The younger generations have complexes about their appearance or looks on account of the influence of various media. Accordingly, people are apt to go on an excessive diet or have plastic surgery, and people get stress by just eating. Here is one person who tells you that you are beautiful, no matter how you look. CBT reporters would like to enlighten you about how beautiful you are and how easy it is to love the way you look, through Kim Gee-yang, the editor-in-chief of 66100, a magazine for plus-sized people? -Ed.

Walking Down The Runway
  She applied for Korea’s Next Top Model at age 25. Korea’s Next Top Model is a survival audition program that offers an opportunity to be a top model to Korean males and females. She said, “I felt like my life was doomed at that time. I got advice to resign from the company I had been working at. I broke up with my boyfriend, and my family was facing bad situations. I thought I had been living my life diligently, but nothing was going my way. Looking back, I couldn’t live my life as I wanted to live it at all. I thought about what I wanted to do, but I still had no idea about it. At that time, the top model program’s advertisement was released. It said, “You are a star,” and I felt I could live like a star if I did that. Though I failed on level 2, the bikini contest, it was fun. Also, I gained self-confidence. That was my life changing moment.”
  After she failed to be the top model, she was preparing for a casting audition, but she heard that Full Figure Fashion, a runway fashion show, would be held in LA. FFF is the largest plus-sized model fashion show, and she became the first Korean plus-sized model in FFF. Plus-sized model refers to a female model whose size is over 12 in the U.S. customary size and over 110 in Korean size. “I went to FFF after I heard about it. I took the audition, and I passed and became a model. I met lots of people who inspired me when I was working as a model. Rosie, a model friend of mine, especially still rings in my heart. She was the one who had lots of energy and beliefs, and she was so energetic herself. Through her, I learned that body weight and appearance can be important but are not everything when I do something.”
  Commonly, models usually do a photo shoot or various things, but she only built her career as a model with runway activities. She said that she started her work inflexibly and had less work opportunity as a model, and it caused tough moments for her.

Becoming an Editor-In-Chief
  Kim Gee-yang became the independent magazine 66100’s editor-in-chief to introduce plus-sized models to people who don’t have an interest in it. She started to work as a model and an editor-in-chief at the same time. 66100 is South Korea’s first magazine for the plus-sized. 66100 contains contents saying slimness is not equal to beauty. “I had no idea about publishing a magazine when I started it. People around me asked me why I was wasting my money on that. Also, I heard from them that I should focus more on building my career. Like the modeling, I started publishing the magazine in the dark. That was like facing with nothing. However, I thought it was important. I thought it was laying groundwork. I think if 66100 hadn’t come out, some people now might not have confidence about their body or not love themselves.”
  66100 magazine is outstanding in terms of design. She said she takes lots of care about the magazine’s design. She frays her nerves to make it because, if it’s sloppy, people might think that is the way fat people do it. “There are a lot of tough moments, but there are also many good people around me. Luckily, I had a chance to meet a well-experienced designer. She reviewed my concepts and offered me a partnership, so she designs my magazine at a low cost. Thanks to her, I could publish a high quality magazine. One day, I went to a store to buy my boyfriend’s clothes, and only up to size 100 were available. I wondered who could wear those clothes, but the current trend is producing smaller sizes of clothes, so I named the magazine after the women’s apparel maximum size 66 and the men’s apparel maximum size 100. I made the infinity symbol by connecting the two zeros of the title because I wanted to talk about the infinity beyond size. Beauty doesn’t matter with size and overcomes size. Those are our mottos.”
  Mostly, web magazines have more power of influence because those are available on the internet or mobile. However, she sticks to paper magazines instead of web magazines. “An actual reader means a meaningful reader who can empathize and can be changed when they read the contents. When people see something online, people tend to forget the important information more than when seeing something in actuality. I sell my magazine online and offline, but there are many people who visit our company, buy it directly and post reviews online. I think the problem of web magazines is the abusive posts, so I publish my magazine in paper form for the people who are plus sized so that they can avoid unpleasant comments.”

The Way to Love The Way I Look
  She said that the best way to love myself is just by looking at me as I am. “What do you think when you hear the word, ‘fat’? Do you think it’s positive or negative? It is easy to think of it as negative, but the word ‘fat’ itself is just describing one’s appearance. Thinking like this can be started by simply recognizing myself. It took a long time for me to feel the word ‘fat’ as a non-aggressive word. As soon as it sounded more natural, I started to feel like myself. It is not, “I’m fat BUT pretty,” because fat means fat and pretty means pretty. If I start to feel repulsed by it, it means I’m diminishing a part of me. “I’m fat AND pretty.” This is right.”
  She told me that people show their discrimination toward others while they want to get respect, but they need to respect others first. “If you want to get respect from others, you need to respect others first, but most Koreans don’t do that. For example, do you know fat people hate other fat people? When fat people see fatter people than them, they say, “I’m not that fat.” That is, people might prejudge other people, but they don’t want to be prejudged. If you want to be recognized, you need to recognize others first.”

To students
  Kim Gee-yang wants to say to college students, “Separate from your parents.”
  “In Korea, most students’ families pay for their children, so they do what their parents want. In my case, I have paid for everything except rent. If people are in hectic situations, people might do important things first, but if they are not, they tend to follow roughly what other people usually do. Affluent people blindly imitate what many people do because they think it is stable. That way has nothing to do with me, but they follow that way. If you lose your way, you should return from that way. If you want to return from that way, you should separate from your parents. Parents may well love their children, and children may love their parents. They are just like a fence to each other. However, if children depend on their parents, the parents also depend on the children. That relation makes people feel disappointed. Things will never happen as people want them to happen.”
  She said, “If you are depending on something, you will be swayed by it.” Also, she said, “It is the start of happiness to break dependence on something.”
  “First, stand up straight. That is important. If you get swayed by “dependence on things,” without your own presence, you can’t be happy for a long time. You should find happiness first because you will feel a sense of belonging, but that won’t last. That would fade as time goes by. I think that isn’t true happiness. You should be happy only with yourself.”

By Kim Soo-min
sm36@cbnu.ac.kr
By Min Tae-kwan
tk36@cbnu.ac.kr