Hey everyone! Richard here. When Mr. Popo TV was here in Korea we had the opportunity to shoot two videos with him! The first was a Korean Snack Food Challenge that he and Steph did together. That was a lot of fun! He actually guessed some of his mystery snacks correctly, and got introduced to some tasty Korean treats along the way.

And, I also had the opportunity to make a video with him!

Often, people who watch our videos are interested in what it’s really like to be in Korea. Since we’ve been living here for some time now, we tend to forget what it’s like when people first come here. Like, for example, how spicy some of the food is here. For us it’s second nature, but for visitors and people when they first arrive here, they are continually startled by how spicy it is. Lots of aspects of experiencing Korea are like this depending on whom you ask and how long they have been here.

I was really interested in getting his reaction to being in public in Korea. I’m white and have lived here for a long time. Being a black guy in this country is not the same experience I’ve heard. I’ve also spoken to plenty of foreigner men, both black and white, and experiences tend to differ depending on race sometimes. Add on top of this the fact that he had only been here 3 days and I was really curious what had happened to him so far.

Thing is, it’s sometimes not that easy being a foreign resident here. This is not the most open-minded place in the world. To be fair, and especially in Seoul, this place is more open-minded today than it was last year, and things keep getting better. Also to be fair, no place on earth is perfect. However, just yesterday, this article about characters on a comedy show on TV painting their faces black to imitate black people was published, and has many outraged. So, even as recent as yesterday people in this country on public television are continuing to demonstrate where they are in terms of racial sensitivity towards others who are not Korean.

So here’s the video he and I shot together. It does in fact give an excellent perspective to a visitor from America who had only been in Korea for a few days. I’m so happy he and I got to meet, and even more thrilled that we shot several videos together. Please subscribe to his channel, especially if you’re a Kpop fan. He does very entertaining reaction videos.

And as always, thanks so much for being a supporter of Hallyu Back! We recently passed 30,000 subscribers and can’t thank you guys enough. Fighting! ☺