We talk about what it’s like in Seoul, South Korea right now

The infection rate and deaths will be continuing to go up since filming this video so please keep that in mind. In this video we talk about being stuck inside. And you can see what it’s like with a toddler! I think our video gives an accurate representation of being a parent of a toddler!

The feeling in Korea at the moment is subdued with people just being careful. It’s very quiet but also life continues on, just more carefully. Seoul hasn’t had many cases in comparison to some other places. Schools are shut and many businesses are making people work from home.

As we mention in the video, the government has done a good job of mobilizing the country to combat this. They are testing more than 10 thousand people a day. In comparison, many countries aren’t testing near enough. The virus in other countries, they just don’t know to what extent.

The coronavirus is mild in most people. Those at risk are the elderly or those with compromised immune systems. Most people don’t need to be worried, but you do need to be prepared for your city to “shut down”, your way of life may change a lot in the coming weeks and months.

Masks don’t really stop you from getting the virus but in Korea masks are useful in stopping the spread among the population. Many people can get infected and not have any symptoms and spread it. When the whole population is wearing masks, and washing hands, it does limit the spread. Unfortunately that is hard to replicate in other countries due to mask shortages and cultural differences where it’s not normal to wear a mask.

The best advice is constant hand washing and to avoid going to crowded areas.

I tried to do a clickbaity title for that video, but just felt bad when it scared our genuine viewers! Sorry guys! Everything is fine.

A while ago we talked about how we were going to do YouTube “full-time”, but in all the years of doing YouTube, we’ve never only just done YouTube. We always have other work or projects going on. We don’t have the time to dedicate to several uploads a week. Hugh had quit his job around that time so we thought we’d put more time into YouTube, but his own business really started going well. Which is great! But it seems like a weekly video is what we can manage at the moment.

Being parents as well, we have very limited time for filming and editing as it’s almost impossible to do when our son Yul is home from daycare.

The other video we have at the moment is a video that was filmed over several months and it shows me getting the Acculift procedure done. When I first mentioned this procedure there were a lot of people interested in it, and interested in coming to Korea to get it done. So in my video I show the whole process and give a lot of information so people can make the right decision for them. Watch that video here.

We’ve been doing YouTube part-time and somewhat of a hobby for years now, but now that we’ve reached 100K it’s time to get serious! Well… serious enough to publish regular weekly content.

One series we have started is looking at news and trends from Korea every week. Hugh will pick a few topics in Korean news and we will discuss them. Often what is happening in Korea news and what gets translated internationally can very a lot, so this should give a bit of a glimpse into what people are talking about in Korea.

I’ll also share something from Australia and try to find the weirdest thing that has happened. Usually something weird going on in Australia!

We are going to be doing a lot of experimenting with other videos too, so we can find out what content we like making, and what videos people want to watch. Unfortunately Hugh’s body transformation viral video negatively affects us because we gained a bunch of subscribers interested in fitness and health content, but that’s not what our main content is about. That looks bad in the YouTube algorithm, even though we have great comments on our video, because YouTube is showing our videos to the wrong people. We are trying to flip the balance so that our videos show to people interested in Korea and intercultural content, rather than just…. dudebros… haha.

Watch the video to see more about Hugh’s experience!

Earlier in the year Hugh travelled to Spain to compete in this TV show with contestants around the world. In this video we show you some footage of that while Hugh talks about the experience.

More from Hugh:

“When they first contacted me to be on a TV show I wasn’t sure if it was real or not. It was on my bucket list to be on a survival show like that. Realising it was real I was kind of nervous if I could do it or not. But was thinking that it’s a good way to challenge myself and could help my family. I want my son to be proud of me and my wife to be proud of me. So I said yes I would join.

 I went to Spain to film this TV show called ‘Thru’. I went with another Korean Jina Kim who is also a YouTuber. It was my first time to go to Europe so I was very excited but at the same time I was very nervous.

 I met other contestants and people were really nice, people from all different countries. I had a once in a lifetime experience. Because of this I met so many good people and now a few of them are my best friends, even though we are not in the same country.

 I did my best, so I hope you enjoy the show. It was really fun, so if you want to challenge something in your life, I recommend you try next season too!”

This TV show is shown around the world so see if it’s available where you are. In Korea it’s on the ‘Insight TV’ channel if you have SK Broadband. It’s also available for streaming on their website. Click here.

Our son Yul was named after a historical figure in Korea, a famous general in the 1500’s Gwon Yul (though the name can be romanized other ways). This new comic series is about if Yul had some characteristics of his namesake, and babies are demanding anyway so it makes perfect sense! haha.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO ‘THE LITTLE GENERAL’.

The timing also worked out that I can enter this series into the new competition on the WEBTOON platform. So if you are  enjoying it, please go and like, comment, share and rate as a percentage counts towards judges decisions.

Here is a snippet from one of the episodes:

‘Either Way’ is about endometriosis, infertility and IVF and is our journey through illness and eventually having our baby Yul.

Click through to the WEBTOONS platform here.

Hugh’s new channel! Korean Appa!

Hugh has rebranded his YouTube channel (which previously was just a place for TV appearances we had done and random stuff) to a father and baby channel where he will show little videos of him and Yul. It’s called “Korean Appa”.

“Appa” means daddy in Korean and Hugh is emphasising that he is in Korea and will be speaking a lot of Korean in the videos. He wants to record these memories with Yul, but also wants to encourage and motivate Korean men to be more involved with their children.  Many Korean men grew up with fathers who were emotionally distant (the old fashioned belief that raising children was only the mother’s job) and while men now want to be more involved with their kids it can be hard if they didn’t have a good role model.

Hugh is a new father but hopes his own journey inspires others too. He will also be showing how we are raising Yul to be bilingual and in two cultures. The reason why he is uploading on this channel and not the MKH channel is because we don’t want to have too much baby spam on there. On this ‘Korean Appa’ channel there can be lots of little videos while on MKH they are a longer and more edited format.

Please subscribe if you are interested in seeing more of Hugh and Yul together and want to know about what it’s like to be a modern father in Korea. We hope that it can be encouraging to other fathers as well. We think carefully about what we put of Yul online and always try to make sure the positives outweigh the negatives. So far documenting our story not only preserves those precious memories in a way photos can’t, but also helps us to constantly be thinking and revaluating about what is important in our own relationship and what we want and need for our family. 20 years ago we wouldn’t have shown our child in this public way, but times have changed a lot and children can very soon make their own social media accounts without parents knowing. By being more public with our videos we hope to educate Yul about social media and how to create a positive identity online.

We already get so many comments from people about how seeing Yul in our photos and videos makes their day or how they are encouraged when they see us as a family together. I hope we can continue to be something positive and encouraging.

The majority of videos will be in Korean but there are English subtitles, just click for the CC or subtitles at the bottom of the video.

SUBSCRIBE TO KOREAN APPA!

Update to let you know there are new episodes of my new series ‘Either Way’ up! Click here to read them. This webtoon deals with issues like endometriosis, infertility and IVF. The response has been amazing and we are already over 1000 subscribers. There have been so many awesome comments too!

We have some exciting news! I have started a new comic series called ‘Either Way’. This is a series about endometriosis, infertility and IVF. It’s our real story so it’s also in the context of our marriage. These are big topics to cover but one of the major reasons why I wanted to start this comic is to start to break down the stigma around these issues, as well as injecting a bit of humour into the story.

At the moment I am uploading it on WEBTOON but will upload on other platforms as well soon.

Click here to go to it on WEBTOON.

I am also uploading it to the TAPAS platform here.

Since these issues are to do with women’s health, there can still be a lot of shame and stigma around them. Women often feel like they can’t talk about them, and even when they do can often be met with blank stares and “What’s endometriosis?” or “What’s IVF?”

I hope this comic series can educate as well as entertain. The title refers to something Hugh and I would always say when discussing the future. We were told we might not be able to have children. This can be devastating news, but in order to maintain some positivity we would say that “either way” we would be happy together and build a wonderful life together.

When my other webtoon Nicholalala was ending I was given the opportunity to pitch this idea to WEBTOON. I was a paid featured artist for Nicholalala, which meant I was paid every month to create those episodes. While they liked that ‘Either Way’ was genuine and my own story, they concluded that it was too mature for their core audience. Unfortunately, I think these types of issues are often labelled “too mature” or put into the “too hard basket” because of the stigma around it. But the truth is that 1 in 10 women have endometriosis and most will first get it in their teens. A lot of the core audience at WEBTOON may already be suffering from some of the things I’m making comics about. Also, many will go on to deal with these things later in life. I think it can be helpful if they are introduced to these topics early and can feel confident to talk about them freely. Many women struggle to even get a diagnosis of endometriosis because of the ignorance of many doctors. READ MORE ABOUT ENDOMETRIOSIS HERE.

READ AN EPISODE HERE:

You can read one of the first episodes here and then check out more over on the WEBTOON platform.

Of course anyone who has been following us for a while knows there is a happy ending to all this, but there is a lot of cover that we didn’t share online when we were going through it. This is the first time we’ve been this open about what we’ve been through.

Please check out the new comic series here!