to come forward about their own lives.

Toward the end of our interview I asked Suk Chun what it was like to have the responsibility of crafting the image of what a gay person on his own.

"For eight years, a really long time, I fought all by myself, almost alone. I felt very lonely, very tired... but I'm waiting for people to come out and fight next to me." With a laugh he adds, "I need friends, actually."

And little by little however, they do appear to be creeping up. One friend of his, Hyun-suk Choi, became the first openly gay candidate to run for a public office when she made a bid for parliament on the part of Jongno district this last spring.