Hines’ special sauce

I wasn’t really rooting for anyone in particular in the Super Bowl yesterday, but when I realized that Hines Ward was playing I pledged my allegiance to the Steelers because I have to support the Korean guy (there aren’t too many of us in pro sports, after all). Go Hines! Go Hines! It’s your birthday! It’s your birthday!

I was curious to see how much about Hines’ “Korean-ness” was covered in the media, if at all, so I did a quick search and found this article in the WaPo. It’s cool that he acknowledges that the Korean community will be following his career, and that he has to represent for Korean Americans. And hearing his very typical second-generation story (language/cultural barriers, parent/s who works long hours, being teased by other kids, initial embarrassment of being Korean, and therefore different—not to mention the difficulties he must have faced being biracial) was inspiring. (His mom apparently still works in a high school cafeteria.)

But I also wanted to see how he was being covered in Korean media, if at all. Turns out he's mentioned a lot, and it didn’t surprise me that there were some parts of his story that were “creatively amplified.” For instance, if you read this Q&A with Hines in SI, he recounts his childhood and the influence of his mom. And this LA Times story gives a little more detail, talking about how Hines didn’t really know his mom when she regained custody of him, and resented the fact that he was placed with an unfamiliar woman, community, and culture, but grew to appreciate his mom’s sacrifices for him.

Okay, nice story. In the Korean papers though, they say that Hines “ran away” from his childhood home to be reunited with his mom, such as in this story that ran in the Korea Times online. This story in the Digital Chosunilbo even says that “Hines could not forget his mother and ran away to live with her when he was in second grade.”

If the SI interview is accurate (I’m more inclined to believe it is, since it was a Q&A), this wasn’t the case—his mom got custody and he went, and experienced hardship because he was placed in unfamiliar surroundings. In direct quotes from Hines that appear to be accurate (or at least have not been questioned) he said as much. And I don’t think a seven-year-old would be successful at running away, anyway. I’m not necessarily accusing the Korean papers of making stuff up—maybe they do have a credible source? Maybe this viewpoint was reported in a secondhand source first? Maybe one paper published it and the others ran with it? But probably more likely, the Korean publications are choosing to ignore Hines own admission that he had to learn to be proud of and accept his mom and that part of his heritage.

Who knows—I just thought it was hilarious that I found this whole dramatized “Hines ran away to be with his mom” angle in the Korean papers and not in the U.S. news sources. Or maybe the Korean papers just wanted to turn it all into a melodrama, like so many addictive Korean soap operas. I mean, some of the flowery language in the Chosunilbo article sounds like a soap-opera synopsis: “[Young-hee Ward] never remarried and held multiple jobs to support the two of them, working all the hours that God sent.”

I know part of the cheesiness is because the metaphor gets lost in the translation, but I can so hear a Korean parent saying this: “See, Hines’ mom loved him so much she worked all the hours God sent...that’s why you always have to respect your parents!!! Now go marry a doctor.)

I don’t point out this discrepancy out of some kind of journalistic outrage. I don’t really believe truly objective journalism exists anyway; each news outlet paints the picture it wants, consciously or subconsciously, based on its goals, leanings, and /or cultural perspective and world view. All I’m saying is that reporting that Hines had to grow to love and respect his mom makes his story no less poignant—if anything, it’s even more special. So, Korean newspapers, if you don’t have a credible source for the “Hines ran away” theory, paint the truth, not fiction. No one will think less of you, his mom, or of Hines.