Soft power: BTS fans rally behind Korean international adoptees

K-pop megaband BTS is back from military service, and their international fandom -- long known for its progressive activism -- is celebrating by rallying behind a cause: adoptees from South Korea.
Now Asia's fourth-largest economy and a global cultural powerhouse, the idols' native South Korea remains one of the biggest exporters of adopted babies in the world, having sent more than 140,000 children overseas between 1955 and 1999.
The country only recently acknowledged, after years of activism by adult adoptees, that the government was responsible for abuse in some such adoptions of local children, including record fabrication and inadequate consent from birth parents.
The septet's fandom, dubbed ARMY, is known for backing causes like Black Lives Matter and ARMY4Palestine, and launched the #ReuniteWithBTS fundraising project last week to support Korean adoptees seeking to reconnect with or learn about their birth families, which can be a painful and legally tricky process.
This photo shows a fan of K-pop boy band BTS holding an 'ARMY Bomb' and a picture of BTS members during the annual 'BTS Festa' celebrating the group's debut anniversary at KINTEX exhibition centre in Goyang. K-pop megaband BTS is back from military service, and their international fandom -- long known for its progressive activism -- is celebrating by rallying behind a cause: adoptees from South Korea. AFP
Almost all of BTS members have completed South Korea's mandatory military service, required of all men due to the country's military tensions with North Korea.
"We are celebrating both the reunion of BTS and ARMY, and BTS members being able to reunite with their own family and friends," the BTS fan group behind the initiative, One In An ARMY, told the media.
"Helping international adoptees reunite with their birth country, culture, customs and families seemed like the perfect cause to support during this time."
The fans are supporting KoRoot, a Seoul-based organisation that helps Korean adoptees search for their records and birth families and which played a key role in pushing for the government to recognise adoption-related abuses.
Fans of K-pop boy band BTS pose for photos as they queue up for the annual 'BTS Festa' celebrating.
Peter Moller, KoRoot's co-representative, told the media it was "very touching" that the BTS fans had taken up the cause, even though "they're not even adoptees themselves".
For many adoptees, seeing Korean stars in mainstream media has been a way for them to find "comfort, joy, and a sense of pride" in the roots that they were cut off from, KoRoot's leader Kim Do-hyun added.
Soft power
BTS, who have discussed anti-Asian hate crimes at the White House and spoken candidly about mental health, have long been considered one of the best examples of South Korea's soft power reach.
Pastor Kim Do-hyun (left), KoRoot leader who has spent more than 30 years advocating for adoption justice, posing for a photo with Peter Moller, KoRoot's co-representative, after an interview with AFP at KoRoot, a Seoul-based organisation that helps Korean adoptees search for their records and birth families.
For years, Korean adoptees -- many of whom were adopted by white families globally -- have advocated for their rights and spoken out about encountering racism in their host countries.
Some adoptees, such as the high-profile case of Adam Crapser, were later deported to South Korea as adults because their American parents never secured their US citizenship.
Many international adoptees feel their immigration experience has been "fraught", Keung Yoon Bae, a Korean studies professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, told AFP.
Some adoptees have found that, like Crapser, their guardians failed to complete the necessary paperwork to make them legal, she said.
This is becoming a particular problem under US President Donald Trump, who is pushing a sweeping crackdown on purported illegal immigrants.
Bae said it was possible that "'accidentally illegal' adoptee immigrants may fall further through the cracks, and their deeply unfortunate circumstances left unremedied".
The whale
Reunions between Korean adoptees and their birth families can be emotionally complex, as Kara Bos -- who grew up in the United States -- experienced firsthand when she met her biological father through a landmark paternity lawsuit.
A general view of the sign of KoRoot, a Seoul-based organisation that helps Korean adoptees search for their records and birth families, at its house in Seoul. Photos: AFP
During their encounter in Seoul in 2020, he refused to remove his hat, sunglasses, or mask, declined to look at her childhood photos and offered no information about her mother. He died around six months later.
"The journey of birth family searching is very lonely, difficult, and costly. Many adoptees do not even have the means to return to their birth country let alone fund a family search," Bos, 44, told AFP.
To have BTS fans rally around adoptees and provide help with this complex process is "a wonderful opportunity", she said.
For Malene Vestergaard, a 42-year-old Korean adoptee and BTS fan in Denmark, the group's song "Whalien 52", which references a whale species whose calls go unheard by others, deeply resonated with her.
"I personally sometimes feel like that whale. Being amongst my peers, but they will never be able to truly understand what my adoption has done to me," she told the media.
"For me, finding BTS at the same time I started looking for my birth family and the truth about my adoption and my falsified papers, was such a comfort."
Vestergaard said the grief woven into her adoption would never go away, but that "BTS and their lyrics have made it easier to reconcile with that truth".
Agence France-Presse

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Khaleej Times

4 hours ago

• Khaleej Times

BTS: Suga finishes military service, apologizes for drunk driving incident

K-pop group BTS member Suga was discharged from the South Korean military on Saturday, the seventh and final member to complete the country's mandatory national service amid expectations of the band's comeback from a hiatus. Suga (real name Min Yoongi) finished his military tenure as a social service agent on Saturday with little fanfare as fans looked forward to his reunion with the rest of the band, a K-pop sensation since it started up in 2013. "We confirm that Suga effectively completed his alternative service on June 18 by using his remaining leave. His official discharge date is June 21," BTS' label, Big Hit Music, said in a statement. Unlike with his BTS bandmates, there was no public event planned to mark Suga's release because of overcrowding concerns. The seven members of the group put their global music careers on hold in 2022 to begin their military service, starting with Jin in December that year. South Korea's mandatory national service can be for terms of up to 18 months. Shortly after his official discharge, Suga posted a message on fan community platform Weverse, saying he was "sorry for the disappointment and concern caused by what happened last year", and also apologizing to his bandmates. Last year, Suga was fined 15 million won ($11,500) by a court for drunk driving while on an electric scooter. The group is expected to hold its largest-ever world tour in 2026, an NH Securities entertainment analyst said in a report. Entertainment group HYBE, which manages BTS, is closely monitored by securities companies. Details of a reunion have not been released.

Al Etihad

4 hours ago

• Al Etihad

BTS member Suga discharged from South Korean military service, fans await comeback

21 June 2025 08:51 SEOUL (REUTERS)K-pop group BTS member Suga was discharged from the South Korean military on Saturday, the seventh and final member to complete the country's mandatory national service amid expectations of the band's comeback from a finished his military tenure as a social service agent on Saturday with little fanfare as fans looked forward to his reunion with the rest of the band, a K-pop sensation since it started up in 2013."We confirm that Suga effectively completed his alternative service on June 18 by using his remaining leave. His official discharge date is June 21," BTS' label, Big Hit Music, said in a with his BTS bandmates, there was no public event planned to mark Suga's release because of overcrowding seven members of the group put their global music careers on hold in 2022 to begin their military service, starting with Jin in December that year. South Korea's mandatory national service can be for terms of up to 18 group is expected to hold its largest-ever world tour in 2026, an NH Securities entertainment analyst said in a report. Entertainment group HYBE, which manages BTS, is closely monitored by securities companies.

Sharjah 24

15 hours ago

• Sharjah 24

Labubu dolls ride China soft-power wave

Beijing-based Pop Mart is part of a rising tide of Chinese cultural exports gaining traction abroad, furry ambassadors of a "cool" China even in places associated more with negative public opinion of Beijing such as Europe and North America. Labubus, which typically sell for around $40, are released in limited quantities and sold in "blind boxes", meaning buyers don't know the exact model they will receive. The dolls are "a bit quirky and ugly and very inclusive, so people can relate", interior designer Lucy Shitova told AFP at a Pop Mart store in London, where in-person sales of Labubus have been suspended over fears that fans could turn violent in their quest for the toys. "Now everything goes viral... because of social media. And yes, it's cool. It's different." While neighbouring East Asian countries South Korea and Japan are globally recognised for their high-end fashion, cinema and pop songs, China's heavily censored film and music industry have struggled to attract international audiences, and the country's best-known clothing exporter is fast-fashion website Shein. There have been few success stories of Chinese companies selling upmarket goods under their own brands, faced with stereotypes of cheap and low-quality products. "It has been hard for the world's consumers to perceive China as a brand-creating nation," the University of Maryland's Fan Yang told AFP. Pop Mart has bucked the trend, spawning copycats dubbed by social media users as "lafufus" and detailed YouTube videos on how to verify a doll's authenticity. Brands such as designer womenswear label Shushu/Tong, Shanghai-based Marchen and Beijing-based handbag maker Songmont have also gained recognition abroad over the past few years. "It might just be a matter of time before even more Chinese brands become globally recognisable," Yang said. TikTok effect Through viral exports like Labubu, China is "undergoing a soft-power shift where its products and image are increasingly cool among young Westerners," said Allison Malmsten, an analyst at China-based Daxue Consulting. Malmsten said she believed social media could boost China's global image "similar to that of Japan in the 80s to 2010s with Pokemon and Nintendo". Video app TikTok -- designed by China's ByteDance -- paved the way for Labubu's ascent when it became the first Chinese-branded product to be indispensable for young people internationally. Joshua Kurlantzick from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) told AFP that "TikTok probably played a role in changing consumers' minds about China". TikTok, which is officially blocked within China but still accessible with VPN software, has over one billion users, including what the company says is nearly half of the US population. The app has become a focus of national security fears in the United States, with a proposed ban seeing American TikTok users flock to another Chinese app, Rednote, where they were welcomed as digital "refugees". A conduit for Chinese social media memes and fashion trends, TikTok hosts over 1.7 million videos about Labubu. Labubumania Cultural exports can "improve the image of China as a place that has companies that can produce globally attractive goods or services", CFR's Kurlantzick told AFP. "I don't know how much, if at all, this impacts images of China's state or government," he said, pointing to how South Korea's undeniable soft power has not translated into similar levels of political might. While plush toys alone might not translate into actual power, the United States' chaotic global image under the Trump presidency could benefit perceptions of China, the University of Maryland's Yang said. "The connection many make between the seeming decline of US soft power and the potential rise in China's global image may reflect how deeply intertwined the two countries are in the minds of people whose lives are impacted by both simultaneously," she told AFP. At the very least, Labubu's charms appear to be promoting interest in China among the younger generation. "It's like a virus. Everyone just wants it," Kazakhstani mother-of-three Anelya Batalova told AFP at Pop Mart's theme park in Beijing. Qatari Maryam Hammadi, 11, posed for photos in front of a giant Labubu statue. "In our country, they love Labubu," she said. "So, when they realise that the origin of Labubu is in China, they'd like to come to see the different types of Labubu in China."