“They come to watch me every break,” the racism that dancer Lee Jung suffered at the age of 13 while studying in the U.S 

Dancer Lee Jung conveyed her experience of racism while studying in the U.S.

In the latest member of SBS’ “Circle House,” which aired on April 21st, the panel members and the guests discussed the theme of “The discriminating majority vs the unusual minority, strange X in this area.”

Shim Chung-yi, a 21-year-old Korean mixed-race model born between a Korean mother and a Nigerian father, complained of racism she has suffered, saying, “I have heard discriminatory remarks such as ‘Don’t play with the black kid’.”

Lee Jung, who was listening to this, confessed her experience of racism at the time she studied abroad when she was young. “There were friends who came to watch me every break. I was living in the countryside, and I was the only Asian girl in that middle school,” she recalled. “I remember being so embarrassed when I was about 13 or 14.”

“There were questions that I was asked on a regular basis. ‘Are you a North Korean or a South Korean?’ or even ‘Are you family with Bruce Lee?’,” she said indignantly, adding, “I tried to explain to them one by one with my young innocent mind, but it didn’t reach them. I then realized ignoring them is the answer,” she added. Fans felt sorry for Lee Jung after hearing her story of suffering from racism at a young age around the age of 13, and tried to comfort her.

Meanwhile, SBS’s “Circle House” is a public youth counseling talk show that shares the realistic concerns experienced by the Korean MZ generation and seeks solutions with viewers, which airs every Thursday at 9 p.m.