American Idol 11 alum, Heejun Han auditioned for the Korean network, SBS singing competition, K-Pop Star 3.
Heejun was eliminated from another Korean competition, The Great Birth, according to Yahoo.com. But that hasn’t deterred Heejun from a quest to be well known in his mother country.
“But no matter how well things worked out for me, I’m a Korean person who eats Korean food, who talks about Korean, and whose first language was Korean, and yet, why don’t the Korean people know me?” said Han Hee Jun. He said he decided to audition for K-Pop Star 3 to search for his identity, picking now as the hardest time in his life.
Heejun passed his audition with 3 yeses. The video below contains his entire audition, but unfortunately, most of it is in Korean, except for Heejun’s song, which is “You Give Me Something” by James Morrison.
Translated judges remarks:
Although already successful in America, he revealed his wish to try his luck in Korea. “This isn’t about my career as a singer, but about my identity as a Korean. I felt that I had to start again in Korea,” he said.
He passed with flying colors, with all three judges giving him a thumbs-up. “I had the impression that I was looking at a professional stage,” Yoo Hee Yeol said. “But I felt that you really need to have the mindset of starting over with a blank slate.”
For Yang Hyun Suk, who had never seen Heejun in action before, he advised him to keep up his appearances. “You’re very polite, your words are bright, and you make people feel better,” he said. “I felt that your performance might have been better if you had performed a Korean song.”
Heejun’s video package begins at 1:12. His song at 5:20.
