{"id":72167,"date":"2026-08-11T09:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T09:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/72167\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T09:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T09:22:17","slug":"south-korean-actress-ha-young-sorry-for-controversy-over-ancestors-pro-japanese-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/72167\/","title":{"rendered":"South Korean actress Ha Young sorry for controversy over ancestor\u2019s pro-Japanese ties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/south-korea?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">South Korean<\/a> actress has apologised for the controversy surrounding her great-grandfather\u2019s pro-Japanese ties during Japan\u2019s 1910-45 colonial rule, a day after calling the accusations \u201cgroundless\u201d.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cAfter 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,\u201d Ha Young\u2019s agency Bistrus Entertainment said on Tuesday, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cWe sincerely apologise for the confusion we caused by hastily answering that it was groundless, without sufficient verification.\u201d<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">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.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Ha sparked the controversy when talking about her family\u2019s 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\u2019s first private Western clinic in Seoul, and even treated Emperor Gojong.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Social media users identified this ancestor as Ahn Sang-ho, the first Korean to get a Japanese medical licence in 1902.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">They also dug up his pro-Japanese records \u2013 including a December 1918 article in the official Japanese colonial government newspaper Maeil Sinbo quoting Ahn as saying that his household had \u201ccompletely assimilated\u201d by wearing Japanese clothes, marrying a Japanese woman and prohibiting the use of Korean at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A South Korean actress has apologised for the controversy surrounding her great-grandfather\u2019s pro-Japanese ties during Japan\u2019s 1910-45 colonial&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[46494,46497,46489,46495,8,17,46493,46490,38,2777,46492,6904,659,657,46496,46491],"class_list":["post-72167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-ahn-sang-ho","tag-bistrus-entertainment","tag-emperor-gojong","tag-ha-young","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-japanese-colonial-rule","tag-kbs","tag-korea","tag-lee-jae-myung","tag-maeil-sinbo","tag-netflix","tag-seoul","tag-south-korea","tag-taisho-friendship-association","tag-the-korea-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}