Chu Seong-hoon thought Hwang Kwanghee was gay because he used banmal

Idol news for today. In all honesty, I am sick of all of the number of articles that talk about how so-and-so was mistaken in thinking so-and-so was gay. The quality of these K-pop articles rivals TMZ in their idiocy. I'm not sure why this news story re-surfaced, but it was originally minor news back in 2012. 

Chu Seong-hoon's logic was a bit interesting here: how speaking to someone in banmal, a lower speech form in Korean, can make others infer that you are gay. It is the first I heard this, but maybe it can come off as flirtatious. Then again, everything Hwang Kwanghee does comes off as a bit, well gay.

I also think Kwanghee sounds like an idiot by deciding not to use banmal because he worried that it would make it to difficult for someone speaking a foreign language to understand. 


The famous martial artist Chu Seong-hoon (Yoshihiro Akiyami), star of the reality TV hit The Return of Superman brought laughter to audience members in a recently re-surfaced broadcast on KBS2's Happy Together 3. 

In a 2012 episode, Chu Seong-hoon discussed his misconception of ZE:A member and current TV personality Hwang Kwanghee in an episode that also starred singer Son Dam-bi and Hello Venus' Alice.

In response to MC Yoo Jae-suk's question on Chu Seong-hoon's first impression with Kwanghee in Laws of the Jungle, Chu Seong-hoon replied "I didn't know anything about Kwanghee when we first met, but even though he was younger than me he used banmal."

Chu Seong-hoon stated that "While doing sports, the relationship between juniors (hubae) and seniors (seonbae) are quite strict, so I did not understand. So, at the beginning I thought that he was gay. I was able to accept it thinking, hey, if he is gay then he can use banmal. But then as time passed I heard that he was using banmal with other people too."

Most people think Kwanghee is gay when they see him
In response to this, Kwanghee stated "As Chu Seong-hoon was using a foreign language I worried that he would not understand if I purposefully was speaking correctly and using high speech." (Note to non-Korean speakers: the major difference here is adding one syllable at the end of your sentence to make it more polite. This 'yo' bit does not usually cause any confusion.) He also added how he wanted to get a jump start on him.

At this point, MC Park Mi-sun chimed in saying "This is one of Kwanghee's charms. Even though Kwanghee could be my son he uses banmal. It ended up being a way for us to get closer."