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www.groovekorea.com / March 2014 46 MuSIC & ARTS Edited by Emilee Jennings (emilee@groovekorea.com) B ronwyn Mullen strolls into an inti- mate café near Samgakji Station, saying a quick hello to people as she weaves her way around tables and greets me with a warm em- brace. “I’m in my pajamas because I’m sick. I hope you don’t mind,” she says with a friendly smile. She is rocking a baseball hat, a baggy sweater, checkered pajamas and leather ankle boots; it seems she can get away with any- thing and still look pretty cool. But she will be the first to tell you just how uncool she really is. “Working in TV is not as glamorous as it seems,” she says. “I don’t wake up looking done up. Every person on TV — even when they pretend to pull off the all-natural look — has had somebody do their hair and makeup, and the stylist gives them the clothes. “People on TV are just the same as every- one else, because they’ll go home and put on their jammies, and do normal stuff. Really, I just want to hang out in museums and do ‘un- cool’ stuff. I’m too old now to pretend to be cool.” Before she could enjoy a privileged life of being “uncool,” she had to do a lot of hard work. After a tumultuous childhood and years toiling in the industry, Bronwyn is finally com- fortable. She now has her pick of roles with Korea’s countless broadcasting stations; she has hosted an array of health shows, travel programs, news and current affairs programs as well as general chat shows. It’s fair to say that she is now one of the most recognized foreigners in the Korean community. Bronwyn decided in 2005 that she had had enough of South Africa, where she was study- ing journalism in her hometown of Durban. “I was bored. I wanted to try something new. I really wanted to travel; I wanted to get out of my goldfish bowl existence,” she says. “I knew from the moment I arrived that I had to make this work for me, I would have to fit in here better than I had at home and I would have to find a way to survive.” She is very open and honest about her child- hood. “Like many people, I come from a bro- ken family. My dad left when I was 5, my mom was a single mom, and then I had an alcoholic stepfather. Basically, my mother made many mistakes about the people that she chose to be with, and she didn’t put her children first.” Bronwyn’s childhood was riddled with abuse; she grew up feeling insecure, miserable and depressed. “Part of coming here was to get away from my family. I had a really strict child- hood and I grew up really confused and just not sure about where to go or how to make something of myself.” So she looked to Asia for an escape and traveled to Korea under the guise of a six- month exchange program, but really she had no intent of ever leaving. While she was study- ing at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, a friend put her name forward for a newly launched KBS TV show. “At the time I didn’t have any Korean ability, so I went into the in- terview super blind and I couldn’t convey what I was thinking or feeling. But the production designer liked me and the staff liked me. They said I had a good way of just expressing what I was trying to say in very broken Korean, and they found it amusing and cute that I was try- ing.” She made her first television appearance one week later. The “Global Talk Show” not only paid the bills that were piling up, but it also laid the groundwork that would help establish a very successful career for this 30-year-old who has been dubbed the “darling of Korea.” “I was extremely nervous on the first day, but I just kind of laughed my way through it and I kind of felt at home, like this is what I’m doing with my life. I knew I was going to be good at something!” she laughs, giving a brief glimpse of her insecure upbringing. “It’s almost like that first TV show was a gift. I needed it so badly just to be able to get my foot in (the) door and just to be able to pay rent.” Bronwyn worked hard to get where she is, and the fact that she is still going strong after eight years in the industry is testament to her determination and talent. “Being in the en- tertainment business is lovely and fun. When I’m in front of (the) camera, that’s when I’m the happiest, that’s when I forget all the bad stuff, and that’s when I can finally relive the childhood that I never had,” she says. “I can express myself any way that I choose, but also it can be quite soul-destroying.” She has weathered insanely long days, film- ing for 18 hours straight on occasions. This, combined with enduring nasty comments day after day, would be enough to convince any- one to throw in the towel, but Bronwyn contin- ues to power through. After her television debut, viewers wrote such comments on the show’s website as, “She’s not pretty at all,” “She has such a big nose,” “She can’t even speak Korean” and “What is she doing on this show?” By her second appearance she had won the Korean critics over with her quirkiness and brutal honesty — the foreign community in Korea, not so much. “Some foreigners look at me and say, ‘Just because you’re not fat and you’re not that ugly, you could build a career on your looks.’ I find that offensive because, actually, to Koreans, I wasn’t that great. The only reason I am here is because they got to love my personality. But you know there are a lot of learning curves and you learn something and you move on.” Korea is home now, but South Africa will al- ways be in Bronwyn’s heart. “I love my country and when I meet South Africans in Korea I’m so pleased. … I’ll always be a proud South African, but I don’t have anything to go back to there. I’m not happy with my family and I don’t have a career there. Basically, Korea’s home for now. I don’t know if it will be for forever, but certainly I won’t be leaving in the next year or two.” Instead she’ll be working towards presenting a Korean show where she has the freedom to choose her own topics and lead conversa- tions among a panel of people. “One day,” she muses, “I’m hoping in the next two years, but nobody knows.” Watch this space. Straight talking ‘darling of Korea’ bronwyn mullen tells it like it is Story by Emilee Jennings / Photo by Dylan Goldby