Why Koreans are pouring their hearts out to a blunt TV grandmother

Comedian Kim Young-hee, left, dressed as her character "Malja Grandma," poses with Jung Beom-kyun at KBS in Yeouido, Seoul. Korea Times photo by Park Si-mon

Kim, a woman in her 20s, turned to a grandmother for dating advice. This was not the gentle kind of grandmother who tells people what they want to hear. Her advice was blunt enough to serve as a wake-up call for Kim.

Kim could not forget her first love, an ex-boyfriend. When she heard rumors that he might break up with his current girlfriend, she wondered whether she should wait for him. After hearing her story, the grandmother said bluntly.

“Get a grip. There are plenty of men in the world,” she said.

“But there is only one of him,” Kim said, still unable to let go. The grandmother seemed to have been waiting for that answer.

“Do you know something? There is also only one of you in the world,” she said. “You should meet someone who loves you. Why would you wait until they break up?”

Kim’s eyes widened. She covered her mouth with one hand and fell silent as the words hit their mark. The audience let out a stunned “wow,” then broke into applause.

A young audience member looks surprised by blunt dating advice from "Malja Grandma." Captured from KBS

The "grandmother" was Kim Young-hee, 43, the comedian behind “Malja Grandma,” a character on KBS2’s “Malja Show.” On the program, Kim dresses as an elderly woman and gives unscripted advice to audience members who bring their worries to the stage.

The advice did not end onstage, though. Last winter, Kim invited a young woman to an upscale restaurant in Seoul, treated her to a meal and gave her a scarf. The woman was job hunting.

“If you have worries while living your life, send me another KakaoTalk message!” Kim told her.

Such follow-up is unusual. Kim said she wanted to thank the woman for having the courage to speak honestly about her worries. The clip of the exchange spread quickly on YouTube, helping “Malja Show” gain traction by word of mouth.

Kim said the encounter also gave her a new understanding of comedy. “While dealing with that friend’s worries, I became a bit more at ease,” she said in a recent interview at KBS in Yeouido, Seoul. “I had been trapped in an obsession over how I should make people laugh as Malja Grandma.”

Confession, listening, empathy and another confession

When Kim appears as Malja Grandma, audience members begin to reveal worries they have kept hidden.

“My life has been stuck in place for years,” one young audience member once told her. “I try hard, but things don’t work out. Should I stop now?”

Kim hesitated, then answered by talking about her life more than 10 years earlier. It was, she said, a desert-like period when nothing seemed to grow.

“When I was young, I had such a terribly hard time, and I also hit rock bottom,” she said. “I thought I had clawed my way through life and put my life back on track, but because of family problems that had nothing to do with my will, I fell back into the abyss again. I was the head of the household. I walked only looking ahead, but every step I took felt like trudging through mud. I came to hate myself the most. I only thought about how I could stop living. After continuing to walk like that, I met Malja Grandma.”

Another viewer commented on the video: “I ran without rest for 10 years, but my bank balance was always at rock bottom. This year, for the first time, when I saw my balance hit 95,000 won ($62), I thought, ‘Still, I am moving forward a little.’ I gained strength from watching the video.”

An audience member shares her worries about a friend she lost contact with 42 years ago on "Malja Show" as Kim Young-hee (left) and Jung Beom-kyun listen. Captured from KBS

Kim has spent more than 15 years communicating with audiences as a comedian. On the “Malja Show,” that experience has become her main tool, along with quick improvisation and a familiar manner that disarms people as they open up.

The show has no script. Its rhythm comes from listening and empathy, which have shaped Malja Grandma’s exchanges with audiences over the past three years.

As audience response grew, the character’s stage expanded. KBS developed the “Communication Queen Malja Grandma,” a roughly 10-minute segment on “Gag Concert,” into the 90-minute standalone “Malja Show,” which has aired since January. Kim has also taken the character on tour, with a June 27 performance scheduled at Busan Cultural Center.

Partner sees potential of ‘Malja Show’

Comedian Jung Beom-kyun, 40, often appears beside Malja Grandma on “Malja Show” and helps guide the audience. His role is quiet but central.

Jung had seen Kim perform a similar act at a small theater in Daehangno, Seoul, where she had been doing such shows for five or six years. He thought the format could work on a larger stage and helped plan “Malja Show” with her. When Kim tried to quit after just three weeks, Jung talked her into continuing.

Kim Young-hee, left, reads an audience member's question. Courtesy of KBS

Kim and Jung’s connection goes back 16 years. Kim became a KBS comedian in 2010 as part of the broadcaster’s 25th recruitment class. Jung was three classes senior to her, though younger in age. Both built reputations on “Gag Concert” through satire rather than slapstick.

Kim became popular in the “Two-Person Debate” skit, where she skewered everyday patriarchy. Jung drew attention on “Mantis Kindergarten,” where he mocked political power with lines such as, “It is not hard to become a National Assembly member. You just go to a market you normally would not visit and shake hands with grandmothers.”

They had the same comic instincts, but their personalities clashed.

“If I were an animal, Beom-kyun would be like a plant,” Kim said. The partnership works, they said, because of distance.

“We use the same dressing room for ‘Malja Show,’” Kim said. “But on recording days, I never see him in the waiting room. It is like a husband running away to avoid his sensitive wife.”

Jung said stage pressure ultimately belongs to the performer about to go on.

“Saying ‘You’ll do well’ also only works once or twice,” he said. “If I stay beside her for no reason, I’ll only end up hearing something bad.”

The first recording proved how difficult the format could be. Kim said it was “a mess.”

“I was Malja, but I introduced myself as Sunja,” she said. “The worrying starts the day before recording because there is no script. With sketch comedy, you prepare according to the ideas you have planned and then show it on recording day. But ‘Malja Show’ is not like that. You never know what worries the audience will talk about. I have been doing it for three years, but I am still nervous and anxious.”

Woman reading people, man building stages

Kim has long drawn power from older characters, saying she shines when she “gets old.”

In her 20s, Kim drew attention by playing tough, middle-aged women. In her 40s, she is gaining popularity by playing a grandmother. Her characters have included Yeodangdang, a middle-aged country woman speaking in a thick dialect on “Two-Person Debate,” and Venus Chairwoman on “Bongsunga School,” a character whose school grade and class number doubled as a pun about being 45 years old.

Malja Grandma continues that line of older-woman figures, but with a different emotional center.

Kim said her interest in ordinary lives began early. “Even when the drama ‘I’m Sorry, I Love You’ was hugely popular in high school, I watched ‘Marriage Clinic: Love and War,’” she said.

From a young age, Kim was drawn less to fantasy than to everyday subjects that felt authentic. The Venus Chairwoman character came from watching her mother’s friends gather in hiking clothes.

Comedian Kim Young-hee, left, talks about the preparation process for the KBS program "Malja Show." Korea Times photo by Park Si-mon

If Kim shines through observing daily life and embodying other people’s traits as if they were her own, Jung works in the opposite direction. He finds what others can do well and builds the stage around it.

“We are drawn to each other because our strengths are so different, and when we work together, I think we clicked by complementing each other’s weaknesses,” Jung said.

Kim and Jung were not an obvious pair and never shared a “Gag Concert” segment in the old days.

Jung said he watched Kim closely anyway because he often worked as the warm-up comedian before “Gag Concert” recordings.

“Among the comedians I have seen, Young-hee is the person who knows how to express a certain feeling most intensely and best,” Jung said. “I cannot do that. By chance, I saw Young-hee’s counseling performance at a small theater in Daehangno, and she was really good. She also communicated well with the audience. I thought it would have a chance if the stage were expanded to ‘Gag Concert’ or regional performances.”

Kim Young-hee performs in "Two-Person Debate," a hit segment on "Gag Concert." Courtesy of KBS

Kim said Jung’s strength lies in knowing when to step in and when to step back.

“He lays out a stage where the other person can play without cutting off the flow of their performance,” she said. “It feels like he knows exactly what his position is. When I perform with Beom-kyun, I feel as if a puzzle piece is put into the right place. I have emotional ups and downs, but Beom-kyun does not. He is calm. I think that is why we fit even better.”

Kim joked that they had not been close before working together. She said he was like a background character. Even when they worked at the same theater during her university years, they only said hello.

Kim said she was surprised when a senior comedian she barely knew suddenly came to the theater to watch her performance. He watched and left without saying a word.

“At first, I wondered, ‘What is this? Is he trying to steal my idea?’” she said.

Jung Beom-kyun, right, shares his thoughts on comedy. Korea Times photo by Park Si-mon

Jung said his comedy philosophy comes from finding what would be funny if a particular person did it.

“I enjoy thinking, ‘This person would be funny if they did this,’” he said. “I think that is what I do best and what suits me best. When I get too ambitious with my acting, I actually ruin the stage.”

Comedian Kim Young-hee, right, dressed as her character "Malja Grandma," poses with Jung Beom-kyun at KBS in Yeouido, Seoul. Korea Times photo by Park Si-mon

Where confession becomes comedy

Kim and Jung now stand on a stage built from those complementary instincts. Kim reads people, and Jung makes room for her to do it. Malja Grandma works because the character does not merely scold or comfort.

She lets audience members say what hurts, then answers from a place where comedy and survival have become difficult to separate. It is a performance form shaped by age, pressure, criticism and the willingness to keep listening after the joke should have ended.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.