To her mother in South Korea, SuJin Kim is a failure: She’s over 30, single and not working for a big Korean corporation.
But to her millions of followers in Latin America, she has become a relatable friend and a teacher of all things Korean.
In Mexico, where she lives, they know her, in fact, as “Chinguamiga,” her online nickname, a mash-up of the words for friend in Korean and Spanish.
Her success has been propelled not just by her ingenuity and charisma, but also by a wave of South Korean popular culture that has swept the world, driven in part by a government effort to position the country as a cultural giant and to exert a soft power.
In her homeland, Ms. Kim, 32, struggled with the grind of a hypercompetitive society where success is defined narrowly and young women face diminishing labor prospects, grueling work schedules, sexism and restrictive beauty standards.
Persons:
SuJin Kim, “, Kim
Locations:
South Korea, Latin America, Mexico