As an inspiration to the many British Koreaphiles out there who don’t speak the language, look no further than X-factor winners Little Mix. According to the Chosun Ilbo, a contestant performing a cover version of their song Wings on K-pop Star prompted them to release their own Korean version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjFw934uGuQ
Rather more proficient is 영국남자 or Korean Englishman, who set up his Facebook page less than 10 days ago on 15 August and already has more than 4,000 “Likes”. But this is nothing compared to his YouTube Channel, of which the most popular video has scored more than 300,000 views in the week that it has been online:
Thanks to Korean Class Massive for the link to the Little Mix video, uploaded three days ago.
Updates:
- Korea.net identifies Yonguk Namja as Josh Carrott in their article Englishman introduces kimchi to Londoners, 6 December 2013.
- Apparently the Little Mix video breached SME’s (SM Entertainment’s?) copyright, and has been blocked, so I have replaced the video originally embedded in this post with a subtitled alternative.
- Download the 21 February 2015 edition of Saturday Live from the BBC website: it includes an interview with the Korean Englishman.