The Doppelganger Syndrome In Korea

The Stark View
From The Groove Magazine,
July 2007,
Seoul, Korea

The Doppleganger Syndrome in Korea

By Tracey Stark

“Do you know who you look like?” a bartender asked me one night a few years back. I thought about it, and my poor self image conjured up a picture of Uncle Fester with a light bulb in his mouth or some other bald-headed goon.

She surprised me by saying she thought I was the spitting image of Andre Agassi, one of tennis’ greats and, although bald, far from a goon. A short time later a much older Korean woman told me I reminded her of Yul Brynner, a bald-yet-ruggedly-handsome actor from a bygone era.

My case is far from an isolated one, I must add. Almost every foreigner in Korea is compared to some famous white, black or Hispanic person. (A short, chubby black guy I know used to be told he looked like Denzel Washington.)

A friend of mine, let’s call him Dave since that’s his name, came to Korea six years ago. With darker hair and a younger face, he was compared favorably to Mel Gibson and even Rowan Atkinson – a combination that not even my fertile imagination can conceive. Now, with his hair speckled with gray, this truly nice, non-war mongering type of guy is compared to – wait for it – George W. Bush. (I don’t see the resemblance, nor do I want to see it.)

Then there was the case of the young Canadian woman who came to Korea to teach English at a hagwon. She was tall and thin with short brown hair and freckles. Cute, really. One of her Korean colleagues excitedly approached her a few days after she started her job and, barely able to contain herself, told her, “You look like a famous British pop singer!”

As you can imagine, names like Dido or Posh Spice or even Madonna (she’s British now, right?) came to mind as she prepared for, no doubt, a great bit of flattery.

“Who?” she asked, smiling widely and perhaps even blushing a bit.

“Sting!” he co-worker replied, beaming. Needless to say, Sting’s female doppelganger was a bit deflated. But it was her first introduction into the average Korean’s appreciation of Western popular culture.

If the roles were reversed, my knowledge of famous Asians would leave me telling everyone that they looked just like Jackie Chan or “a young Mr. Miagi” from The Karate Kid.

My wife has been compared to Sigourney Weaver. Mind you, this is not an insult, but considering my wife is about 5 foot 2 and Ms. Weaver is a bit over 6 feet tall, it is a bit of a stretch. Her favorite, however, is Audrey Hepburn.

But Koreans aren’t always that far off the mark. I personally know the spitting images of Johnny Cash, Jesus Christ, Jude Law and Alec Baldwin.

But after hearing Scottish Dave’s tale of woe, going from favoring Mel Gibson (and Mr. Bean) to George W. Bush, I wondered how far from Andre Agassi and Yul Brynner the next few years would take me.

Dr. Evil or Minnie Me? A white Samuel L. Jackson? Or Marlin Brando as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now? The horror!