Meet Seong-Jae Kong: An international co-ordinator, a British/English interpreter, Korean teacher, dialect genius, language enthusiast (he can speak Korean, English, Japanese, some French and is learning Chinese) and if all that does not keep him busy enough, he’s also a content creator who creates engaging videos.
You may already know Seong-Jae by another name – Korean Billy – which is the moniker he uses in his much loved videos. Those familiar with Seong-Jae’s videos may not be aware that he also works with a wide range of organisations as a cultural ambassador for Korea but I’ll come back to that later. As Seong-Jae’s videos are what he is best known for, with statistics such as: KoreanBilly (123k subscribers), Billyonaire (266k subscribers) and HankukBilly (52k subscribers), a TikTok page with 160k followers and an Instagram account with 91k followers, all of which has seen him featured on a wide range of news outlets both at home and abroad, the best place to start our conversation was there.
F: How did you come up with ‘Korean Billy’?
SJ: I went to a English language school when I was 12 and at the language school, I had to choose my English name. From the list of names, ‘Billy’ looked friendly, so I chose that name, and now I’ve been using it until now. For ‘Korean Billy’, I first used this nickname when I made my Instagram account. When I tried to make my account, the username ‘Billy’ was already taken, so I just put ‘Korean’, and then when I tried to open my YouTube channel, my Instagram username ‘KoreanBilly’ caught my attention and decided to use that name.
F: You’re described as a “dialect genius”. How does that feel?
SJ: *Laughs*. I feel very flattered. I was born in Busan, Korea, and people in Busan also use a very distinctive dialect. Of course, I used the Busan dialect back then, and I moved to Seoul where I started to switch my accent, so I would say dialects have always been with me.
F: At what point did you realise that you were on to something special with your videos and that they were gaining popularity?
SJ: When I posted my video about the Liverpool accent, I just wanted to teach my Korean friends about Liverpool and never knew a lot of British people would watch my video, but after getting a lot of reactions from British people, I realised that such video is entertaining to British people as well as to Korean people.
F: What do you think makes your videos so popular?
SJ: I would say the ‘gap’ between what people see and what people hear makes my content interesting. Especially for my dialect videos, people see a Korean face, but then again they get to hear a northern accent or a Scottish accent. I think the fact that a guy from the opposite side of the globe teaches regional dialects is just funny. I think it’s such a niche that a Korean guy gets fascinated by regional dialects and try to teach them to people, and that’s what makes my videos unique. I can see some comments saying that they can see that I just purely love British culture and British dialects, so I think my pure passion can also bring genuineness.
F: How do your earlier videos compare to the videos you make now?
SJ: Apparently, my fluency in regional dialects has improved as I kept practicing them for years. *Laughs*. Back then I was living in Seoul, so I had to use a virtual background to feature regional dialects. As I’m now living in the UK, I can actually visit different towns and make my content while visiting there. I would like more of my ‘dialect field trips’ throughout the UK.
F: How does it feel to be an internet sensation?
SJ: I feel very grateful and very excited because I feel like I can get to talk about what I love, which is British culture and Korean culture to many people and we can enjoy that together. Of course there is a bit of pressure as well because I should keep making better content, but I’ve been enjoying making content because it’s about what I’m interested in and fascinated by.
That’s really a whistle stop tour of the questions I asked Seong-Jae about his YouTube content. As great as the videos he makes are, they really are only the tip of the iceberg of a very interesting person who works so hard at a wide-range of cultural projects, and I was really keen to learn more about them. We started with Seong-Jae’s hometown in South Korea of Busan, which he describes as South Korea’s answer to Liverpool. Talking of the port city (and second largest in South Korea after Seoul), Seong-Jae shared with me that its people are “very friendly and passionate”. Seong-Jae dreamt of coming to the UK ever since he was in secondary school, and made this a reality when he came to study as an exchange student in 2015 as part of a 6-month-long “Study Abroad” programme at University of Central Lancashire (“UCLan”) in Preston. This was his first time visiting the UK but Seong-Jae already knew lot about British culture, being a fan of British films, TV shows and music. However, he added, “when I first went to Preston, the northern accents came as a surprise as I had never heard of such accent back then. Seong-Jae later returned to UCLan to study journalism and international business in 2022. During this time he was also able to work as an assistant language tutor and assist those who were learning Korean. Interestingly, I learned as a result of our conversation that amongst the courses UCLan offers is a Korean language degree. This afforded Seong-Jae the opportunity of meeting British students studying Korean with whom he “got on well. Some of the students are still my best friends.”
It was at this time when Seong-Jae’s fascination with dialects really began to blossom. Having been exposed to the Busan dialect from a young age, Seong-Jae found “the fact that there are various dialects in the UK very intriguing,” so it was only natural that his interested in them grew. “In Korea,” he added, “most of the English people use and learn is based on American English, and even though we learn British English, we only get to hear very standard English (the “Received Pronunciation”). That sometimes gives a culture shock to Korean tourists when they visit the UK and get to hear real-life British English with various accents.”
I asked Seong-Jae what makes him so good at impersonating dialects, and he replied that this is something he attributes to his British friends (with a laugh), who were “such great examples of the Liverpool dialect I could start by impersonating them. I would say the Liverpool dialect is my favourite because I have a lot of great memories regarding Liverpool. I find it really friendly. These days, however, Seong-Jae finds Scottish dialects and accents interesting, adding: I would like to learn more about them.”
After graduating from university, Seong-Jae pursued his goal of working as a broadcast journalist, which involved practice presenting in front of a camera as a news reporter would. From there, Seong-Jae began making 3-minute-long tv news pieces. “At that time,” he said, “I thought it would be nice to share my videos on YouTube so that I can get some feedback from people. After posting a few videos, I thought it would be nice to talk about British English as I’d always been interested in British English as well as British culture.” This is has been something of great interest to Seong-Jae since he was a teenager. Young Seong-Jae “really wanted to talk to British people, and that really motivated me to learn particularly British English. Luckily, the videos about British English and British dialects got a lot of views and I could start to focus more on making video content.”
The rest, you might say, is history.
Seong-Jae’s passion for making video content was a natural progression that followed his interest in video journalism. He has been making video content for about 8 years now, and this combined with his aptitude and expertise in language and culture, means “now I can even work as an international coordinator and an interpreter in the UK!”. Seong-Jae shared with me that when he returned to London in 2022, he could feel that “quite a few things had changed. As a Korean, I can especially see that the Korean culture is gaining popularity in the UK. Not only K-pop, Korean TV shows, films and even Korean food are getting the spotlight these days, and I’m delighted that there are more and more Korean supermarkets as well as Korean restaurants throughout the UK.”
Last spring saw Seong-Jae being invited back to UCLan as a guest panelist for the Asia Pacific Film Festival, which was his first visit back to the university in the 9 years since he graduated. Talking of this experience, Seong-Jae shared that it “felt surreal and nice to visit Preston again as Preston has given so many inspirations. During my visit, I met the Korean professors who took care of me when I was an exchange student. I felt honoured to visit the University as a guest, not as a student.”
“I have,” Seong-Jae shared, “had the honour of introducing Korean Culture to British people, and vice versa.” As there are many Korean events happening in the UK these days, he often gets the opportunity to work as part of these events. Notable projects that Seong-Jae has been a part of include working as a Korean Cultural advisor and translator for the play ‘Kim’s Convenience’ that debuted in the UK earlier this year; and working as part of the crew for Stray Kids’ extravaganza at BST Hyde Park (more of my thoughts on that incredible performance can be found by clicking here) where he helped Korean producers and British producers communicate; and being part of a campaign Hyundai ran which focused on the pronunciation of the brand. Talking of this, Seong-Jae added that “as a native Korean speaker, I was honoured to work on that project and happy to teach people the accurate pronunciation of Hyundai.”
Seong-Jae plans to build on these successes by working as an international coordinator for musicals, plays and music concerts where he can help facilitate collaborations between Korean and British producers.
Seong-Jae’s advice for those learning a new language: I think it’s quite useful to try changing your surroundings into the language you would like to learn. For example, start from your items you use every day or things you see in your room and try to find out what they are called in that language. You can then expand your area in that language.
Seong-jae’s recommendation for those visiting his hometown of Busan: I would say all the beaches in Busan would be ‘must visit’ places. Busan is well-known for its beaches – my favourite is Gwangalli Beach. However, there are also a lot of mountains in Busan so I would recommend visiting the mountains and her temples as well.
BBC World Service Interview:
BBC London News Interview about Chuseok:
