INTERVIEW Youn Yuh-jung embodies diaspora, DNA of hallyu

Actor Youn Yuh-jung speaks during a post-screening conversation on film "Minari" at the The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, May 17. Courtesy of Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

Embodying minari seeds and diaspora, the DNA of Hallyu as a state of potentiality, and a playful grandmother who defies stereotypes: Youn Yuh-jung is known for her subversive roles and life; she is an exemplar of the “diasporic body.”

Earlier this year, I received an invitation to the opening of a retrospective exhibition on Youn Yuh-jung at the Academy Museum of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles. The spherical, transparent, shimmering glass and solid steel building looks like an otherworldly structure. From the striking exterior to the Old Hollywood exhibits inside, the space evokes the magic and mythology of the American Dream, reflecting the past while gesturing toward the possibilities of the future.

The special exhibition consisted of Youn’s films, including “Minari,” which explore the place of Korean women and families. “Minari” is a film by Korean American director Lee Isaac Jung which prominently features the Korean language. The concept of diaspora was exemplified by the film, sparking global conversation not only about Korean culture but also Youn’s character. In 2021, The Guardian described Youn as “uninhibited, passionate, and forthright, Youn came to embody a new type of independent Korean woman.”

I wondered why the eyes of Hollywood had turned to Youn.

As The Guardian noted, getting an interview with Youn is not easy; it’s nearly as difficult as plucking a star from the sky. So, I was grateful when Youn agreed to an exclusive interview.

As my conversation with Youn began, I told her that I was familiar with her because I had seen her in the media so much. She laughed, apparently charmed by this sense of familiarity, not just from me but from others. "So ... an old lady I met,” Youn said, “she slapped me really hard on my back and asked me why I didn't know her. And how surprised I was to be slapped! She was just so used to me ... I realized later." Our conversation began with a big laugh.

The film screening that day was “Minari,” which attracted international attention not only to the Korean film but to the Korean vegetable. I really admire this plant, which can grow almost anywhere. I started the conversation by saying that I had heard that it has a very strong life force and that it originally grows in dirty water. "Well, it purifies that dirty water, and I know that because director Isaac told me about it while we were making the film,” Youn explained. “I didn't know that before. And it doesn't grow the first year when you sow it, and then it just takes off the next year."

Film ""Minari" is being introduced during a retrospective exhibition on actor Youn Yuh-jung at the Academy Museum of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, May 17. Courtesy of Kay Lee

Youn’s role in the film is that of a grandmother who brings minari seeds from Korea to the countryside of the United States. Like minari, which purifies water by sacrificing itself in order to filter its environment, Youn and her characters are symbols of motherhood, femininity as an “other”: a mischievous grandmother who can overcome the weight of life with laughter. One can see this kind of motherhood and femininity in her character in “Minari,” who compassionately allows herself to be an object of humor in order to help her ailing grandson feel more comfortable in the world.

Youn’s entire history is, in a sense, akin to a minari. I was curious about the position of an actor who lives vicariously through other lives and personas. I asked Youn what she thought about diaspora as an actor.

"I hadn't really made that connection,” she mused. “In a sense, we are all diaspora.”

Youn Yuh-jung, right, in a scene from "Hwanyeon" (1971) by director Kim Ki-young. Youn made her big screen debut with this film. Korea Time file

One way to understand diasporic identities and bodies is as refusing to conform to norms such as the traditional mother or “Cinderella” figure. Diasporic people, like the minari plant, better their environment by spreading their own unique seed for the good of all. Youn herself is a displaced person from Gaeseong, North Korea, and has long been perceived as a maverick actress, one who does not conform to the universal concept of beauty in Korean society, with an image that is not obedient. Many of her roles have been sexualized, and subversive. It can be said that Youn's body, which represents femininity as the 'other,' or femininity in a non-stereotypical sense, symbolizes the modern concept of diaspora.

“I didn't really plan to be an actress from the beginning,” Youn shared. “And when I think about how I made my debut, I think I started because I had to work part-time to help my mom and pay for my tuition when I was a freshman in college, so I didn't have that much pride in being an actress, so I probably just worked hard, and it's not like I majored in theater or film or anything like that."

Youn Yuh-jung in the film "The Bacchus Lady," in which she plays the role of an old prostitute / Courtesy of CGV Arthouse

I was curious about her thoughts on the film “The Bacchus Lady,” which deals with the life and suffering of the marginalized. In the movie, her role is that of an old prostitute who spent her youth as a maid. In a time when elderly poverty has become a major social problem, she becomes a “killer woman” who helps old and sick grandfathers end their lives at their request.

"That was a very painful piece for me, because in a way, acting is like heavy labor [sighs], but it's not like the old lady who sells sex that we imagine ... I mean, we only do it in our imagination ... I had talked to the director about how it would be great to make a story like that for the underprivileged, and how it would be a dream to do that, but when it came down to it, it was so hard."

Youn’s experience playing Gong Soon-yi in “The Bacchus Lady” uniquely places lives characterized by strife and instability brought on by inequity in front of audiences. When immigrants leave their homeland in pursuit of the American dream, they are like minari seeds brought from their home country, taking root in American soil, becoming hybrids. Diaspora is now of interest from a global perspective because today's world is full of absurdities, where marginalized groups live in social isolation and disconnection due to climate change, socioeconomic polarization, and racial and class conflicts. The experience of immigrants who have been forced to leave their homes is not different from that of all global citizens; in this sense, we all live diasporic lives. Youn’s life and characters introduce perspectives, both in Korea and globally, of which many might otherwise be ignorant but to which we all can relate.

Youn Yuh-jung, winner of the award for best actress in a supporting role for “Minari,” poses in the press room at the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony at Union Station in Los Angeles, Calif., April 25, 2021. EPA-Yonhap

With such a personal and professional trajectory, Youn has developed a remarkable ability to turn feelings of inferiority into humor. At the British Academy Film Awards, she joked, "I'm so honored ... recognized by British people known as snobbish people approved me as a good actor, I feel very privileged and happy." I asked her how she could always be funny with such a sense of inferiority.

"That's because I've seen a lot. It depends on how you interpret it, some people take it as humor, some people say it's too sarcastic, but as I get older, I think it's okay to talk about my life, because it might be rude if I laugh at someone else's life, but I'm doing it to myself [laughs]. I'm older now, so I can really see my life as a long shot, and I think that can be an inferiority complex, or it can be a superiority complex. And I think some people say that it's different, between inferiority complexes and superiority complexes, and I think that's only the difference between a piece of paper. Because I've lived it, and it was so horrible at the time, but it's good that I can laugh about it now, isn't it?"

This is something special that Youn does like no other. If we have the power to transform our sense of inferiority, couldn't it be a driving force for extraordinary creativity? K-culture contains the potential for the world to do just this.

Youn’s unique sense of humor seems to have germinated naturally in her language. Both Youn and K-culture transform suffering, as one can see in the Korean concept of “han.” “Han” is a specifically diasporic feeling of sorrow and pain from loss which is likely felt by all ethnic minorities around the world. "Han" is embedded in Korean DNA, spreading with the Korean diaspora across borders. However, K-culture does not solely remain in sorrow or pain. Like a Greek comedy, K-culture and Youn sublimate tragedy into joy and excitement. How is this possible? One way is through language. Historian Yuval Harari explains that language is the reason why the species Homo Sapiens has been able to survive. Language still brings about progress today; it is the medium of the potential of the diaspora. The success of K-culture lies in its vital DNA and its ability to share empathy through collective unity and connection rather than individualism.

Lee Kyung-hwa, left, an artist, director, writer and academic who leads the interview series, talks with actor Youn Yuh-jung at the Academy Museum of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, Calif., May 17. Courtesy of Kay Lee

Throughout our interview, it was as if Youn had the seeds of a minari embodied in her whole body. Her voice echoed throughout the space as she spoke about her life and all her social accomplishments in a very natural, humble, yet confident way.

I think the phenomenon of Korean film retrospectives is just beginning. Korean films like “Minari,” the healing of the colonial experience in “Pachinko,” the subversion of class structure in “Parasite,” and capitalist competition in “Squid Game” are examples of the success of the Korean wave. This retrospective seemed to be organized in response to contemporary issues of global human rights and diaspora that have emerged since the pandemic.

The power of K-culture, like the seed of a minari, can be viewed as a potential state of possibility, a new phenomenon that converges through historical and social circumstances, with an identity that goes beyond tradition through reproduction and reinterpretation. The era we live in is defined by diversity, networks, and hybrids. It is deeply intertwined with geography and geopolitics and is becoming more decentralized than centralized. People of color are becoming increasingly powerful in the U.S. and around the world, and our Korean American DNA is flourishing in a variety of contexts.

With a long-standing philosophical connection to nature, Korean people have a special place in our hearts for the moment when sky and earth meet and turn golden. On the evening of Youn’s retrospective, the sunset reflected brilliantly on the rounded architecture of the museum, which opened Youn's retrospective. It was as if we were looking at a glowing minari seed: a possible future.