hankyoreh

After 35-year old former Dongguk University professor, Shin Jeong-ah, was found to have forged her academic records and manipulated her way into a luminous career, other celebrities have increasingly been coming out of the woodwork to admit that they, too, have lied about their past histories.

The popular comic book artist Lee Hyeon-se, 51, recently confessed that he was not a dropout from Seorabeol Art University. In the preface to his new golf comic book, “Birdie,” Lee divulged that he lied in his first media interview 25 years ago when he said that he had not dropped out from the university.

Lee claims that he lied at the time due to the pressure of having become an overnight sensation in the comic book world. He said, “I got carried away. I was being interviewed by the media for the fist time in my life after becoming famous so suddenly.” He went to say, “Since then, for the past 25 years, thinking about my academic career has been agony for me.” Lee has admitted that all of education careers he has was just high school.

In a telephone interview with The Hankyoreh on July 19, Lee said, “I have always worried about this lie. As I deal with different kinds of ‘handicaps’ in my golf series, I have often thought about my own ‘handicap’ - my faked academic career - so I decided to confess. I felt relieved after I made the confession,” Lee said. “When I was a child, I hoped to go to an art college, but I had a lot of problems because I didn’t have a father and was partially color blind,” he said. “It’s been so burdensome for me because, even though I have finally overcome my faults as a cartoonist, I lied about my academic career.”

Lee is cited as one of the most popular cartoonists in Korea, with his mega-hit series from the 1980s “Mercenary Team of Fear” and “Ring in Hell.” At present, Lee serves as an animation professor at Sejong University and the chairman of the Korean Cartoonists Association.

Well-known radio host Lee Ji-young, 38, also left her seven-year old English-teaching program, “Good Morning Pops,” at state-run KBS radio station after she was found to have faked her academic career.

Before resigning, Lee said that she had graduated from Brighton University after moving to Britain at the age of 16 and has been studying to get her master’s degree in linguistics since 1996, though she never earned a degree. In fact, however, Lee graduated from a high school in Gwangyang, South Jolla Province. She then moved to Britain in the 1990s, where she reportedly studied at a language institute for about a year in a small city near London and attended a technical college for a year in Brighton.

According to an official at KBS, Lee told her program staff that her conscience had been gnawing at her because she had lied about her academic career. She had once served as a popular English-language instructor at Yonsei Language School and Lee Ik Hoon English Institute. Lee was honored by KBS as its best radio host in 2004.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]