South Korean star Ha Young sorry for row over ancestor’s pro-Japanese ties

“After further checking, we have confirmed that records of great-grandfather Ahn Sang-ho being listed as a councillor of the Daejong Chinmokhoe in 1916 actually existed,” Ha Young’s agency Bistrus Entertainment said on Tuesday, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily.

“We sincerely apologise for the confusion we caused by hastily answering that it was groundless, without sufficient verification.”

The pro-Japanese society, whose name translates to Taisho Friendship Association, was formed in Seoul in 1916. Its members included Yi Wan-yong, one of the signatories of the 1905 Eulsa Treaty and the 1910 Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty that formally placed Korea under Japanese rule, The Korea Herald reported.

Ha sparked the controversy when talking about her family’s four generations of doctors during the KBS show Problem Child in House on Friday, according to The Korea Times. She said her great-grandfather studied Western medicine in Japan, opened the nation’s first private Western clinic in Seoul, and even treated Emperor Gojong.

Social media users identified this ancestor as Ahn Sang-ho, the first Korean to get a Japanese medical licence in 1902.

They also dug up his pro-Japanese records – including a December 1918 article in the official Japanese colonial government newspaper Maeil Sinbo quoting Ahn as saying that his household had “completely assimilated” by wearing Japanese clothes, marrying a Japanese woman and prohibiting the use of Korean at home.