In season 2 of Like Us, Anna Yeon, Noè Harsel and Zione Walker-Nthenda are each inviting friends to the table for a chat about the important things in life. Then they share the interviews with each-other and regroup to unpack.
In this episode, Anna chats with fellow Korean Australian Harry Jun.
Harry is a stand up comedian, host of ABC Gamer and cohost of the SBS Audio podcast . He was a high school English teacher for seven years and trained in teaching Japanese and Korean as well,so he has a huge love of language learning. But growing up in Wollongong where the only other Korean kid at his school was his brother, Harry didn't put a priority on learning Korean.
It was only in his early 20's when Harry attended an intensive Korean language course at a Korean university, that he kicked off a chain reaction of language and cultural learning. It helped establish a deeper relationship with his parents.
When my father speaks English… it's almost like he has a word limit. I did grow up thinking there was a bit of an emotional gulf between us. But when I started to see it from his side of the court... his language that he's fully confident in is Korean. And I hadn't made the attempt to step over to his side. Once I had, suddenly the conversations were becoming more frequent. We'd have these beautiful conversations.Harry Jun
Follow in the SBS Audio app, at or in your favourite podcast app such as and .
Transcript
We would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we are broadcasting from, the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nation, we pay our respects to their Elders past and present. We would also like to acknowledge all Traditional Owners from all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lands you are listening from.
[music]
Like Us is Anna Yeon, Zione Walker-Nthenda and me Noè Harsel: a Japanese Jewish woman, a Korean woman and a Nigerian-Malawian woman chatting about our relationship with Australia and Australia’s relationship with us.
Anna Hello, hello, how are we?
Zione Very well.
Noè Hey Anna. Super good, super excited actually to hear this interview. Who have we got?
Anna We have Harry Jun, a Korean Australian comedian - born in Australia, raised in Woolongong, New South Wales.
Zione Wow.
Anna He's a fully legit English teacher, turned full -time comedian now, and he's been on Sydney Fringe, Sydney Comedy Festival, Melbourne Comedy Festival, but also on TV for ABC. And we actually - now that I'm living and working in Korea - had a really good conversation about the Australian experience in Korea.
Noè Was he live in studio with you?
Anna He was back in Sydney.
Zione Oh wow.
Anna So I nudged him a bit to talk about Korean masculinity with his Korean father.
So he's involved with like the Korean Australian “scene” in Sydney, and if you check out Kozzie.com on Insta, where it's about the second generation Korean Australians, yeah, he's there as well.
Zione So he does his bit for the community. Good, good. A creative person and a community person can't wait to hear his story.
Noè Yes, let's do it. Let's do it. Can't wait. Thanks, Anna.
Zione Thank you.
[music]
Anna Thank you so much for, like, just saying, yep.
Harry No, it's a pleasure. I just got back from Melbourne Comedy Festival. Yeah, it's been a bit busy, but I, you know, I love doing stuff like this.
Anna It occurs to me, actually, that we're both using the English language as a really key medium for our expression or creativity and language is, is a thing.
Harry I was a high school English teacher for seven years and I trained also in teaching Japanese and Korean as well.
Anna Oh, wow. I had no idea. That's awesome.
Harry Yeah, yeah. So I obviously have a huge love for language learning and also promoting the love of language learning in young people. But all of that also comes back to my relationship with language as well, in that I grew up in Wollongong. There weren't many…
Anna Yeah, you did.
Harry Yeah. There was only one other Korean kid at my high school and that was my brother. So like we, so like there wasn’t a huge Korean community in Wollongong, but the whole idea of learning Korean to me as a child wasn't… there were no advantages. I guess is probably a pretty cruel way to put it, but I just didn't really, if anything, I gained more social capital in being really good at English. And I loved reading, reading books at the time and I loved English. So I really, at the time I put Korean aside. My Mum enrolled me in Hangul hakgyo [Korean language school] and like to learn the Korean alphabet.
Anna The weekend Korean schools.
Harry Yeah. Classic, but I didn't take to it. I didn't really like it. And so my relationship with my Korean language skills, it was very detached. I didn't really - it was the classic - I could hear and understand it all, but when it came to actually speaking, I was very… I felt I was very disadvantaged and very self -conscious as well. And as I got older, I became more and more self -conscious because, you know - as you know - if your language skills, they at times… you can describe someone's language skills as an equivalent of someone's age.
So this one's, this person speaks at a primary school level, this person speaks at an adult level. And I was getting older and older and older, but my Korean language level was still very young.
Anna Like Benjamin Buttoning.
Harry Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I made a point of when I was, I must have been 21 or 22 in university, I took a Korean language course, an intensive Korean language course at Sogang University, which was like it was a 200 hour course over 10 weeks, 20 hours a week, Monday to Friday. We did four hours and then you had like three hours of homework. So it was a full, a very rigorous program. And I spent it over three months in the Korean winter. So it was from December to February. And let me tell you, it was strenuous and stressful, but…
Anna …it was such a military version of language learning.
Harry I literally felt like my body was hurting when I'd wake up. Even though I was doing no physical exercise, I was, I was sore from just studying. I contribute so much, like of my current ability to speak Korean to that course because it, it then kicked off like a chain reaction of exploring that and becoming more confident. And I re-established a new relationship with my parents as well. Because I'd only spoken to them in English before that. But after that, I was able to speak more confidently in Korean. And this idea of formal language in Korean…
Anna Like 존대말 honorifics and all of that.
Harry And from then on, it felt like I'd been looking at myself… I'm a 3D object, I'm a cube, but I'd only been looking at one side. But learning the language was able to rotate this square into a cube.
Anna You became full-fledged, Harry Jun. Fully fledged!
Harry Not fully fully, I'm still trying to rotate and see some more sides. But yeah, I think that's so important; that to me personally, like learning the language and trying to reconnect. Because [when] my family came to Australia, we were the only family to kind of move to Australia, like [out of] my extended family. Yeah, they're all in Korea or like other countries as well. But I, again, didn't really feel the need to learn it. Because, you know, whenever I visited Korea, I'd go with my parents when I was younger. So I didn't need to learn the language. And then if I ever visited as an adult, like the prospect of not being completely fully fluent in Korean wasn't too bad. Like you can still kind of get around.
Anna There's a lot more kindness for the likes of us not speaking Korean because we are fluent in English and that carries value, right? I mean, like I'm living in Korea now, I'm working in Korea now, and it's a day-to -day kind of mental struggle to live in the reality of how my fluent English seems to carry that value that wouldn't exist in the equivalent if I were fluent in Korean, right? So that's maybe for another conversation altogether because that's quite complex on its own.
But I love hearing how that like the military boot camp style of Korean language learning actually unlocks some of the deeper bonding with your family. That's incredible!
Harry Yeah, I felt it's like one of those things that you don't know what you've got till it's gone, and it's like I didn't realize I was missing out on so much - so much cultural like learning on my [part]… I guess I was arrogant in thinking I reached the limit. Like I'd, you know, I’d eat Korean food, I can understand some of it [the language] if we're at a restaurant, and that's fine, that's enough.
Anna Korean bbq?
Harry Yeah, exactly! But the ceiling raises up, suddenly, when you start to learn like…
Anna So does this mean we can do the rest of this interview in Korean? 그냥 우리끼리 한국말로 할까요?
Harry 아니 근데 제가…
[laughs]
Anna 근데… your accent and everything [in Korean], you sound like just a regular uncle.
[laughs]
Anna I can tell you learnt from the natives, you know what I mean? From the locals.
Harry I’d love to be able to. Because sometimes I get opportunities to do comedy in Korean as well, people ask me..
Anna Do you?
Harry But I think that humour is actually - we learned this in uni about language learning - like humour is one of the most, I think, complex forms of language. Like if you can tell a joke really accurately in a different language, with all the nuance and the drippings of irony, you've kind of understood the nuances of the language as well. And I'm just not at that level to be able to do that.
I would love to be able to do an entire set in Korean. That would be incredible, but I'm not there yet. So I have to politely decline this Korean case.
Anna Oh, wow. Well, that's another goal, that's another chapter for you to, you know, aim for.
Harry That's right.
Anna But it's exciting. And yeah, like, were there things that you found out about your parents with the Korean language as a bridge or a vehicle that helped you feel more, for lack of a better expression, more grown, more like a man, that you are coming of age?
Harry Absolutely. I think with language, like learning another language comes that whole code switching idea, right? That you, your cultural behaviour starts to switch in [the cultural] understanding. And so it actually helped my understanding of my father as someone who's very, very quiet.
When he speaks, because I only spoke to him in English, we only really conversed in English. And when my father speaks English he is very, very… it's almost like the universe told my father he only has 400 words to say, ever. And if he hits the limit, he can no longer speak. Like, that's, he had a limit, a word limit. And so he would only really respond in single word replies, or he would just say, you know, “oh, is that so” he would never start a conversation, you know? That really affected my relationship with him.
Anna Yeah, of course.
Harry Especially what living in Australia, you see other fathers and how they communicate with their children. And I did grow up thinking like, oh, my Dad, there was a bit of a huge emotional gulf between us. And then, but it's only then, when I started to see it from his side of the court, you know, like, his language that he's fully confident in, that he speaks most in, and understands most in, is Korean. And I hadn't made the attempt to step over to his side.
But once I had, suddenly the conversations were becoming, you know, more frequent. He discovered that there's no word limit and he can speak more. And we'd have these, we'd have these, you know, beautiful conversations.
Anna What do you talk about if you don't mind me asking? Like, what's a father and son, like Korean, you know, like “the dude” topic of conversation?
Harry I mean, he loves talking about the government, the Korean government. He's so funny. He's one of the… I love my Dad so much.
Actually, my show, my Sydney comedy shows, like a lot of it is about my parents, but he, I remember one time, I was wearing a shirt that had like, I think the Korean flag or some kind of Korean symbolism. And he looked at me and he goes, you shouldn't wear that. And I was like, why? And he was just like, oh, it's just, I don't know about, you know, you contributing to the Korean, like wearing the Korean flag and stuff, like it doesn't seem right.
And then I was like, oh, no, this is like a Korean based company. The money's going to them. It's about spreading culture and awareness and being proud of being Korean. And suddenly out of nowhere, he just goes, oh,the Korean president's an idiot. And then he walks away. And I'm like, whoa, what are you talking about? What? What do you mean, Dad? And I still don't know. And I couldn't even tell you who the president was at the time. I had no idea.
Anna Was it in Korean? Was it in Korean? This conversation?
Harry Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just don't, he is so bizarre. Well, I mean, and my Dad like, you have to remember, he, you know, went to military service back in the day when military service was very, very harsh.
Anna The compulsory [military service] regime that’s still in place.
Harry Yeah and you asked about this sort of the masculine take on it. I think growing up as a Korean Australian, we don't have that fork in the road of this impending idea that sometime after we turn a certain age, we're going to have to spend two years doing military service. I didn't have to think and worry about that.
I had friends in uni that did. And this was a big thing. And it also became this thing of like my mates would go and I wouldn't see them for copies. Then they come back and they'd be a bit different. And then all my friends who went to military service at the same time, they'd have this camaraderie of like serving together. And I didn't really ever have that as, you know, a Korean Australian man.
My Dad made it a point of, because we got this letter from the Korean government, I think one might rather turn 18. So I must have been 16 or 15. That said that if we want to still have the right to be a Korean citizen, we have to do military service. And my Dad straight away, he declined, he said, "No, there's no way my sons are going to do military service." Because he had quite a horrific experience when he was there.
Anna Oh wow…yeah.
Harry And I think he understood that two years of your life, especially when you're studying, it's a huge gap in your growth, what he thought.
But in terms of like this idea of masculinity, it's kind of fractured into many different like the Korean patriarchal side of it versus, I think in Australia, a bit more of a progressive look on patriarchal societies and like the connection to language as well and sort of Dad not really speaking much because he didn't really like to speak in English as much as Korean.
And it was a bit complex, but I think growing up, I was very, very lucky to have a lot of strong women around me as well, like my Mum being such a strong person, my Dad's Mum, so my Grandma or my Dad's side being like this matriarch, like a person that takes care of everyone. I think if I didn't have that, I would be a completely different person than I am today.
Anna Wow, that's a lot, hey. And just taking a pause here that the reality of Korean men having that military, compulsory military service is because North and South is still technically at war and it's the longest war on a break.
Harry That’s right. A time out.
Anna And how that actually reflects real people, that affects I should say, real people and not only individuals' lives, but how yeah, masculinity, patriarchy, ideas of femininity and how in some ways, I guess, creates an environment where it grows strong women.
Harry Yeah.
Anna All of that combined and going back to you and your father on a more personal sort of father -son relationship; that [the Korean War] becomes a factor, that becomes a dynamic, you know.
I don't know, Harry, I reckon we should do another conversation because there's way too much good stuff to talk about and we only managed to just like touch on the language, the identity, the family and a little bit of that, you know, gender stuff.
But if it's not too like emotional for me to say, it feels so much less alone seeing someone like you in the stand up comedy scene in Australia; and in the public, creative, cultural, scene in Australia. And even though I'm like living in Korea at the moment, it just makes me feel more “solid” about being Korean -Australian. Like, things are happening in the right direction and it feels… like, it feels good. So, thank you!
Harry Oh, I mean, yeah, that's very kind of you to say. I hope, I hope… That's never been the goal. I kind of just, you know, want to make people laugh and tell my story. But it does, it feels good as well on my side to hear that from people as well. Just to connect in that way and relate. And so I hope, hopefully I can continue to do that, and make people laugh along the way.
Anna And I reckon you've got some great materials coming with your father as a muse for your Korean career: chapter two. It sounds like you could just like kind of do, you know, like “Stuff My Dad Says”.
Harry Or what he doesn't say, because he rarely speaks. But yeah. Absolutely.
Anna Well, thanks again for making the time.
Harry Thanks so much for having me.
Anna Yeah, speak again soon.
Harry I had a great time.
[Music]
Noè Hey, that was great. Wow, Anna, that was great. And I, you know what, for me, as you well know, call it a hang up - call it what you will - but what really got me was the, when he talks about language, about learning the language, not having the language and about confidence around around language.
I find that really, that grabs me really personally. I'm just curious, I guess, you know, for you Anna, it's a super different conversation. So, Zione, what did you feel about that?
Zione Of course, it's slightly different for me because I can't speak my ethnic language, but I'm always moved by other people who can, and then grapple with, I understand it, but I'm not confident speaking it.
And then it took him [Harry] a while to get to a point of, oh, there's actually value in my language, right? Initially, as a young person in Australia, he didn't think there was, and he gets to 21 and 22, and then he decides to do that intense Korean language course for 200 hours for three months, something ridiculous like that. 20 hours a week, he was sore from studying, you know, all of that, I could literally feel that.
But what I really, really loved about it was how he talked about how learning the language opened up the culture to him. All of a sudden, it became a 3D experience, and he became a 3D person by learning that language, and how it opened up avenues for communication and relationship with his father and the culture and other people. I completely loved the way he described that. It was very, very eloquent.
And it's actually inspired me to say, well, maybe, what would happen if I went to learn my language?
Noè Yeah, I mean, I know you want to jump in Anna, and I'm super sorry, but I just want to jump in on that. Because I also felt a bit of my heart hurt hearing that a little bit.
Because for me too, I have learned Japanese on and off formally, probably most of my life, but I've never done what he's done, which is sit down and done that immersive [learning] with intent.
And I mean, I'd love to unpack it even with him a little bit more about the psychology and the impetus in the heart song behind it. Because I mean, I also, it really spoke and sung to me about what it opened up in terms of the relationships,
but the cultural awareness and understanding that I think that, you know, I guess in a way, with all respect, Anna, you kind of can take for granted on a level that I cannot, that you cannot even understand. Absolutely. And I think that ability to read, write, sing, hear, understand passing unintentional conversations…
Zione Nuance, humour.
Noè You know, I mean, I can go to the country and get along and get people through, but there's, there's an effort there that I think that the effortlessness that a real understanding of language would afford one.
Zione Absolutely. You know, and you hear First Nations people talk about this context around language opening up the whole world, right? Because within language, there are laws, LAWS, lores L -O -R -E -S, stories, nuances, history, context that otherwise wouldn't be open to you if you can't speak that language, right? Because you're just navigating it on a very, very sort of superficial, almost transactional way.
So I just found that super powerful, very poignant and inspiring in terms of I'm going to see what I can do. I don't know that I could do what he [Harry] did, but something, something.
Anna That's, I mean, can I just say my first reaction to the two of you getting into it and talking about it is, one of relief because at some point I was enjoying myself so much talking to Harry, but I was like, is this just like two Korean - Australians talking? And is it only going to be relevant to people listening from our [Korean-Australian] community? But clearly there is a relevance that goes above and beyond.
So thank you for like actually hearing what the fullness of his message and making it relatable to your experiences as well. But yeah, like, I didn't realise he went through that sort of heartache and physical, like, pain of learning the language so intensely. Because of course he, you know, does his performance in English. He sounds Aussie Aussie born here, you know.
And you have to have very good command of the language to be both an English teacher and a comedian. So I didn't realise he had this challenge, this kind of homework that he felt he had to sort of do which was learning of the Korean language.
And it's quite rare, like good on him for taking that time out of his life to be fully immersed and put himself through that intensive boot camp of an experience. But one thing that really touched me was how he thought learning Korean for a second generation like him was actually meeting his parents like halfway.
And for like born in Australia like second gen, I think it's an unspoken kind of dynamic - because we've settled in Australia and because we made the choice to go there that it's kind of then up to the parents to speak English in order to communicate with their kids; like the burden is on them.
And what Harry was saying though was actually does it have to be that way? Because it makes the relationship strained. So if the children can take on a little bit of that burden and, you know, meet them halfway by learning the language, which opens the whole world up for them on a personal level as well, then it creates that,
you know, it starts that new chapter.
Zione For sure. I think some of the difficulty though in that sort of minority-majority culture is being here in Australia or any other part of the world that might not be access to that language, right?
Like so for me, I know that my ethnic language, there is no ethnic language school because we don't have the population to support it, right? So it's an impossibility. I mean, fortunately, my parents speak English, so that's kind of the ease from that context.
But I totally agree with you, you know, when he was talking about his dad being a man, a few words, it was, but that was the limitation in terms of his vocabulary in English. And all of a sudden, when he reestablished his Korean language, he found that his dad was this funny person who had lots of commentary about politics and this, that and the other.
And it's just, I just, it just opened up that relationship to, oh, my dad's not necessarily the [same] person.
Noè And he knew a new person.
Zione Yeah, he knew, he knew his father anew! Yeah, I was so moved by that.
Noè It’s really interesting. Can I ask you a question, Anna, and you don't have to answer this, but I'm curious from your point of view, how you view people for Koreans or a second generation Koreans in like a white culture who choose not to speak their language.
Zione When you say choose, so they can speak it, but make the choice not to?
Noè No, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, who choose not to learn.
Zione Okay. And have access to learn?
Anna I, I, I do have strong views…
Noè I’d imagine you do.
Anna …just like anything else. And I do think though it is quite a personal one, it has to be said, and there are different circumstances of, you know, being an overseas Korean diaspora and what have you.
But I think it's short term vision. I think they're not giving themselves the best chance of having the fullness of themselves, you know, come to fruition. I might get into a lot of trouble for this, but I do think there is self like deprivation that happens if a person who has what I see as as “wealth of diverse background” don't engage in that by the way of language. It doesn't have to be fluent, it doesn't have to be, because it's a lot of work. We shouldn't undervalue bilingualism and the skill that that is.
But the act of learning, because as Harry said, you become like 3D, you become multi-layered and there's a fullness of who you are that you can access by tapping into that language.
But I understand at the same time, there must be apprehension and a bit of fear. Because learning a language, a new language is super difficult and when there is that a burden of oh this is part of my language and it's ingrained with that identity, like it's hard work.
Zione And maybe if you don't have, I think the access thing is a thing, because one of the things that really helps with language and particularly say for Harry, he had his parents who he could speak the language with.
If you're already an adult and you've sort of moved away from maybe your family, who are you going to practice that with? Who are you going to immerse that experience with?
And so I think maybe sometimes people make that practical assessment in terms of you might have an emotional craving to learn this language and be part of the culture in a richer, deeper way and then what?
But I hear what you're saying. I think what you're saying, the point you're making and Harry was making is really, really useful for people to know that it's not just about that. It actually opens you up in a 3D way. Forget about all the other stuff, but yeah.
Noè Yup, a good point.
Anna We should also, I should actually really acknowledge that for Koreans in an English -speaking world, some of them, whether they come from mixed race and kind of background, if you don't have access to, or lose that one Korean parent, then exactly as Zione says, how are you to sort of keep that alive just on your own?
But also Koreans need to acknowledge there's quite a sizable overseas adoptee background Koreans. So that's kind of who, to be honest, I had in mind when I said it's quite a personal decision and there should be respect around that because that comes with a whole host of other factors.
Noè That's very true.
Zione There's something else that he touched on, you know, just going on that sort of emotional gulf with his dad that he was able to close when he learned the language. And the experience, you know, his dad had serving in the Korean military as part of his citizenship and then he didn't have that opportunity for all kinds of reasons.
I thought that was really interesting to sort of hear a little bit about that. And you made a comment about, you know, “the longest war on a break”, you know, between the North and the South.
Noè I loved that.
Zione So just a few sort of cultural, historical and political elements that you guys infused through the conversation that I thought, yeah, very educative and very helpful.
Anna Yeah, it was actually, I didn't expect to be talking about the military service with Harry Jun, the Australian comedian, you know.
Noè That was really interesting. But how fascinating, though, because, I mean, that understanding or even the perspective of compulsory service, you know. It's not, you know, I mean, when you look at the global sphere, there are…
Zione It’s rare.
Noè There's, but there is, there's quite a few countries who do it. And it's an interesting perspective and it's interesting perspective when you, because you were talking about masculinity.
Zione Yes!
Noè And in that context, it was a really interesting perspective.
Zione Yeah, on masculinity, but also citizenship, like it's a prerequisite to really belonging is that you do this for this country.
Noè It's part of your responsibility.
Zione Yes. Wherever you are in the world, right?
Noè Yeah. And it's an interesting way of looking at it.
Anna Yeah. And it surprised me, that I found myself surprised, that Harry brought that up because in my mind, the military service conversation, it's a “very Korean Korean man” kind of conversation topic.
But it was it actually still affects Harry because he looks at male friendships that are formed among other Korean guys through that experience that he, you know…
Zione …doesn't have access to.
Anna Yeah, or in that instance had the choice not to be part of but still it is absent in his experience.
Zione Is there an end point though? So like I know that in Nigeria they don't have military service but they just have youth service so you go and work in different parts of the country and it's a prerequisite to other things not citizenship but and so on.
Does he have…
Noè …an ability to access still that same sense of camaraderie within it?
Zione Yeah, Exactly, exactly.
Anna Well I think if you if there's an age when you consider too old to serve in the military.
Noè and Zione They don't want you forever.
Zione Thank you. The window's closed. Goodbye. Wonderful.
Anna But yeah what I kind of got the sense talking to Harry was this there needs to be more conversations like this among Korean Australians that other Australians can have access to can relate to so that we establish a bit more of that understanding with each other.
Noè Brilliant. It was so good. It was so interesting.
Zione Perfect. Thank you.
Noè It was beautiful.
Zione Thank you so much.
Anna Thank you. Thank you guys.
[Music]
Thanks for listening to Like Us and SBS Audio Podcast. You can find more episodes at sbs .com .au /likeus and follow us in the SBS Audio app or wherever you get your podcast. Your hosts are me, Noè Harsel, Anna Yeon, Zione Walker-Nthenda. We are produced and engineered by Michael Burrows at Tomato Studios with support from the podcast team at SBS Audio.
