“Have you ever heard of a fruit called the apple pear?” This was the question posed by filmmaker Joseph Juhn during a guest lecture at Kyung Hee University (KHU) on May 12, where students of various nationalities had gathered for a special lecture on overseas Koreans. Director Juhn is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker known for documentaries on diasporas, such as “Jeronimo” and “Chosen”, and for his book Your Noun Modifier. He is also part of the overseas Korean community in the U.S., having lived as a Korean American since high school. His lecture invited students to a curious analogy: How does an apple pear relate to overseas Koreans?

Overseas Koreans and the Korean Diaspora

Broadly defined, diasporas refer to individuals who have left their homeland but continue to maintain a sense of identity and cultural connection to it. This includes those who live abroad for generations while still identifying as part of their original nation.

According to the Korean Statistical Information Service, there are over seven million members of the Korean diaspora as of 2023. Already a minority in their local environment, overseas Korean communities can feel foreign to native Koreans as well. To address this issue, the Korean government’s Overseas Koreans Agency (OKA) runs the “Road to Understanding Overseas Koreans” program, dedicated to fostering proper recognition and solidarity with the Korean diaspora. Director Juhn’s lecture at KHU in May was also a part of this program.

However, director Juhn’s efforts to spread the stories of diasporas started long before joining the OKA‘s program. For years, he traveled independently to universities around the world and gave lectures, seeking to promote understanding of overseas Koreans. He explained his reason for joining the program by saying, “Government-led education programs can come off as rigid or dry, and their narratives can be shaped from a state-centered perspective. I believed that an actual member of the Korean diaspora like myself could offer a more authentic understanding of who we are and how we think.”

Director Juhn and the Diasporic Identity

The topic of director Juhn’s guest lecture was “Diasporas Are the Future of Korea”. From the start, he emphasized that “One cannot discuss diaspora without talking about identity.” He spoke about how living abroad shapes one’s sense of self and shared a deeply personal journey, finding his identity as an overseas Korean.

Born in Minnesota, U.S., director Juhn moved to Korea at the age of five. During his youth and teenage years in Korea, he never questioned his identity as a Korean. But at 18, after returning to the U.S. for high school, his identity was suddenly put into question. Becoming one of the few Asian students—less than 2% of the school’s demographic—he felt othered and began to wonder: ‘Should I abandon my previous identity as a Korean and become an American?’

Still pondering, director Juhn went on to attend the University of California, San Diego. There, at a Korean American conference, he learned about the 1992 Los Angeles Riots—a violent, tragic event referred to as Saigu by Koreans. Riots in the streets of Koreatown and the subsequent damage to property and people alike marked a turning point for Korean Americans: They began to seek political representation and cross-racial solidarity to have their voices heard in the U.S. “Up until the LA riots, we were just Korean immigrants living in America. But from that moment on, we became Korean Americans,” director Juhn explained.

Director Juhn continued to broaden his perspective on overseas Korean communities after graduation. He visited Korean communities around the world and met peers, noting striking similarities during this search: “Everyone I met said the same thing—North Korean defectors, Korean migrant miners and their children in Germany, Koreans in São Paulo, South Africa, or those among the Koryo community in Russia. They all said that they felt somewhere stuck in the middle.”

Director Juhn’s visit to the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China helped clarify his notions. It was an ethnic Korean friend he met there who introduced him to the metaphor of the apple pear. This fruit, otherwise known as the Asian pear, is neither fully apple nor pear, rather having distinct characteristics that embody both. “Like this fruit,” his friend said, “I’m neither fully Chinese nor fully Korean.” This metaphor stayed with director Juhn; “This signified to me that these in-between identities and the internal conflicts they aroused were not individual occurrences but a shared experience of diasporas globally.”

Filmmaking and the Stories of Diaspora

Deciding to spread the stories of others living abroad with similar experiences, director Juhn turned to filmmaking. His career began with a chance encounter during his first backpacking trip to Cuba, when he met a fourth-generation Korean Cuban whose great-grandfather, Jeronimo Lim, had participated in the Cuban Revolution. But his deeper motivation for documenting diaspora came from his own search for identity. “While the meeting in Cuba was a stroke of luck that sparked my filmmaking career, the broader inspiration came from my years of experience meeting Korean diasporas around the world. Listening to their stories helped me move beyond my narrow definition of what it meant to be a member of the Korean diaspora,” said director Juhn.

Through his films and lectures, director Juhn ultimately aims to foster understanding of diasporas and the possibilities for peaceful coexistence in Korean society. “South Korea has achieved impressive economic growth and global cultural influence, and it consoles itself with these accomplishments. But Korean society must improve what it still lacks—an ability to understand and peacefully coexist with others. That’s why I use my documentaries, books, and lectures to share the thoughts and experiences of diasporas, not only to promote understanding of them, but to inspire reflection within Korean society.”

Director Juhn stressed that his approach to overseas Koreans was not rooted in nationalistic or patriotic views. In fact, he emphasized the opposite. “In Jeronimo, I covered the Koreans who migrated to Mexico in 1905. About 1,000 of them, children and elders alike, labored in near-slavery conditions at the henequen plantations in Yucatan. While I was making this film in 2018, South Korea faced its first refugee crisis. The same country whose people were once shipped off to suffer in foreign lands now saw mass public opposition to Yemeni asylum seekers in Jeju. Yet both groups—the Korean migrants of the past and the Yemeni refugees of late—were diasporas. I realized then: How I relate to these people must go beyond bloodlines and nationality. It must be based on universal, humanitarian values.”

Diaspora as a Verb

As the lecture drew to a close, director Juhn invited students to read aloud the words of 12th-century French theologian Hugh of Saint Victor: “The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land.” This, he explained, was the essence of understanding diaspora—not through the lens of the majority and the native, but from the perspective of an outsider.

For director Juhn, the word diaspora is more than just a noun: It can also be a verb. It is a way of actively reflecting upon one’s identity, questioning the blinding narratives formed by the majority, and choosing instead to look at people and events from the minority’s perspective. This, director Juhn says, is the diasporic way of thinking that allows individuals and societies to understand others within them—and with enough time, peacefully coexist with them as global-minded citizens.

“University is a time to plan and experiment for your future. But more than that, it is a rare opportunity to embody values larger than yourself. If you focus only on your own path, you risk missing something bigger. College should be a space where you can consciously question, reflect on, and commit to values that transcend individual concerns,” he concluded.