Institute says Ha Young's great-grandfather was collaborator but below threshold for listing
The Center for Historical Truth and Justice group says the actor’s great-grandfather collaborated with imperial Japan but did not meet the civic group's threshold for inclusion in its official dictionary.
Actor Ha Young at a press conference for the Netflix series "Our Sticky Love" at Hotel Naru Seoul MGallery in Mapo District, western Seoul, on Aug. 5.
NEWS1
Actor Ha Young's great-grandfather was a collaborator of imperial Japan during the 1910-45 colonial rule over Korea, but not one whose record met the bar for the list of collaborators, according to a civic organization dedicated to naming and shaming pro-Japanese historical figures.
Bang Hak-jin, secretary-general of the Center for Historical Truth and Justice, set out the case against the actor's great grandfather An Sang-ho and the standard the institute applies on a YTN Radio program on Thursday. Bang has worked on the Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Collaborators since 2009.
"An Sang-ho's pro-Japanese record is still being confirmed as true," Bang said. "He can be called a pro-Japanese collaborator, but not to the point of being entered in the dictionary."
The institute published the dictionary to document, from source records, the conduct of Koreans who collaborated with Japan during its 1910-45 rule and to hold them to historical account. It now lists 4,389 people.
"The criterion running through it is whether the person's pro-Japanese acts were active, and whether they were consistent and repeated," Bang said. "An falls short on how active and how repeated his were compared with other pro-Japanese, anti-national figures of the period, so he did not meet the standard and was not entered."
The clearest item on An's record, Bang said, is 1909. After the independence activist Ahn Jung-geun shot Hirobumi Ito, the first Japanese resident-general of Korea, An's name appeared on the organizing committee for a memorial event held for Ito in Gyeongseong, as Seoul was called under colonial rule.
An later sat on Gyeongseong's municipal council and was active in groups including Dongminhoe, which obstructed the independence movement and argued for cooperation between Japanese and Koreans.
The controversy surrounding An began on Aug. 7, when Ha Young appeared on the KBS variety show "Problem Child in House" (2018–) and described four generations of doctors in her family. Her great-grandfather had studied Western medicine in Japan, opened one of the first Western clinics in Seoul and treated Emperor Gojong (1852-1919), she said. Viewers identified him as An and circulated records of his conduct under Japanese rule.
Her agency, Bistus Entertainment, called the allegations groundless on Monday, then reversed itself the next day and confirmed that An was listed as a councillor of the pro-Japanese group Daejeong Chinmokhoe in 1916. Ha Young then issued a handwritten apology. She wrote that she had known her great-grandfather's life only in fragments and had raised it as a source of family pride.
Bang drew a line between an ancestor's conduct and a descendant's responsibility. He, however, said the criticism of Ha Young was not excessive.
"Focusing only on Ha Young as an individual is not much help," he said.
He added that entertainers are public figures who influence audiences and should therefore take a public stance on historic issues.
"I hope Ha Young takes this as an opportunity to become a more mature and admirable actor," he said.
BY HYEON YE-SEUL [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
