 What is exactly Korean Han? Is it just K-Rage and is it what sets Koreans apart from other Asians? Let's talk about it. It's going viral right now. There's a lot of different articles, a lot of different videos that have been made about it on the internet. But first, let's hear it straight from some Koreans. What is Han in general? Han is this great sense of unresolved injustice and conflict and sense of oppression. He's got that Han in him. He's got the fire. Like fire has to escape or die. And we Koreans, we need his hairs on fire. It's rage. He's like, come on. Han is often described as an internalized feeling of deep sorrow, injustice, resentment, regret, and anger. Some people describe it as Korean rage. In the Korean psyche, this sense that some injustice has been done against me and I am helpless to do anything about it. And so it's that feeling of just injustice. As many of you know, Han is most commonly associated with separated families. You know, these are the families that have members both in North and South Korea who were separated during the Korean War. How come all the Korean guys are so tormented? They're all carrying around some unseen weight. Han is a Korean term describing a complex set of negative emotions, including deep sorrow, regret, resentment, and rage. It denotes a uniquely Korean sense of intense negative emotions bound up within the individual and collective Korean psyche often deemed untranslatable in English. Yeah. So we're going to talk about it like what is it exactly? Is it a historical thing or is it a more recent thing? And by the way, there are some professors who looked into this. So we're going to be quoting them. And also, are Koreans the only ones that can have Han or are there other groups that probably also have their own Han as well? So we're going to dive into this, guys. If this interests you, please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys because, you know, this is what we do on the Fung Bros. channel. And also, check out SmileOutSauce.com, guys. It was sold out, but now it is back for pre-order. I'll tell you this, Andrew. Clearly the Koreans have to have something unique to be able to have done what they've done over the past several decades, right? Andrew, we're talking about economics jumping way up and we have Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Kia. We're talking about music, movies. It's been called the greatest economic miracle in modern world history. Woo! So is it the Han that's fueling it like Sung Kang said? David, that's what Sung Kang is like. Why are Koreans unique compared to other Asians? Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean? I mean, Japanese, right? Thai, Indonesians, right? It's like, why are they so unique, right? And it felt like there was a couple of things, right? And the first and most prominent thing was this notion of Han, this idea of Han, which is very hard to translate, right? And it is this like, you know, like this sense of sorrow, this anger or this frustration. But on the flip side, the positive of it is that's what fuels us to excel to go. All right, you can put me down, you can, you know, you can belittle me, you can take over the country, but we'll show you, right? I'll show you. Like we will even show you as a country eventually. It kind of puts that chip on their shoulder. Is it as simple as chip on your shoulder, David? What is your opinion from the Koreans that you know? Okay, okay, I will say this. There's this clip of Sung Kang saying that Koreans are furious. Let me just play that right now. Koreans are super angry. Like we hold a lot inside them. So there's a lot of fury in us. Anecdotally, as somebody who was Chinese American and then had a bunch of Korean American friends in college, this is true. Yo, Korean guys, they drink a lot. They fight a lot relative to Chinese. Obviously, you know, I mean, we got to keep the comparisons within Asians right now, right? And there does seem to be some sense of like deeply wanting to make up for the injustices of the past, not just in their own life, but potentially of their ancestor's life. Right. And I think that this seems kind of like a hard thing to understand for some people because they're like, wait, why would you hold on to your ancestors? Like what do you mean ancestors? We're talking about three, four, 500 years ago. We're talking about 3,000 years ago. We're talking about maybe just 130 years ago. Yeah, maybe it's a little bit more recent and we're going to get into it. From my perspective, I guess like every time I heard of K-Rage or Han or something that's like the hot bloodedness of Koreans, the kimchi blood that they have. I know that Koreans, they would always use it. I'm not saying they use it as an excuse for things, but sometimes it does feel like they would. Like, oh man, that's just my K-Rage. You're like, oh, we got a drink because you know, that's just like the Korean thing to do. But I was like, but why? Why, why, why? And I think that there are some historical reasons like this professor I talked about, right, David? Right, this professor was basically making the argument that he's done the deep, deep research into the ancient texts because obviously a lot of stuff in Korea for a long time was written using Chinese characters and then they switched it to the Korean characters. So he's like a professor who like was reading both and he was like contextualizing it. Basically, his argument is that the true modern day Han that you see in a movie like Old Boy, Parasite, et cetera, you know, the detective Cho Jil, R.I.P. to, you know, R.I.P. to the actor. But it's like, I'm saying that it's like, he was saying all that stuff really arose 130 years ago. Basically the modern day way that Korean Americans as also people in Korea define Han is a recent invention relative to like thousands of years. So it's more, he's making the argument that this Han is more based off of, essentially you could say the Japanese occupation of Korea. Right, right, right. But I do think there is some ancient context before that, but at least the modern day version that we see is only 130 years old. Okay, I thought there was a really interesting quote from Lauren Choi on her YouTube channel. She was quoting a professor. I don't know if it's the same one, but he was, they were saying... So that same professor I mentioned also noted that he doesn't think that it's only Koreans who can possess Han. He thinks that also African Americans and the Irish possess Han in their own cultural way as well. So they kind of internalized that and they let it out in artistic ways, dramatic ways, comedy, you know, for Jewish people that's typically known as their way of Han and also drinking, which they pointed to the Irish, having gone through a lot, the famine and being not treated well when they first got to America. By the way, I obviously a lot of groups have been through a lot of horrible things, especially a previous, really the world didn't hyper-stabilize until like 60, 70 years ago. You know what I mean? Like on a macro scale. Like every group has gone through a lot of things, but I think the two things that are unique about having Han, and like we said, let's just say, for example, Irish and African Americans have it too, I think there has to be, it has to happen to a smaller selective group to have a collective consciousness because Andrew, we know the rape of Nen King. That was horrible, horrible, horrible what the Japanese did to the Chinese. But China is so big, there's not a collective consciousness to sharing it. Do you see what I'm saying? Like we're not all from Nanjing. Right, and Nanjing isn't all of China. That was actually just one city in China, which was terrible and each city in China is obviously very huge, but you're right, it didn't affect all Chinese people. It cannot affect the collective consciousness because almost like nothing can affect the collective consciousness of all Chinese, because China is way too big and diverse. Right, right. I will say as a Chinese person when you like hear about that incident, you kind of feel like, oh dang, the Japanese did that, oh shoot. But ultimately it doesn't change like you're internal. Dude, if you were like way across the other part of the country, it's almost like you just heard about it. Right, right, right. Right, so I think that that's one of the complicated things. So that's one of these things, but here's another thing too. So I think it has to happen to a small group to have a shared collective consciousness that's actually from like one thing. And number two, it depends on how you take it. Because there were some Egyptians that said, yo look, Egyptians, we're also an ancient civilization. We've been through a lot, but even in our ancient texts, even the British and the Greeks, when they would meet the Egyptians, they would always say they joked their way through pain. They laugh it off. So there's this saying that basically some cultures, they laugh off pain. Some cultures they may sink into their pain. I believe those are the cultures that are more Han. And then for example, Andrew, Chinese, they're known for just eating their pain like bitterness with a neutral face. Right, and that's what that Chinese saying of eat vinegar rose. Cool, almost like you eat it, but you like nothing came from it. Yeah, and then I think more recently, something I always noticed between my intense Korean friends and my Vietnamese friends, Vietnamese people obviously went through a very traumatic war. I mean, usually it's my friend's parents who came from, who fled Vietnam to come to America, became refugees. They also had a civil war North and South Korea split, obviously Vietnam, North and South Vietnam. Also Cambodians went through something similar. I think the trauma being passed down, that's very recent for some of those groups. And that's where that conversation comes from of like Viet or Cambodians being very intense and having a lot of pain. That's maybe, I guess perhaps more recent, but it is somewhat similar, right? It seems like there is- No, no, no, I would say my Korean and my Viet friends both have way more of an ability to get way more intense, way quicker than my Chinese friends. Almost given anything that pops up. Disrespect, actual beef, perceived beef, slits, like they're ready to go. Yeah, so basically guys, we're gonna go through the comment section then and give you our takeaways at the end. But hopefully you found that insightful and that explains something about Korean Han. Obviously we showed a bunch of clips of Koreans explaining it, but anybody else in the comments below, let us know if there are some inconsistencies. The first argument that popped up in the next to our comment section, Andrew, was is this really a unique Korean thing or is it just anybody who just went through something? I think we just previously addressed that for a larger group like Chinese, even when we go through crazy pain, it's just different. I mean, look, I would say Taiwanese may have more of a similar, you know what I mean? Like, could understand it more, you know what I mean? Like a chip on their shoulder. Yeah, I mean, I think it's- Individuals can have this Han thing, this sorrow, this internalized hurt if you went through trauma or if you just even imagine that you went through trauma, right, because not every Korean family went through a terrible time. But why does it feel like that it's passed down to a large amount of them? Obviously not all Koreans, but a large number of them, you know? Because I think that part of it is buying into it, you know what I mean? Like once you grow up knowing that Koreans have Han, aren't you more likely to buy into it because that's like what you're known for, that's your group kind of thing. Even if it doesn't apply to your exact family or your exact bloodline, you're just gonna be like, yeah, Koreans are just intense. Let me just say this, I have a friend called Kiwan and he told me he is from a royal lineage in Korea and he said he has less Han because even when all the internal justices between the slave peasant here versus the royals was going on, he said that his lineage was on the royal side and that's why he has less Han than somebody who came from more of a, like went through worse situations. Right, as a Chinese person sometimes like, I would jokingly say, oh, it's because Koreans are like part Mongolian and Mongolians are fire. No, no, no, I mean dude, even the professor, there's some nomadic basis for all of this to take place, even though we could go back to like, I don't know, they didn't start about the breakup of the Joseon dynasty and everything. I don't know. You guys gotta do the research. I'll say this, you can't just write it off if you have like an outburst where a Korean guy should not be like, this guy at work, he called me Chinese two times. So then I threw my coffee mug at him, but it is just a Han. That is not a good excuse. You gotta do the research. It is not an excuse for anything. It's, but yeah. But yeah, like you said, it's fuel. And I think that it also fueled Andrew, the incredible art and music that Koreans are capable of. Also, I think it's their love for hip hop. So some people were saying, oh my goodness, I'm so mad. I'm so sick of like everything Korean being considered so cool right now. And then this turned into a Koreans versus other types of Asians thing in the comments section. We're going to get back into the Han thing, but I will say this, I think right now, Korean stuff is really hot, right? And I do think there is, and shout out to all my Korean friends. We know so many that it's like, sometimes they're like more into their own stuff than like other Asian stuff. So there's some resentment from the other Asians that they got to think about Korean stuff, but the Koreans only get to think about their own stuff. Right. People in the comments section are like, oh, this is uniquely Korean, right? Right. You're talking about, oh. Yeah, sure. Let me guess. Internalize, hurt and sorrow. That's only Koreans, right? Only they went through it, right? No, actually, I don't believe. It's just kind of, listen, Koreans, they kind of won with the branding on this one. They get the branding. They got the whole story, they got everything. They had a word for it. They called it Han, not just sorrow. They kind of had this, it's an easy word to say too. It's not Han Chinese, by the way. It's not referring to the same Han. It's just spelled like that. Yeah, yeah. Well, the thing about ancient middle Chinese, Andrew, and all the Hanzi, it got kind of interpreted differently, Japan, Korea, Vietnam. It's all the same characters. There's the same root words, but they've got used differently, the Kanji and everything like that. Somebody said, I'm adopted Korean and I didn't even know that I had this, but I always knew I had it something deeply inside of me until I learned about the Han. This kind of goes to what you were saying, like, but I do think it is genetic, but I think, like you said, once you find out about it, you like lean into it a double step. Yeah, I mean, there is some confirmation bias in all this, but I get it. I think it's how you're raised. If you had an intense parents or depending on what stories they told you, if they yelled and drank and were very intense in the way that they did things, then yeah, it would be passed down. It makes sense. For sure, for sure. Somebody just said, man, we love our families, we love our friends, yet we can be very shrewd to those that are against us. People have fear, greed, empathy, and so many other emotions. Basically saying that the Han and another word, Jung, just make people feel emotions very intensely. Some may lead to harm, some may lead to good. It's just the way life goes. Yeah? I think that's a really interesting way to put it. Like I said, I mean, you do meet occasionally some intense Chinese people, Andrew, that are emotional, but I would say it's by far not the norm. Would you agree? Whereas for Koreans that feel intense emotions on the upside and downside, probably over 50%. Some people were saying, I got it as a tattoo because it meant so much to me. And then somebody was saying, basically, a lot of Black people were commenting, it's very similar to African-American anger, which is called post-traumatic slave syndrome. Not my words, guys. This is just me saying it from the comments section. Yeah, I do think so. I think, like we said, you know different groups, Irish, African-Americans, Jewish people, they may all feel something very deeply inside of them that's very difficult to explain without a lot of words and a lot of scientists coming up with new stuff. Somebody said, Han is real, but it's not genetic, it's sociocultural. And then a lot of people were arguing about that back and forth. Andrew, some Koreans were saying that Korean-Americans don't understand it enough to be using it. I think this is true. I think this is actually true. And this is not a knock on Korean-Americans. No, this is a Korean-Korean saying it to Korean-Americans. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I could see how this would be true because I think at the end of the day, like I said, it kind of like just describes the intensity, but like you don't know where it comes from, you know? Well, because you're not gonna get taught in school, like in Korea, Korea, obviously you will learn all the Gordio and Joseon dynasty and this and that. But obviously in America, you would never learn. Yeah, and obviously I would say I have a lot of Korean-American friends who also don't have Han and K-Rage. What percentage of your Korean-American friends have K-Rage and Han and like, et cetera, et cetera? I mean, obviously I think the younger you go, the less they have it, you know, the less they're gonna be taught that growing up. So maybe I'd say, I don't know, 50-50. Obviously it's higher than other, it's higher than Chinese, for example. Right. And you're saying that Vietnamese hot-headedness different from Korean hot-headedness or is it just the branding? I don't know, guys. You guys let me know in the comments down below. It's hard for me to say. I mean, I think if it's recent trauma, obviously like you can look at the African-American history, it's very clear that's very well documented. Irish trauma in the UK, right? Yeah, so I don't know. Potato famines, oppression from the British. Yeah, I mean, Irish like to fight too, right? Why are they known to fight like this, you know? So, I don't know. So. Andrew, what could Han be good for? Yeah, so I think there's, it's funny. So we're past the intellectual part, guys. I got real murky. You could watch like 100 videos on it. Yeah, no, let's talk about what Han, something like Han, whatever Han is to your group, because I think your different groups can have it. What is it good for? Well, I think- Can we just call it ancient chip on shoulder? It's a, yeah, ancient chip on your shoulder or a long time cultural chip on your shoulder. How about this? Isn't it the same thing, but with way more complexity that makes little guys often get super swaggy and buff because they're little, they got picked on a lot so they become really ripped, jacked. I mean, you know what? I mean, some people call little man syndrome, but some guys really pull it off and become this like cool, buff, swaggy little guy. Like formerly bullied kids syndrome, country culture syndrome. Some people let being bullied in the past break them, but other people makes them be like the most on point, you know, guy ever. Yeah, but I think that's not just that. Yeah, there's always the sorrow that's tied into it. Anyways, let's just talk about what Han could be good for. And this is coming from a Chinese guy's perspective. I do think uniting Koreans. I think Koreans always seem to me more collectively on the same page about how to get something done. Like, especially if you've ever played a sport with a Korean team, a primarily Korean team, they're actually going to be more intense about the game plan overall. Yeah, I'm going to, yeah, generally like what I've noticed from like Chinese fobs playing basketball is they really focus on ISO skills, but not as much teamwork. But the Korean basketball teams, they play less basketball because they're more in a soccer but they move more like a soccer team in terms of play. And I've noticed like Koreans are more likely to tell another Korean like, hey, don't do that. Or like, hey, stop doing that. You know, like... Oh, they check each other for normative behaviors. Yeah, for manners and stuff like that. Or, so I think it's also maybe better for the arts as far as like feeling soul, you know, like there's a lot of like Korean soul singers or they like soul, they like R&B, they like rap. Oh, they love hip hop. And I think that it allows them to understand black American hip hop at a more deeper level. Oh, I think it allows them to feel it. Right, right, right. Maybe more just because they have more emotions as well. Or maybe just their situations is more similar, right? Yeah, I mean, black music oftentimes very emotional too. Very painful to be honest, yeah. Also, it's better for acting, dramatic acting, K-dramas, right? I mean, listen, if you got the sorrow internalized in you, then you're gonna be, you know, more dramatic acting. Also, it's, yeah, just... I feel like you just do more of your average activity and more intense, you know, and I think... The oxytocin piping, if you guys know about that, the pipes are way more wide open. The valves and the piping is bigger. Yeah, what it could be bad for, I mean, I think that it's pretty, you know, common sense what it could be bad for. I think possible abuse on others, right? Depression, sadness, taking things very hard, overreacting to things, going into extreme sides, whether it's substances or something like that. Something I have noticed of my Korean friends too, that they're just more intense when they do something like that. Well, there's a thin line between lit and getting too lit. Into degeneracy, to be honest. I'll say this, there's also somebody, this is by the way, guys, Korean Koreans in the comments arguing with Korean Americans, but also saying that they believe that the Han allows people to glorify or glamorize depression too much. That's what they said, guys. That's interesting. I don't know, I don't have a lot of perspective on that one, but interesting point. I just think this, man, I think that it's a little bit, like, kind of more how Americans are. Like Americans are kind of a little bit more wide open with their expressiveness and stuff like that. I actually think that Chinese people are very different in the sense of like, like we said, like I said, I got this from the comments section. They said Egyptians laugh out pain, Koreans leaning to pain, and Chinese just eat the pain, and then you just seem unchanged. I think there's just pros and cons to each approach, because if the Egyptians always laugh off pain, how are they gonna like build the systems to correct the symptomatic thing that's causing the pain? If Koreans lean into pain, they're gonna have way more fuel to fuel their rocket ships in one direction, but rocket ships are volatile. Sometimes rockets explode, right? You even see Elon's rockets. Sometimes they don't work. And then the Chinese, if they just eat the pain and their face remains neutrally unchanged, I guess you could say that's good because they keep on going, but then it's bad because it's like, you're always in a constant state of somewhat pain. Dang, David, maybe we need to do our next video on Chinese eating bitterness. Like, why is that possibly a uniquely Chinese thing? And maybe Han is uniquely Korean, but also applicable to a lot of other people. Anyways, guys, we're gonna wrap it up right there. Let us know in the comments down below what you think about this topic. Hopefully you found it interesting and watched until the end. Hit that like button. Check out Smala Sauce coming back. And yeah, I don't know. Do you have Han? Do you have K-Rage? Yeah, and is it just like a unique set of circumstances that often happens to like maybe a smaller exclusive group that, you know, once they hits the checklist, then it's Han? Let us know what you guys think in the comment section below. Until next time, we're the Hop Hop Boys. We out. Peace.