Global Courant
To her mother in South Korea, SuJin Kim is a failure: she is over 30, single and does not work for a major Korean company.
But to her millions of followers in Latin America, she has become a trusted friend and teacher of all things Korean. In Mexico, where she lives, they even know her as “Chinguamiga,” her online nickname, a mix of the words for friend in Korean and Spanish.
Her success has been propelled not only by her ingenuity and charisma, but also by a wave of South Korean popular culture that has swept the world, driven in part by a government effort to position the country as a cultural giant and to wield soft power.
In her home country, Ms. Kim, 32, struggled with the grind of a hyper-competitive society where success is narrowly defined and young women face dwindling job prospects, grueling work schedules, sexism and restrictive beauty standards.
In Mexico, the growing interest in all things Korean has made her a social media sensation with over 24 million followers on TikTok and over eight million subscribers on her YouTube channel, helping her gain popularity, financial stability, and a romantic partner – all on her own terms.
“There was packaging she came with,” said Dr. Renato Balderrama, who directs the Center for Asian Studies at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León in Monterrey, an industrial hub with a growing Korean presence. “She’s had all this training in Korea, in this new Korea that allows her to land in a place like Mexico and be successful.”
Ms. Kim is a kind of comparative pop culture teacher, teaching about popular Korean soap operas, lyrics, fashion standards, traditions and social norms. She once worked as a waitress in Mexico for a day and posted about her confusion with tips. (South Korea is a no-tips country.) She showed followers how Korean students crammed for exams. She started traveling through Mexico and tasted regional delicacies.
Her social media success has led to invitations to events, awards nominationsmagazine spreads and sponsorship deals, and spawned a popular business doctrine Korean language lessons online. She moved from Monterrey to Mexico City to gain more exposure and grow her brand.
Ms. Kim’s burgeoning empire now includes a Online Store of Korean beauty products. She will be featured as a contestant on the second season of the HBO show “Bake Off Celebrity”.
Ms. Kim’s success follows the growth of Korean influence in Mexico and the region. More than 2,000 Korean companies have a presence in Mexico, part of a so-called near-shoring strategy that has pushed larger companies — Kia, LG, Samsung, Hyundai, among others — to take advantage of a free trade agreement with Canada and the United States.
South Korea has arrived in Mexico not only with jobs, cars and mobile phones, but also with something intangible: its own idea of modern culture. K-pop, K-beauty and K-dramas have shown Latin Americans a new, different way to be cool.
K-pop bands have been performing in increasingly larger and sold-out venues since 2012. This year, a summer festival will bring 16 Korean groups to Mexico City, with ticket prices starting at around $170.
Some kiosks specialize in South Korean celebrity magazines, posters, and merchandise. Netflix offers “Latin Spanish” dubbing for Korean shows. Cinemas live stream K-pop concerts performed abroad.
Ms. Kim grew up in Seoul, but after a work-study period in Canada and a trip through South America, she returned home to find life in South Korea stifling.
“I don’t want to go back to my old life,” she recalled thinking.
She moved to Mexico in 2018, driven by a desire to experience life in Latin America and try to escape severe burnout. She worked for a Korean multinational company and found the work rhythm all too familiar, so she started teaching Korean.
Then the pandemic turned the world upside down.
“It’s my moment, I have nothing to do,” she recalled as she thought before she started posting her Korean lessons on YouTube. “I had zero views, no one saw me.”
Her videos were clear language lessons: “Easy Words in Korean — 3 Minutes!” But then she turned to TikTok and uploaded a short clip, this time explaining Korean culture.
“That same day it had about 5,000 views and I was like, what?!” she said, her pointy nails decorated with jeweled stars, bows and moons.
Soon her TikTok following exploded.
One afternoon this year, Ms. Kim welcomed her students to a virtual Korean class on Zoom; she charges $35 to $45 for each four-week session, with one 90-minute class per week.
When the lesson started, 76 students were logged in. There were young girls and mothers with glasses and at least one long-haired businessman, scattered throughout Central and South America.
Mrs. Kim’s bright blue curls bounced on the screen as she nodded her head in approval.
When one student was trying to figure out how to put nouns in the singular, he asked, “No plural?” she chirped, “No! How neat, right?”
After finishing college in South Korea, Ms. Kim said she experienced severe stress. “I wanted to die and I wanted to rest,” she said in one of her most popular videos. She has spoken openly about being hospitalized to take care of her mental health.
She attributes her exhaustion to Korea’s culture of sacrifice and drudgery, which made the country an economic powerhouse after the Korean War.
“Everything is moving fast, fast, right now, right this second,” said Dr. Balderrama. “This created a culture where there is no room for mediocrity, there is no room for those who don’t want to compete.”
In Mexico, Ms. Kim hoped to find a more joyful life: “I saw what Latin culture is like, how Latin people live and live happily,” she said. “I don’t want to waste a single moment being in Latin America because it’s so precious to me.”
But if Ms. Kim has found a passion and a business, she hasn’t quite found the peace of mind she’s been looking for. She is in therapy to deal with what she described as a form of depression and anxiety.
Her large following and popularity have sparked fear: “I feel like people will forget about me, that no one will like me,” she said, concerned about the toll of coming up with creative content to stay relevant.
“I also have this problem with haters, with people’s comments, that get to me,” she added.
She has been criticized online by users who say she should go back to Korea, who ask if she pays taxes in Mexico (she says she does), and who see her as another foreigner who is being lured through life cheaply and who is contributing to the gentrification of parts of the country at the expense of Mexican residents.
In a recent video, as she prepared going home for a visit, she showed an ID card which she said was proof of her status as a legal resident. She wanted to dispel any rumors that she had to leave the country because she had a tourist visa.
Ms. Kim refused to discuss her citizenship with The New York Times, but months ago she did posted a video saying she passed the exam become a citizen of Mexico.
By many standards, Ms. Kim made it. But what about her mother’s standards?
“I don’t think she’s going to change her mind about success — that I’m not a success, that’s a fact for her,” she said after her home visit. “She’s still more worried than happy for me.”
But after meeting Ms. Kim’s boyfriend and his family in South Korea, her parents promised to visit her in Mexico.