Kim Mi-ok was born in South Korea with unusual blue eyes. They were not contact lenses or a disease: a specialist explained on television that the color was related to a lower amount of melanin, an extremely rare phenomenon among East Asians.
But growing up different came at a price.
Kim said that from a young age she was given nicknames like “cat”, “ghost”, and “demon eyes”. One teacher even suggested that her parents have her wear glasses to hide them. During her adolescence, she began wearing dark contact lenses and, according to the viral account that brought her story back to light, preferred to put up with the discomfort rather than face the taunts again.
Years later, she got married and had a daughter, Cho-eun, who was born with the same blue eyes.
Then the story began to repeat itself.
Kim said that some people stared at the two of them “like animals in a zoo” and that some children avoided playing with her daughter as if her appearance were the result of a contagious disease. Things reached the point where the father considered having Cho-eun study abroad to avoid the bullying.
But there was a moment that finally pushed Kim to speak publicly. Her daughter, still very young, began wondering why her eyes were different and hiding behind her whenever someone reacted with surprise.
Kim then decided to appear alongside Cho-eun on the Korean show Hello Counselor. She was not looking to change her eyes, but the way others looked at them.
After the show aired, something happened that had seemed impossible for years. Kim said she began to feel proud of herself, and Cho-eun started hearing that her eyes were beautiful.
The little girl even began repeating a phrase that perfectly summed up that change: “I’m pretty”.
After a lifetime of trying to hide what made her different, Kim helped her daughter start to see it another way: not as something she had to hide, but as a part of herself she could learn to love.