By Michelle Woo      Photograph by Eric Sueyoshi

Tim Hwang had just finished his first day of classes at Temple University when he got the phone call.

The producer liked his demo tape. Could he fly to Korea to audition?

That’s how it began.

Raised on soft pretzels and cheesesteaks in Upper Darby, Penn., a township near Philly, Hwang was a typical 18-year-old who played lacrosse, listened to Brian McKnight CDs and had hopes of becoming a pharmacist.    

“I had my life all set,” says Hwang, now 26, sitting in the lounge area of the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, dressed in a black T-shirt, jeans and a Gucci visor. “I chose pharmacy because it seemed stable. You couldn’t be called in at 3 a.m. It wasn’t really in my personality to go outside of the plan.” 

But today, here he is, surrounded by a small entourage of producers and managers on their wireless devices, casually recapping the story of how he never made it to his second day of college. How a phone call changed his life.

In Korea, Hwang is simply known as Tim, a singer whose soulful ballads and boyish good looks leave female fans swooning and swaying in packed concert arenas. Armed with a willingness to do whatever it takes to turn music into a career, he is among a growing crop of Korean Americans who’ve been recruited into Korea’s burgeoning pop industry and molded into celebrities.

Dubbed as the Justin Timberlakes and Ushers of Korea, they’ve been plucked everywhere from the quiet suburbs of Orange County to the bustling streets of New York. Brian Joo was raised in New Jersey before becoming one half of the R&B duo Fly to the Sky. Micky Yuchun was handpicked from a talent contest near his home in Northern Virginia to join the popular boy band TVXQ. Teddy Park and Danny Im, members of the hip-hop group 1TYM, both hailed from Diamond Bar, Calif. You may have never heard of these groups, but they’re making waves in a country where the clean-cut boy band formula continues to thrive.

The crossover trend emerged in the ‘90s out of a swelling frustration with America’s roped-off industry. There was no market for Asian American artists, so just as athletes have found their niche or gotten their start overseas, many star hopefuls fled to Korea for greater opportunities.  

For “American Idol” contestant Paul Kim, it took a string of rejections before he turned his sights eastward. While trying to make his mark in the U.S., the Saratoga, Calif., native says he was told numerous times that he would have been signed right away if he wasn’t Asian.

“Basically, label execs would say, ‘You know, we love your music but there’s no way to market you,’” says Kim, who eventually signed under a Korean label.

Young-hu Kim, co-founder of Xperimental Entertainment, an L.A.-basedproduction company that has worked with K-pop stars such as Tim, Fly to the Sky, Shinhwa and BoA, says that during this time, Korean sensations such as H.O.T. struck a chord with young Korean Americans, who weren’t used to seeing faces like theirs. 

“Second-generation Korean Americans didn’t have any stars to look up to so they listened to Korean music and watched Korean shows,” Kim says. “They thought, ‘Maybe I can do that, too.’”

And they have. With their faces plastered on billboards and their songs topping charts, these young artists are riding the Seoul train to fame. Though success never comes easy. Many have had to overcome homesickness, language and cultural barriers, rigorous training schedules and struggles with identity.

On a brief stop in the U.S. to perform at KoreAm’s celebrity gala, Hwang is busy promoting his fourth album, “Love Is … ,” featuring wistful vocals about unrequited love and parted lovers.

“It’s craziness,” he says of his whirlwind journey. “It’s not my life I’m living. It’s the life of a celebrity.”

The Audition

“Vocal ability, image and personality — usually in that order,” says Gary Boone. These are things he looks for in his quest for Korea’s Next Big Thing.  

Boone is the president of Brothers Entertainment, a Washington, D.C.-based scouting company known for discovering mega-stars such as Yoo Seung Jun and Tony An of H.O.T. The 20-year-old company is a pioneer in exporting U.S. talent to Korea, starting with its 1991 discovery of Lee Hyun Woo, a singer and actor who grew up in Maryland. Once Boone finds young artists he feels have what it takes, he connects them with Korea’s top producers.

Over the past two decades, K-pop fans have embraced the style and attitude of American-bred artists, with the genre evolving as a transnational music hybrid. Audiences are quick to warm up to Korean Americans who may not be able to speak the language, but have the right look, enough talent and a keen marketing strategy behind them.

One of the country’s most beloved heartthrobs is Daniel Henney, an actor from Michigan who rose to stardom through the hit Korean dramas “My Name is Kim Sam-soon” and “Spring Waltz” and his 2007 film debut “Seducing Mr. Perfect.” Henney recently confessed to the Los Angeles Times that his Korean language skills are at the level of a 12 year old.

With boy bands dominating the music industry, Boone says Korean American males continue to be in high demand, as many companies will have already conceptualized a new group before plugging in the talent. They’ll have the songs written, the image created. They’re just looking for the stars.

There have been few Korean American women who’ve successfully crossed over. One reason for this, Boone explains, is that parents have been less likely to allow their daughters to move to Korea to pursue pop music.   

In his search, Boone has held open auditions similar to the casting frenzies in Korea. Flocks of Korean idol wannabes would line up and wait for their numbers to be called. They’d then usually have less than a minute to sing a capella in front of note-taking executives and a video camera. 

Though Boone says the people who came to those auditions never seemed to be what he was looking for. Today, he finds talent mostly through tips via e-mail and snail mail. He receives audition materials from about 100 hopefuls each week. Out of the pile, he might call back one or two.

That’s how Brian Joo got his start. Growing up in Abesecon, N.J., he would spend his afternoons mirroring the moves he saw on MTV. “I was a huge Michael and Janet Jackson fanatic,” he recalls. “My dream was to become one of their backup dancers.” His Korean friends at school also got him into K-pop artists such as H.O.T. and the ‘90s hip-hop duo Deux.

In high school, with music as his passion, he started a singing and dancing group with two buddies. They’d practice often, but the opportunities to perform seemed limited. For Joo, finding a way into the industry seemed hopeless.

“I thought that Asian people would never make it in the U.S.,” Joo says. “I never saw an Asian in movies or on TV except for Jackie Chan. There was too much stereotyping out there.”

One day, a friend saw a flyer for Brothers Entertainment, which urged amateur artists to send in their materials. Knowing of Joo’s frustrations, she decided to secretly sign him and another friend up. Posing as her pals, she filled out an application, slipping some photos and an audio recording into the envelope.

When Boone heard the tape, he thought it was “better than average.” He decided to give the boys a call.

They met up in a cramped hotel room at the Tropicana Casino & Resort in Atlantic City. There, accompanied by a cheap boom box, Joo showed off his moves and belted out a mix of English and Korean songs, from Savage Garden’s “Truly, Madly, Deeply” to Lee Seung Hwan’s “Chun Il Dong An (1,000 Days).” His friend performed some numbers as well.

Some time later, Joo got a call. (His friend didn’t.) Executives from SM Entertainment — the same folks who produced legendary groups such as H.O.T., S.E.S. and Shinhwa — wanted to meet him. They were looking to start a new group called Fly to the Sky. Could he fly to Korea to audition? 

Hwang’s story is also of fate and circumstance. A high school choirboy and pastor’s son, Hwang would often sing Christian songs in front of his church congregation. One Sunday morning, a fellow from Korea was visiting his family who attended the church. Sitting in the pews, he was blown away by Hwang’s voice.   

The man was a producer at JM Entertainment, a company that broke K-pop icons such as Yoon Sang and Lee Hyun-do, formerly of Deux. He introduced himself and asked Hwang to make an audition tape. 

Hwang was stunned. He had never been to Korea nor did he speak the language. But he was always told he had a gift. He always thought his voice could be a way to serve God.

Using the sound equipment at his church, Hwang recorded himself singing “Nobody Knows” by Tony Rich Project onto a cassette tape. He stuck it into a package and sent it to Korea.

Days later, when he got the phone call, he was left with a decision to make. He prayed about it and discussed it with his parents, who said they’d support him either way.

“As stupid as I may sound, I needed to just try,” Hwang explains. “People may laugh at me, but I needed to get my feet wet. I can’t skip this chance just because I’m scared. I needed to take a step of faith.” 

That’s when he stepped onto the plane.

Making A Star

Hwang arrived at JM Entertainment studio in Seoul, where he was asked to sing for the company’s president, Jeong Jae-moon.

After belting out 98 Degrees’ “I Do,” Jeong sat expressionless and ordered him to leave.  

Hwang had just met his new boss.

Hwang eventually signed a contract, and from then on, he began the intense process of becoming a star. Though he had help from a private tutor, learning how to pronounce the lyrics was the most difficult part. His first demo — a single track — took 24 hours to record.    

“I was singing about love, so the accent was so important,” Hwang says. “I got a lot of criticism. They’d say things like, if you keep singing like that, you think you’ll ever be famous? … The American style of training is to use words of encouragement, saying things like, ‘You can do it.’ The Korean style is very negative. They’d always say, ‘You gotta fix this. You gotta fix that.’ It was a battle every day.”

Life outside the studio wasn’t much easier. Hwang, unfamiliar with Korean ways, felt isolated. 

“I was in a depressed state,” he says. “At restaurants, I didn’t have the right etiquette and people would stare. It’s like, you go to Korea and realize you’re not wholly Korean, but you’re not wholly American, either. I was having an identity crisis. Everything was stressful.”

Little by little, Hwang’s image began to change as well. Producers wanted him to exude a chakhae (kind, sweet) demeanor. They told him to pay close attention to what he wore, how he carried himself, who he talked to. Soon, video cameras followed his every move for a new reality show on MTV Korea. The title: “Tim’s World.”

“I told myself I wasn’t going to lose myself,” Tim says. “What drove me was that I wanted to find the Lord.”

Joo’s road to stardom was perhaps even more intense. After signing with SM Entertainment, he had only six months to prepare with Fly to the Sky before it would make its major debut. In Korea, talent is often bred at an early age, as children as young as 11 are recruited from their homes and put into “star academies,” where they’re trained to sing, dance and model. Joo would be getting a crash course.  

The moment he stepped off the airplane, he was thrown into a boot-camp-like setting. During that time, Joo remembers rehearsing at least 12 hours a day and being shut away from the outside world.

“They were strict about us going out,” he says. “They didn’t want artist to be pre-seen. Basically, they make a prison for you.”

It has been rumored that some production powerhouses have forced artists to go on liquid diets or get plastic surgery to enhance their features. In a recent survey printed by the Korea Herald, at least 77 out of 200 entertainers admitted to having had cosmetic surgery. Men in South Korea have increasingly been going under the knife for procedures such as nose jobs, ssanggeopul surgeries and facial whitening treatments.

Many have also said that even the most successful Korean artists are granted little or no control of their work.

While in Korea, Paul Kim, who has a soul background, says producers wanted to change his entire genre of music: “It was just rough. They wanted me to do pop and R&B, which I didn’t want to do. Like ‘N Sync stuff. I guess that’s what sells over there,” explains Kim who moved back to the U.S. after “it didn’t work out” in Korea.  

Yoo Seung Jun, who lived in Orange County before becoming a Korean pop star in the ‘90s, says that as a young and naïve artist, one of the biggest struggles was getting paid as promised. “It was so obvious that they were taking advantage of me,” he says. “My old company had this issue with every artist signed under them. It kind of comes with the territory.”

The High Life

Shortly after Hwang’s first album was released, his manager came in with some news. Tim was a hit. Sales were skyrocketing. His soft ballad, “Saranghamnida (I Love You),” was No. 1 on the charts.

Television sets across the country replayed the music video, which depicts the story of a shy store clerk who longs for Hwang’s heart, which has already been given to another. Standing alone with a pair of headphones, Hwang’s bangs sway softly across his forehead in the wind.

“[My manager] said, ‘For the rest of your life, you can live off this,’” says Hwang, who recalls hearing kids sing his song at local noraebangs. “I felt really blessed.”

Hwang developed a greater following through his appearances on variety shows, a standard strategy for K-pop up-and-comers hoping to get their name out. In interviews, he’d often stumble through his Korean, but Kim says girls thought that was cute. Now, Hwang admits he can’t walk around without his hat to disguise him.

At concerts broadcast on stations across Asia, Hwang is known to hold the microphone close to his lips as he sways from side to side. He gazes intensely into the distance, often breaking into a falsetto run somewhere during the course. Fans squeal. He ends his signature ballads with humble bows and hushed Gamsahamnidas.

“I’m so thankful,” Hwang says of his success. “Every time I see my fans, I don’t feel worthy. I feel blessed when people say they’re comforted, encouraged or healed by my music. This may have been my dream, but I didn’t think it could ever happen.”

After Fly to the Sky launched its first album, “Day by Day,” Joo and his partner Hwang Yoon-Suk gained celebrity-status throughout Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and China, appearing on TV, the radio and in magazines. “The fans were pretty cool,” Joo says. “What guy doesn’t want screaming girls following him?”

While continuing to work with Fly to the Sky, Joo also released a solo album, “The Brian,” which fused together pop, soul and jazz tracks.

“I’m high on life,” Joo says. “I can actually do what I want to do and have people love me for it. It’s awesome.” 

Back Again

Following the rise of hallyu, some Korean American K-pop stars have considered attempts to leap back to their U.S. roots through music or acting. They’ve seen their Korean native counterparts do so, with varying degrees of success.

Forbes.com recently named K-pop one of the Top 20 Trends Sweeping The Globe, writing that while the scene had originally been “a little saccharine for Western tastes,” that’s changing. K-pop phenomenon Rain, known as Bi in Korea, was dubbed “the next face of pop globalism” by Time magazine and has enjoyed sold out shows in New York and Las Vegas, although his official U.S. tour last year was cancelled. Still, there’s an evident K-pop fanbase here, which has spurred JYP Entertainment (founded by K-pop sensation Park Jin Young who enjoyed mild crossover success here as a producer) to bring over its latest protégés, The Wonder Girls, for a special U.S. tour. According to KBS World, the agency announced that stars such as R. Kelly, Outkast and Will Smith are set to attend. And over the last few years, the Korea Times has hosted a Korean music festival at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles that brings fans out in droves.

But while America might be open to new Asian faces, some question how well the songs will cross over.

“Artists like Rain have the look, the style, the moves, but I just haven’t heard that hit crossover song yet,” says Ted Chung, president of Snoop Dogg’s label, Doggy Style Records and chairman of Cashmere Agency, a marketing company focusing on urban lifestyle. “I don’t accept the fact that it’s a race issue. It’s a music issue. Michael Jackson faced the same obstacles of race when he tried to get the ‘Beat It’ music video on TV. America can be a fair playing ground if you’ve got the talent. If the song just feels right, it should definitely be able to work out. Good music speaks for itself.” 

Chung says he would advise artists from Korea to collaborate with Asian Americans and non-Asians who have deeper connections in the U.S. music industry. 

At the KoreAm gala, Hwang is the show’s finale. Dressed in a tuxedo, he looks more like a choir singer than a pop star. Holding the microphone, he apologizes for his English, though there’s no trace of a Korean accent. He says he hasn’t performed in front of an American audience in a while. To the crowd, his humble demeanor is curious. He sings “Saranghamnida” and a couple other ballads. After the show, partygoers described his performance as pleasant, but a bit dull. 

Jaimie Chung, 20, of Northridge, Calif., attended a separate Los Angeles event featuring Tim. She says she listens to K-pop more than she listens to the radio, and has collected more than 50 CDs of her favorite Korean artists.  

“I feel like I can understand them more,” Chung explains. “I’m Korean, they’re Korean. There’s something about that. I personally think they should stay in Korea. They’re better off there.” 

Hwang’s latest album “Love Is … ” is a hybrid of sorts, with a selection of tracks written by U.S. artists such as Jamie Jones of the pop quartet All-4-One, evidence of the push in Korea for stars to branch out into the global market. Still, Kim says that for Hwang and many others, a full crossover move would be extremely risky, admitting that the U.S. music industry is on “a different scale.”

And as for Joo and Hwang, a U.S. move isn’t what they want right now, anyway. While Fly to the Sky will perform in Hawaii this month, Joo says he doesn’t have any concrete plans to come back for good.   

“It might be something I’ll do down the line,” he says. “But it took me a while to feel comfortable in Korea and now I finally feel comfortable.” In this day and age, he says, music transcends borders, anyway. On his MySpace and Facebook pages, he receives messages written by fans from the U.S., New Zealand and Europe.

“I don’t think it matters where I live,” Joo says. “Music is just music to me. It’s just a language difference.”

Hwang says he’s embracing his time in Korea as well. Reflecting back on it all, he’s certain he chose the right path. 

“I just want to take advantage of what I have,” Hwang says. “If God leads me to come back, I’ll come back, but for now, that’s not my vision. This Tim is who I am now. I’m half Korean, half American. America is my home, but Korea is my home, too.”

 By Michelle Woo     Photograph by Eric Sueyoshi 

Motorists honked at the scene in front of Seven Gold Liquor store, an unlikely place for a remembrance, as they sped past on the busy thoroughfare. Store customers looked perplexed as they tried to figure out what was happening.

Still, on a chilly evening in early January, nearly 150 people gathered by the wooden awning of the strip mall liquor store in La Habra, Calif. Spilling into the parking lot, faces damp with tears, they were there to bid goodbye to Michael Sungman Cho, a 25-year-old UCLA graduate who was shot to death by police officers at the same location, five days earlier during an encounter on New Year’s Eve.

In the hours and days following the shooting, police department officials elicited bereaved and aggravated responses from family members and friends who sought an explanation for Cho’s death. Detailed information regarding the shooting was slow in coming, said La Habra Police Chief Dennis Kies, as it was withheld from the public until witness interviews could be completed.

After four days, Kies convened a public forum in Garden Grove at the offices of the Korean American Federation of Orange County to address questions and concerns raised by family, friends, news media and interested Korean American community members.

Kies provided a description of what transpired at the shooting, and answered questions regarding the department’s investigation into circumstances surrounding the fateful afternoon. While the police narrative left room for further questions, the following explanation, based on witness accounts and reports filed by the officers involved in the shooting, was related by Kies.

At about 1 p.m. on Dec. 31, La Habra Police Department dispatch received a 911 call regarding multiple acts of car vandalism occurring along Walnut Street near Whittier Boulevard. The unidentified tipster said he witnessed “an adult Asian male kicking car doors, windows and bumpers, as well as ripping windshield wiper blades off of vehicles,” Kies said. The caller also provided a physical description of the subject and his clothing. Patrol officers responded to the area, but found no one.

The same tipster called again about an hour later, saying the same person responsible for the vandalism was now at the intersection of Walnut Street and Whittier Boulevard, carrying a tire iron.

The first officer arrived at the intersection, and met the caller who proceeded to point out the suspect, later identified as Michael Cho. He was standing outside of the Seven Gold Liquor Store at 545 W. Whittier Blvd.

The officer parked his car, drew his gun and approached Cho on foot, calling out to him to drop the tire iron. Cho did not heed the command, and appeared agitated, according to Kies. A second officer arrived, and also ordered Cho to drop the tire iron. He then turned and walked, first, toward the liquor store entrance, then redirected toward Whittier Boulevard.

On foot, one of the officers circled around the squad cars and the driveway to try and intercept Cho before he reached the street. At that point, according to Kies, Cho “advanced toward the officer, who was a few feet away, and raised the tire iron above his head in a manner which looked as if he was going to strike.”

The officer closest in pursuit fired at Cho, with the second officer joining in immediately. Paramedics pronounced Cho dead at the scene.

Responding to questions at the forum, Kies said that Cho was not struck by rounds from the back. The police chief did not however disclose how many times he was struck or how many rounds were fired. The identities of the officers involved have not been released, and they have been placed on administrative leave with pay while the shooting is investigated, Kies said. 

As is procedure in officer use of deadly force cases, the shooting is under investigation by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. Kies said the investigation could take months before findings are released.

The day after the public forum, the gathering at the candlelight vigil where the young man was killed included some who questioned the police account, saying the actions attributed to Cho did not fit his character. Several friends called for a fair and thorough investigation. Others expressed indignation over what they termed excessive force.

Taped to Seven Gold’s cinderblock facewall were images of the slain art student, a collage of candid photos evoking memories and offering friends and strangers glimpses into his life. He was an art major who graduated from UCLA in 2005. More recently he studied traditional pottery making in Korea, and had plans to continue his pursuit of art in a graduate school program. He set his sights on Yale University. He recently celebrated his 25th birthday on Dec. 20. He played the guitar. He loved animals.

Some cited physical traits that might have kept Cho from being seen as a threat. Friends describe him as being 5 feet 6 inches, 140 pounds, and he walked with a pronounced limp, the result of a bicycle accident when he was in middle school. Cho’s older brother, Marc, 27, mentioned that he also had a benign tumor in his spine that caused him discomfort. Marc Cho said that he did not think his brother was taking any sort of medication.

Cho lived with his parents in La Habra, within walking distance from the site of the shooting. His father, Sungman, works for a contracting company, and his mother, Hong-Lan, is a nurse.

The co-owner of Seven Gold Liquor, who asked to be identified as “Kim,” was not at the store when the shooting occurred, but was familiar with Cho, saying he would come in regularly to buy cigarettes. Kim described Cho as usually quiet, but polite.

Friends and family members knelt on the pavement and gazed at the makeshift memorial. As minutes passed, the display of flowers spread, clusters of candles expanded, and a poster board grew crowded with handwritten notes. “How did this happen? Why did this happen?” a message read. Other participants voiced their bewilderment.

“This just doesn’t make sense to me,” said Miguel Reyes, 24, a friend of Cho’s since middle school. “He had such love for his fellow neighbor. He was the realest dude that I ever came across.

“The last time I talked to him, he was getting together his portfolio. He said he was working on his ‘masterpiece.’ No one knows what that was going to be, but he had a real vision.”

***

A parking lot surveillance video from the day of the shooting was obtained from the strip mall by The Korea Times and broadcast on LA 18 KTAN’s Korean news program.

Footage recorded by a camera mounted above the liquor store captures a scene that spans about 20 seconds immediately prior to the shooting. The soundless footage shows Cho, dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, entering the frame by slowly pacing toward a parked squad car. Two officers level guns at him.

Cho holds what appears to be a cigarette in his right hand and a tire iron in his left. While standing on the pavement about a car length from the officers, Cho takes a drag from the cigarette, then turns and walks away from the officers and the squad car.

Moving out of the frame, he steps onto the sidewalk, heading toward the street. One officer quickly follows. The subsequent confrontation and gunfire take place beyond the view of the surveillance camera.

Farooq Mohammad, owner of a neighboring Green Burrito restaurant, was helping a customer at the drive-through when he heard an estimated four or five gunshots. “I thought maybe it was fireworks,” said Mohammad, who attended the vigil.

Jennifer Park, 24, who dated Cho for seven years, created a Facebook group called “Stop Police Brutality – Remember Michael Cho,” which currently has more than 1,600 members. Park says the group aims to protest the actions of the La Habra Police Department and explore the use of non-lethal weapons by police. Group members have helped rally community support through forums with lawyers, police department officials and Asian American grassroots organizations.

Richard Choi Bertsch, chairman of the Orange County Korean American Coalition, encouraged Cho’s family and friends to initiate a petition drive to lobby for an independent investigation by federal authorities if the Orange County prosecutor’s office finds the police acted accordingly.

Bertsch said that in the past, when local investigations condoned similar police-involved shootings, a federal unit has been able to secure criminal civil rights violation convictions.

“This is a tragic, senseless loss,” Bertsch said at the vigil. “We need a resolution. At the end of the day, we need to seek truth and justice.”

Internal police commissions are familiar with criticism for lacking accountability or for bias favoring officers, as the vast majority of cases reviewed find that officers act within the department’s standards of conduct or in accordance with training. (Police department policies on drawing firearms state that an officer’s decision to shoot must be to protect themselves or others from serious bodily injury or death.) The incident was one of three lethal, officer-involved shootings in eight days in Orange County.

Park, Reyes and others said they will seek a federal investigation. “There’s so much we don’t know,” Reyes said. “Police officers would generally know how many shots were fired. Why don’t they know? Little facts like that are really skewed.”

“Now, our friend is dead and it’s obvious that we’re going to ask questions.”

In a phone interview after the memorial, Dr. Paul Kim, a former LAPD police commander, said investigators must make sure that the use of firearms was the last possible option in the Cho case. As a member of Los Angeles’ police use-of-force board, he has reviewed more than 1,000 cases to determine whether officers conducted themselves properly.

Kim said most officers are equipped with less lethal weapons such as bean bag guns, tasers or batons, but they do not always have those particular tools readily at hand.

Kim said that while no conclusions can yet be made, in the surveillance video, the officers were standing in a “position of safety.”

“Prior to the shooting, it does not appear that [Cho] was threatening anybody,” Kim said. “Usually, someone holding a cigarette is not about to attack someone. This happened at 2 p.m. so there were no problems with visibility.”

Kim added that in such incidents, police are always watching the suspect’s hands. “Don’t give them a reason to suspect that you are armed,” he warned.

The incident has sparked online debates surrounding the police’s use of deadly force.

On an Orange County Register comment board, a woman who described herself as a Korean American in law enforcement wrote about her support for the officers.

“Let me tell you, if someone were charging at me with a tire iron at a distance of 5 feet, I would shoot with absolutely no hesitation in my mind whatsoever. This person is threatening me with deadly force and I’m going to do the same. And no, I’m not going to fight a fair fight and engage him with my baton or something like that.

“As a police officer, you meet deadly force with deadly force and give yourself the greatest advantage possible to win the fight and go home to your family safely.”

As for why Cho carried a tire iron, friends say the reasons could have been many. His house was two blocks away, so he might have been working with the tool when he decided to walk to the liquor store, some suggested. Jennifer Park also said her friend had a tendency to pick up random things he saw on the street for later use in his artwork.

Artnet magazine reported the tragic circumstances surrounding the death also have an “uncanny connection to contemporary art.” Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist gained early attention with her 1997 video, “Ever Is Over All,” which features a young woman breaking windows of parked cars with a flower-shaped tire iron. Rist was a visiting professor at UCLA from 2002 to 2003.

***

At the vigil, attendees took turns sharing memories of Cho. Some people in the crowd nodded or embraced each other.

“Michael had the most caring heart, the most compassionate heart,” said Hong-Lan Cho, standing with her husband. “His heart was with people who needed a hand.”

Mrs. Cho later recounted to her son’s friends how he taught art to disabled students. It was something that made him happy, she said.

With his distinctive ponytail and glasses, Cho was seen as a philosophical guy who always had his head in books. He attended Walnut High School, then UCLA, and aspired to attend graduate school. His friends remembered him as someone who tried to help people see the beauty in things, whether it was through art, music or conversation.

“Mike made you realize that life is precious,” said Jeanne Hwang, 24, one of Cho’s childhood friends. “He knew that life wasn’t about material things. I just loved learning about his views.”

Marc Cho said that his brother was a great listener: “He was always the guy you went to for advice. He never judged you, no matter who you were.” 

Miguel Reyes said he had just seen Cho two days before the shooting at a belated Christmas party. About 20 of Cho’s closest friends were there.

“He was talking about how great it was that everybody was able to be there,” Reyes said. “The way I saw him smile was probably the happiest I had seen him in a long time.”

Marc Cho said his brother was simply looking forward to the new year.

After the vigil, the Chos invited relatives and close friends to their home. “I wish Michael was here,” Mrs. Cho told a small group of attendees as she looked out at the crowd.

One young woman gave a comforting smile, and replied, “We all do.”

By Louis Wittig      Photo by Heuichul Kim

The subway station at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan is a four-block-long concrete artery. Tens of thousands of people push through the beeping turnstiles every morning. Hedge fund executives elbow their way through crowds of weary commuters from New Jersey, who brush past dazed tourist families trying to find their way to Times Square. An impatient human murmur and the heavy rumble of trains below echo off the walls.

Tucked in a far corner is a small, rhomboid storefront. Below small track lamps lining the top of the glass enclosure walls hang oil-paint portraits: of a young, short-haired woman with an uncertain smile; of Albert Einstein, looming with large brown eyes; of a newlywed couple, glowing. The stenciling on the door reads: “Sung Portrait Painting.”

Ki Yong Sung, 73, with thin black hair protruding from under a dark baseball cap, arrives around 8:30 in the morning. It’s a few weeks before Christmas, and business is brisk. He puts on a smock and places a CD in the player. Mozart. It helps him relax and dulls the noise of the trains. He sits down on a low stool in front of his easel. He begins to paint. The easel is positioned so that the canvas faces out, toward the window and the concourse beyond. Anyone who passes by can peek over Sung’s shoulder and see what he’s working on.

Slowly, in ones and twos, people break off from the moving crowd, wander over to the store and linger.

“It is an odd place for a studio,” Sung agrees, with a chuckle.

I’m sitting on the stool next to him. He’s turned from the portrait of a blushing, middle-aged Hispanic couple he was working on to talk to me.

Sung, who seems to laugh after every other sentence, has been painting under 42nd Street since he lost the lease on another storefront downtown. The few other stores that line the long gray hall sell cheap T-shirts and Spanish-language newspapers. He picked the location because the price was right, and with the inherent traffic, he never has to advertise. I ask him how he got started painting portraits. From across the small room, his niece Sue Jong Lee, who helps him run the shop, answers.

“He was born talented,” she says. Sung nods.

Born and raised in Seoul, he loved to doodle ever since primary school. He was in his second year of art college in 1950 when the Korean War broke out and ended his education. To support his widowed mother and sister, Sung visited American military bases and solicited jobs. The GIs gave him snapshots of girlfriends and parents back home, and Sung painted them.

Devastating wars are not generally remembered this way, but Sung has a fond expression on his face as he speaks. All the Americans knew him. He could go to any base, and they’d wave him in. The soldiers paid him in coupons that allowed him to buy cheap cartons of Lucky Strikes from the base store — cartons he sold on the black market for a 1,000-percent profit. It was the most money he’d made in his life.

Sung still paints the same way. Clients bring him photos — painting live models takes too long — and he makes art. He sketches the subjects in pencil as clearly as he can. Blurry photos are the hardest part of his job. He paints in the skin tone of the face first. The eyes are the most important, though. He has to get those just right.

This is partly what attracts the bystanders: there’s a mystery in watching as a human face appears on a blank canvas, one stroke of color at a time, knowing that it’s moving directly from the artist’s imagination to reality. On the street above Sung’s shop there’s a drug store with a photo lab. No one loiters there, watching the pictures develop.

Someone has crept up against the glass wall and is staring over Sung’s shoulder as we talk. It’s unnerving, but Sung doesn’t mind. Occasionally, some will stand and watch for hours.

I ask Sung whether he thinks, if the Korean War hadn’t happened, he might have become a famous artist.

“I think so,” interjects Lee. Sung smiles demurely.

“Maybe,” he says.

Later, he tells me he probably would not have been a famous artist. His technique is good. He can copy anything. “But I’m not creative,” he shrugs.

He can’t think of any one painting he’s most proud of. He did a self-portrait once, and hung it up on the shop wall. But someone offered to buy it, so he sold it. The portraits he’s most happy with are triumphs of effort more than skill. Once a client wanted a portrait of a loved one, but the only photo of that loved one’s face was ripped and the eyes were missing. Sung painstakingly imagined the missing features and gave his client a painting with a complete face. He has done the same with photos scorched in fires and waterlogged by Hurricane Katrina.

“I look at the customer and if they’re happy, I’m happy, too,” he says.

I ask Sung what he would might have done with his life, if he hadn’t been an artist.

“Nothing else,” he says. “I love painting.”

***

It’s mid-morning. Sung is painting. Outside, in the concourse, Dante, an education professor on his way to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, does a double take as he walks past the store.

“[This place] sticks out in a good way,” he says, eyeing a portrait of a reposeful Malcolm X hanging on Sung’s back wall that would look nice in his office. “If it had been on a street with a bunch of other painting shops, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it.” He’s thinking about buying it, but he doesn’t have the time to think for too long. The bus his daughter is on is arriving in a few minutes.

The portrait of the middle-aged Hispanic couple is still on the easel in front of Sung. In the black-and-white photo Sung works from, the couple is leaning against an old car, dressed in street clothes. In the richly colored painting, Sung has changed the scene: it’s their wedding day. She’s in a white dress. He is in a tuxedo.

Anyone today can point and click a picture with a digital camera, Sung says. But paintings allow his clients to remember the people in them just as they want. Many of his clients say they want to look skinnier and happier in their portraits, so that’s how he paints them. Most of these paintings are of clients’ loved ones: parents, children, wives, husbands, some pets. Painted, they have a dignity and importance that the instant nature of photos don’t always convey.

Sung can’t guess how many faces he’s painted. After the Korean War, Sung followed the U.S. Army to Vietnam, painting in officers’ clubs. He gets up and retrieves his old military ID from a desk. It’s framed. He painted at U.S. air bases in Thailand and the Middle East. He painted portraits of U.S. generals and the Saudi royal family. At his fastest, he could finish two portraits a day.

When he returned to Korea in the late ‘70s, he was a rich man. He invested, dabbled in real estate and collected Korean art. Then, the 1997 Asian financial crisis hit the country.

“I lost all my money,” Sung says matter-of-factly. “I didn’t have any experience. I didn’t really know what I was doing. So I lost all my money, all my buildings.”

Already in his 60s, he arrived in New York in 1998 with only his oil paint box and easel. He has been painting in small stores between the Financial District and Midtown ever since. His two children are grown and married: his son in California, his daughter in Korea. Before he leaves for work each morning, his wife will lament the lost money. Sung won’t say anything as he slips out. So long as he has his health, he has no plans to retire.

***

Sung will leave the shop before 7 p.m. and take the 30-minute bus ride back to his apartment in Palisades Park, New Jersey. When he gets home, he’ll continue to paint portraits. He might listen to the radio while he does it, but painting is all he really does. These days he finishes about four a week.

The portraits hanging in Sung’s window aren’t high art, but it’s almost impossible not to notice them. Created expertly, without any ambition except to please, they give an absorbing depth and dignity to the faces they represent: average faces just like those flowing through the subway concourse, but remarkable when suspended on canvas.

Outside, the constant light and noise of Manhattan hang silent and still. Late into the night, New Yorkers, trained by city life to filter out all distraction, will still slow as they pass Sung’s store, and pause to take long glances.

By Michelle Woo    Photographs by Eric Sueyoshi

Inside an airy, brick-walled studio, Saelee Oh takes a moment to gaze at her corner workspace. It’s nearly bare now. Her desk and shelves have been cleared out, and most of her pieces are either tucked away into a storage unit, hanging in a local gallery or resting in the homes of collectors.

See, the Los Angeles artist recently went through some major life changes and decided that a two-month-long solo trip to Buenos Aires would do her good. After that, she’ll move to Brooklyn and from there, who knows? These are the kinds of leaps you take when you’re 26, free-spirited, and can see the world as, well, a blank canvas.

“I made a list of things I want to do before I die,” says Saelee, grabbing her notebook and skimming through the pages. “Open a boutique, build a treehouse, make a 200-foot-long painting, fly a plane. I wrote down ‘Visit one different country every year,’ but I think I’m going to bump that up to two. I’m at a period in my life where I’m hungry to do everything.”

Such are the aspirations of a girl who’s used to creating her own storybook world. Her works, which fuse mediums such as graphite, acrylic and watercolor paints, paper and thread, are thoughtfully crafted stills from her whimsical imagination. At her gallery shows from L.A. to New York to Japan, viewers are whisked away into a dreamlike oasis where dandelions sprout from books, smiling sea creatures pick flowers from the soil, kittens and horses emerge from burrowing holes, hat-wearing birds carry umbrellas, and girls nap peacefully under trees. Reality suddenly seems overrated.

“It’s an escapist thing, I guess,” Saelee says of her illusory renderings. “When I’m telling a story, that’s when I can create things from scratch.”

Her own story begins in Woodland Hills, Calif., the Los Angeles suburb where she grew up. The eldest of four girls, Saelee escaped the pressures that come with being a first-born by immersing herself in her drawings. In class, while the teacher lectured, she would doodle on her desk or in the margins of her notebook paper. “I was a daydreamer,” she recalls. “I just drew whatever was in my head.”

Saelee’s parents nurtured her talents, taking her and her sisters to a weekly art class held in the garage of a Korean woman in the neighborhood. “We got to do anything we wanted in that garage. We put on plays. We made masks. We made ornaments, dioramas, paintings. It was something I always looked forward to.”

She continued with art through high school and then enrolled in the illustration program at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. Her peers and teachers kept encouraging her and toward the end of college, she scored her first gallery show at the New Image Art Gallery in West Hollywood.

“I hate openings,” admits Saelee, who now averages about one show a month, mostly at L.A. galleries. “They’re excruciating. All these people are there from different parts of your life — old faces, new faces. I want to get to the point where I don’t have to be at my own shows.”

She’s on her way. Her method for success has never been shameless self-promotion (“I’m horrible at that,” she emphasizes), but rather a constant presentation of her best work, without hope or expectations, and just letting opportunities find her.

So far, it’s worked. She’s given a lecture at Harvard, launched an online gift boutique called Lemonade Maid (which features the popular “Hidden Habitats” calendar she created with San Francisco-based artist Jill Bliss) and is now working on creating animated clips. To pay the bills, she periodically illustrates for various publications.

“I never wanted to do commercial illustration,” she says. “I’d rather create something and if that work applies to somewhere, then great. I don’t really like having someone tell me what to draw.”

All Saelee really wants to do is make art, her way. The way she begins each piece varies. If she has a show planned, she might first look at the space and consider the big picture. Oftentimes, ideas are sparked by words, phrases or images from her everyday life. Nature inspires her. (“I need to be around a tree to be happy,” she says. “That’s why going to Orange County depresses me.”) She enjoys using animals as metaphors for hope, strength and independence.

“The love of animals is primitive,” describes Saelee, who grew up in a house with creatures such as dogs, cats, birds, frogs, turtles, fish, hamsters and rats. “I think they are really innocent and they’re easier to relate to than most humans because there’s less pretense and masked motives.”

One of her favorite mediums is paper. Late at night in the studio, when the rest of the world seems still, she’ll sit with an X-acto knife, cutting patterns of flowers or leaves or trees. It becomes a meditative thing, she says. In all her work, she intentionally references traditional crafts and evidence of the handmade.

“We live in a world of mass-produced items,” she says. I like the unpredictability of handmade work. I was born with kind of large hands in proportion of a girl my size. I think I was meant to work with my hands.”

While in Buenos Aires, Saelee says she hopes to get away from all the distractions at home so that she can concentrate on all the ideas she has floating around in her brain.

“Running away from it all every once is a while is a solution that works for me,” she says. “People say that running away doesn’t work but I think it can.”

The way Saelee sees it, every new adventure comes with a blank page to fill.

By Ivy Dai     Photographs by Eric Sueyoshi

In the bird world, Kevin Lee would be a peacock. Clothed in designer jeans, a pinstripe blazer and a polka dot scarf, he accessorizes perfectly with pointy loafers and designer eyeglasses. Each lock of hair is precisely sprayed into place.

Lee is all about style, and so is his profession. His floral event production company, LA Premier, has been in business for more than 20 years. A pioneer in the industry, he’s known for creating stunning and elegant displays. Potentially tacky elements — ceiling-high tree branches adorned with white “snow,” crystals and chunks of fake ice — are transformed into opulent and tasteful designs.

The go-to floral designer of the stars, Lee created the looks for major celebrity weddings, including those of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore and Christina Aguilera.

For Aguilera, Lee created a winter wonderland theme. However, Brad and Jen’s million-dollar Malibu wedding in 2000 proved a bit more complicated.

“What Brad liked and what Jen liked was totally different,” Lee says. “He was more Zen and more modern, and Jennifer liked a sweeter and prettier and more feminine [look]. It was a challenge merging the two, but it came out really beautiful and fantastic, and it was fabulous.”

More than 50,000 flowers — a mix of rambling roses, wisteria and lotus flowers — decorated the affair held at producer Marcy Carsey’s mansion. There was also a floral-studded canopy. “It was very romantic and elegant,” Lee recalls.

His other celebrity clients include Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Eddie Murphy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sela Ward, Anthony Hopkins and Wolfgang Puck. He’s also served as the floral designer for Oscar and Grammy parties, and countless movie premieres.

Today, Lee is working in his Beverly Hills shop. He greets clients and talks with designers, constantly moving through the 4,000-square-foot space. A 10-foot tall arrangement in the lobby cascades from the ceiling, and behind closed drapes, half-finished arrangements fill the room.

“Hi darling,” he says to Ellie, a regular client. “What, are you pregnant again?” Ellie is planning an anniversary dinner for her nonprofit group, and fussing with centerpieces. And Ellie isn’t pregnant; she’s just, uh, curvy.

“Omigod, I love feathers,” he says. “But no leaves — green is too dark. Why are you stressing yourself out over this? Let me make it look good.”

Lee puts Ellie at ease, which might explain why she’s been coming to him for 10 years. He has a knack for winning the trust of his clients. Last summer, Wolfgang Puck flew Lee to Capri, Italy, to plan and design his wedding.

“We had to create three different designs for three events,” Lee says. “It was grand. He got married on July 7, 2007. Seven-seven-oh-seven — a lot of people got married at that time because it’s lucky. I got lucky that year, too.”

At each of his events, Lee is the designer and in charge of the overall vision. He ensures the theme is articulated through lighting, design, linens, flower arrangements and table settings. He also coordinates with vendors and oversees every last detail.

Many arrangements need to be created the same day, and there are many logistical nightmares.

“People are trying to set up restrooms, valet and coat check, and it’s not working, or vendors arrive five hours late,” he says. “Or a party starts at 8 p.m. but people arrive at 7, or catering begins at 9 p.m., but people start asking for food at 8, and the client is screaming at us like it’s our fault.”

Installing arrangements is a battle of its own. Electrical lifts are used to hoist 10-foot tall arrangements onto tables. He once covered a 30-foot tall ceiling with crystal strands and made poodles sculptures out of flowers. (People have asked him to make arrangements resembling sports figures, but he had to draw the line there.)

Lee’s services come at a steep price. For Puck’s wedding, Lee charged $2 million.

“You have to consider a lot of things for a fabulous party,” he says. “I educate the clients at the same time. And I get paid for it, everything — planner, coordinator, plus design and style. I am the first one to charge for styling, to charge for my talents.

“I tell my clients to relax, go to a spa, and get gorgeous. I say, ‘Don’t call me anymore.’”

Lee doesn’t personally take on every project and sometimes delegates certain events to one of his “girls.” “I don’t deal with low end,” he says.

Lee is often described as the real-life version of Franck Eggelhoffer, the eccentric wedding planner in the 1991 version of “Father of the Bride.” Martin Short, who played the character, had his own talk show after the movie, and invited Lee as a guest. He taught Short how to arrange flowers on the show.

“Kevin is really animated and dynamic, and super creative — one of the most talented, artistic people I’ve ever met,” says Andrew Krasny, a producer for the short-lived “Martin Short Show.” “He takes whatever budget you have and makes you look like a billion dollars.”

Krasny and Lee have become close friends in the past eight years. One thing he’s learned: Lee is brutally honest.

“When he goes into anybody’s house, he will completely rearrange it,” Krasny says. “If he meets a pair of sisters, he’ll go to one sister, ‘You’re so beautiful!’ Then he’ll turn to the other and say, ‘Aw. You’re not as pretty.’”

Though his public persona is flamboyant and extravagant, under the veneer, Lee is an extremely loyal and faithful friend, says Krasny.

“Kevin is very generous and giving,” he says. “When I first met him, he invited me to a dinner party for his birthday. Our birthdays are just a few days apart. First, they brought him a birthday cake, then they brought out a cake for me, too.”

Lee is considered a design mogul now, schooled in how to combine foliage and other elements to create the perfect style for celebrity brides. But when Lee was growing up, weddings and floral design were not as sophisticated. Back then, he was actually encouraged by his parents to become a musician. He played the clarinet and attended a fine arts school in Seoul. When Lee turned 24, he moved to Los Angeles and worked for Teleflora as a company designer. Six years later, he opened his own shop on the west side of Los Angeles. It was a tiny store that didn’t make much profit.

“In the beginning, it was a part-time job, something to do,” Lee says. “Then I really began to see it as a business.”

After many years of hard work, Lee evolved and matured, and people began to notice his talent. His career skyrocketed in the last decade. In addition to his production company, he also owns a line of wedding and party accessories, which he sells across Asia. He is also the key wedding designer for the Samsung-owned Shilla Hotel in Seoul. His autobiography comes out this year, and will be published in Korean. The title is roughly translated as Going Out in Style.

During any given week, he’s working on three to four events with his staff of 35 employees. His biggest project right now is this month’s Grammy Awards. Last year’s look was a modern Chinese nightclub, and this year will have an Old World Renaissance theme. His company is doing the flowers for Oscar events, but the writer’s strike cost him several Golden Globe parties. Weddings, however, are his big moneymakers.

“You think a vase, cut flowers … what’s the big deal?” he says. “Well, this arrangement is not just for your home — thousands of people are going to be looking at it. You have to evoke the same feeling.”

Lee is good-humored outside of work, but on the job, he is intense and precise. The client always comes first, and he won’t spare your feelings if it compromises the event.

“He’s like the head chef — the sous chefs bring something new and he sends it back,” says LA Premier general manager Remy Brault. “We make something new, we have to change it, and bring it back to him, and he says no, we have to change it again. He sticks to what he wants, and it’s really his vision. We just try to execute it.

“We’ll rip an entire arrangement apart to restructure it, even though it took the designer three to fours hours to create it. Sometimes a client will bring in materials, and he says, ‘Oh, that’s fabulous,’ and grabs it, and it turns into something totally different in a couple hours. It’s a work in process. It’s always changing.”

Before the event, Lee makes samples for clients, and finds out why they’re throwing the event, and what’s important.

“I enhance their ideas, and I enhance their dreams,” he says. “And I work with their budget. Flowers are always the last touch. And they can make or kill the party.”

Flowers may seem frivolous to some, but he takes the business very seriously. To him, flowers aren’t just decoration. It’s a tool to create breathtaking designs on a grand scale.

“I really enjoy what I do,” he says. “I love creating something, and my creative juices come out. I see what I like to see. I change, I put it back, I create all the elements, and I look at everything as a production person, and as a guest. Am I going to be excited? Or will I be bored with this party?”

In his free time, Lee watches movies and reads. He’s interested in architecture, and his own house in Century City is “to die for,” according to friends.

Lee’s parents now live in Los Angeles and are very supportive of his career.

“When you focus on something, and you do what you like, there’s a lot of money that can be earned,” Lee says. “You have to enjoy what you do. Life goes fast … so have no regrets.”

Lee is good at what he does, and he’s not afraid to flaunt it. His personal cell phone rings every other minute, with Keanu Reeves or Eddie Murphy wanting him to personally design their next party. He’s earned the right

to strut his feathers.

“Am I the best?” he asks. “I am fabulous.”

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