Harry Harris: US envoy to South Korea removes controversial mustache

The U.S. ambassador to South Korea has shaved off the controversial mustache, months after his facial hair sparked a debate about the country’s colonial past.

Harry Harris, a retired Navy admiral, removed his facial hair at a barbershop in the capital Seoul.

He said he did it to stay cool during the summer while wearing a face mask according to Covid-19 rules.

“I feel a lot better now,” Harris said in a video showing shaving.

Harris’s mustache had been criticized for its associations with the Japanese colonization of South Korea from 1910 to 1945.

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Earlier this year, South Korean commentators and politicians said Harris’s facial hair evoked painful memories of the colonial era because it recalled the mustaches worn by Japan’s governors-general.

Harris has been an ambassador to South Korea since 2018, during a time of strained relations. South Korea is a key military and economic partner.

The United States places 28,500 soldiers in South Korea as part of a security alliance to deter aggression from North Korea, which invaded the country in 1950.

Harris had previously raised tensions by urging South Korea to spend more on its military and take a different approach in its relations with neighboring North Korea.

In the context of these disputes, Harris’ mustache and his Japanese heritage became more controversial.

In December last year, the Korea Times newspaper said Harris’s mustache “has been associated with the latest American image of being disrespectful and even coercive toward Korea.”

Japanese military leaders of World War II, such as Hideki Tojo, Sadao Araki, and Shunroku Hata, sported the Harris mustache type.

But scholars say the mustache was a common style worn by various regional leaders at the time, including Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of China’s nationalist government between 1928 and 1949.

The son of a U.S. Navy officer and a Japanese woman, Harris suggested that criticism of his mustache comes from his heritage.

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“My mustache, for some reason, has become a point of fascination here,” said Harris. “I have been criticized in the media here, especially on social media, because of my ethnicity, because I am an American of Japanese origin.”

Harris, who was shaved for most of his 40-year naval career, told the Korea Times that he had decided to grow his mustache to mark his “new life as a diplomat.”

The mustache, he told the newspaper, would remain unless someone convinced him that “he was seen in a way that hurts our relationship.” [with South Korea]”