Source:
https://scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3125345/k-pop-stars-face-scrutiny-bullying-claims-leap-sports
This Week in Asia/ Health & Environment

K-pop stars face scrutiny as bullying claims leap from sports world to entertainment

  • Since volleyball twins Lee Jae-yeong and Da-yeong were accused of bullying when they were younger, similar claims have spread to the K-pop and K-drama worlds
  • Some in South Korea are calling for a public accounting on the issue, with a consensus formed on how people can take responsibility for their bullying pasts
Naeun of the K-pop girl group April was cut from a TV drama after being accused of bullying during her schooldays. Credit: DSP Media.

The wildfire of accusations started with a pair of online posts accusing South Korean women’s volleyball team members Lee Jae-yeong and Lee Da-yeong of bullying during their schooldays before spreading to men’s volleyball and other sports and then consuming the world of entertainment.

The popular Lee twins, who played for the Heungkuk Life Pink Spiders in the domestic women’s league, were accused of physically and verbally abusing their younger teammates, and threatening at least one with a weapon. Although the twins were considered crucial for South Korea’s chances for success at the Tokyo Olympics, they were suspended indefinitely from the national team in February, despite publicly apologising.

The South Korean public, however, did not see the punishment as sufficient, and it has asked – via an online petition to the president’s office – for an investigation into the Lees’ case and a stricter response from both the government and volleyball community.

Now, a similar reckoning could be coming to the entertainment industry, where a number of popular figures face charges of having been bullies in their schooldays.

Naeun, a member of K-pop girl group April, was recently cut as a cast member of Taxi Driver, an upcoming television drama series after she was accused of bullying former band mate Lee Hyun-Joo, leading to the latter leaving the group in 2016. The allegations came to light in an online post by Lee’s brother.

Actor Ji Soo enlisted in the military after dropping out of his lead role in the popular TV drama series River Where the Moon Rises, following an online post by a person accusing him of committing misdeeds in middle school, such as throwing food at fellow students.

Ji Soo in a still from River Where the Moon Rises. Photo: Viu.
Ji Soo in a still from River Where the Moon Rises. Photo: Viu.

As other similar claims surfaced, Ji Soo wrote an apology on Instagram, saying “there are no excuses to make up for my past misdeeds ... I will spend the rest of my life feeling remorseful and repent my past”.

Singer and actress Park Hye-soo’s anticipated lead role in Dear M, a prime-time drama, has been postponed while she plans to take legal action to prove her accusers wrong. Online comments apparently from her former middle school classmates had suggested Park was physically abusive of students. Park fired back, claiming she was herself a victim of bullying in middle school.

“There needs to be a public consensus on how people should take responsibility for their school bullying pasts,” said Sung Yun-sook, the director of the School Violence Prevention Education Centre at the National Youth Policy Institute, which provides bullying prevention programmes to 12,000 schools nationwide and teaches students on ways to empathise and communicate, how to control their anger and how to build self-esteem.

But, she added: “We need to avoid having a witch hunt, as many of these students with troubling pasts are sometimes victims themselves who didn’t receive the necessary education and guidance to know about the nature of bullying.”

Sung said this lack of education on the issue may be the reason behind the high rates of bullying reported by South Korean students. The ministry of education said in a report released in January that 34 per cent of students from elementary to high school had reported instances of verbal bullying, while 26 per cent said they had faced group bullying last year.

Sung said she saw other reasons behind the high levels of bullying.

“In a society that praises sameness, there are desires to stand out in the crowd,” she said. “As South Korean schools are extremely centred on grades, kids who are not great students in class have only so many ways of getting attention.”

One of the ways students get attention is becoming what is known as an il jin – a student considered a “top dog” and part of an organised school gang.

In some ways, Sung said, the characteristics of an il jin are similar to that of a celebrity who receives special attention from the public. And sometimes, an il jin becomes a celebrity in later life.

In our country, bullies have the freedom to become celebrities Choi Jung-min, 20

Choi Jung-min, 20, still remembers the time in middle school when she was locked inside the girl’s bathroom by several classmates, who threw water at her. On another occasion, her phone was stolen and hidden by the same classmates.

One of the bullies, she said, is currently an acting trainee at an entertainment agency – a discovery that caused her to be deeply disheartened.

“My opinion of our country really went down from then,” said Choi, who works part-time at a convenience store while studying for the college entrance exam. “In our country, bullies have the freedom to become celebrities.”

Students stand in a line to have their temperatures checked before entering their classrooms in Chungju, South Korea. Photo: Newsis via AP
Students stand in a line to have their temperatures checked before entering their classrooms in Chungju, South Korea. Photo: Newsis via AP

The first time Choi was bullied was when she got into a fight with a male bully at the age of 12 after he and other schoolchildren had made fun of her little brother, who is mentally challenged. Soon, rumours about her violent behaviour and “filthy” nature started to spread throughout the school and continued to haunt her even after she moved away from the area.

“(During middle school), I visited the parents of the boy who hit me when I was 12, but they regarded their son‘s past as a normal childhood experience,” she said. “But for victims, these experiences remain as nightmares and continue to cause us pain.”

South Korea’s popular media can also be blamed for promoting school gangs as heroic and romantic, with an il jin often the protagonist in films and TV dramas.

Choi Tae-il, 30, who works at a middle school in the city of Paju as a school administrator, said schools were also to blame for not taking stronger action on the matter.

“We have a school violence review committee but I have never seen it convene during my time here,” said Choi, who was also a victim of school bullying when he was younger. “Most of the bullying cases in our school have, instead, been reported by the victims’ parents.”

According to a January report by the education ministry, 45 per cent of school bullying cases last year were reported by either a guardian or relative.

Sung, from the School Violence Prevention Education Centre, said a change was needed in how society views bullying and its consequences.

“Students need to know that it’s senseless and shameful to receive attention from others by committing violence and that bullying leaves a permanent mark on victims and themselves,” she said.