Former Idol Tina Reveals How Sad Christmas Can Be For K-Pop Stars—Especially Foreigners

After departing girl group Blady three years ago, former member Tina—now known as Christine “Soobin” Park—is revealing all about idol life on her YouTube channel, soobeanie_. Recently, she opened up about just how difficult Christmas-time can be for K-Pop stars.

First off, Soobeanie says that the holiday season can be “really lonely” for idols. Despite being born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Soobeanie has been lucky enough to have her mother living in South Korea with her. That said, she’s still experienced a lot of loneliness over past winters.

One Christmas, for example, Soobeanie was so busy preparing for a Blady comeback that she didn’t have any time to visit her mom. She explained that it’s common for K-Pop groups to find themselves consumed with live performances all over the country during Christmas-time. The three televised gayos, for example, are must-attend events for most popular groups, and one of them even falls on Christmas day.

We literally had shows every day, Busan to Seoul to Gyeonggi-Do. I just remember when I saw my schedule for a week, because we even had a performance on Christmas Day—we had two shows on Christmas Day.

— Soobeanie

While others were celebrating together, Soobeanie was waiting in cars to attend shows. Naturally, she says Christmas didn’t really feel like a holiday when she was busy.

Of course, Soobeanie acknowledged that in reality, she had it lucky—some idols from overseas don’t get to see their families at all around the holidays because there’s no time to fly back and forth. So, how do these stars spend Christmas during their limited downtime?

Sadly, Soobeanie says that she’s heard about a lot of idols who have celebrated the holidays by themselves in their dorms. Time permitting, Korea-born members are often allowed to head back to their family homes for a few days around Christmas. That leaves foreign members alone with no company.

Thankfully, some companies do try to make sure the members can enjoy the festivities together. Soobeanie says that one holiday, her company rented a guesthouse outside of Seoul for a few days so the members could celebrate together with staff. While the members would often say they’d rather spend time with their families, they did enjoy their Christmases together.

We just spent a really good time with the members and the company people, played a lot of games, drank, ate. It was a really good experience.

— Soobeanie

Watch the full video for yourself here: