Makeup Ad Features First Transsexual on TV






Ha Ri-soo is the first transsexual person to appear on a television commercial in Korea. What's more surprising is that Ha will appear in a "Dodo" makeup commercial. Ha was born as a male and grew up to be a healthy young man but he now lives as a woman. In the commercial, the screen shows a woman sitting on a chair and then the camera slowly zooms in to capture "her" Adam's apple, disclosing that the person is not a woman. The neck-bone shooting, however, was substituted by another male actor because Ha does not have the required male physical characteristic.

Ha recollected his childhood saying, "I was always a girl who loved playing with dolls." Ha graduated an all-boys middle school and high school, and went to Japan to become a hair stylist before going through the operation to change sex in 1998. At first, his family were strongly opposed to Ha's decision but now they consider him a beloved sister and daughter. The only place Ha remains a man is on his resident's registration card.

At age 22, bearing a 34-24-35 physique, 168 centimeters tall, 48 kilograms in weight, Ha not only has an ideal physical characteristics easily envied by most women, "she" has an outgoing personality with a small wish that people would not be biased towards transsexuals, especially by considering them a depressed group of people.

(Kang Kyong-hee, khkang@chosun.com)