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| Ham Yon-ji as Cha Me-ho in the musical "ChaMe" / Courtesy of Page1 Company |
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Ham Yon-ji, who plays the lead role of Cha Me-ho in the Korean musical "ChaMe," has several titles under her belt. She is the third-generation of the owner family of the instant food company Ottogi and a rising YouTube star who has over 145,000 followers.
In the musical, Ham plays a timid job seeker who is overwhelmed by her social media persona Cha_Me, who shows up in the real world and lives the life Me-ho dreamed of. Instead of coveting the life of an imaginary identity, Me-ho slowly finds her true self at her own pace.
However, in real life, Ham is a social media star with a YouTube Silver Play Button.
Ham, who graduated from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, debuted as Scarlett O'Hara in the French musical version of "Gone with the Wind" in 2015.
Her other theater credits include Mary in the French musical version of "Gone with the Wind" in 2015 Sunni in the play "Save the Green Planet," Constanze Weber in the Peter Shaffer play "Amadeus" and Fleur-de-Lys in the French musical "Notre-Dame de Paris."
To provide more insights into her acting career, Ham started her YouTube channel about a year ago, posting daily vlogs, cooking videos and song covers. She buckled down on her channel a few months ago after she signed a partnership with Sandbox Network.
The content of her channel, YONJIHAM, varies widely reflecting her occupation and background. Many of her popular videos are related to cooking, some featuring Ottogi products.
Ham's father, Ottogi chairman Ham Young-joon, also appeared in her YouTube for a Parents' Day special. Ham cooked dishes featuring a variety of Ottogi products following popular recipes on the Internet for the chairman to try and the video garnered a whopping 1.28 million views as of Tuesday, becoming the most popular video on the channel. Her father appeared in another video in which Ham competed in cooking with her husband as a judge.
She also gives a peek into her luxurious life as a third-generation member of a chaebol family, introducing her wardrobe, handbags and dishes.
Ham also boasts of her singing ability in song cover videos such as "Into the Unknown" from "Frozen 2" and "Breathe" from "In the Heights." Recently, she posted a video showing her life as a musical actress, shot backstage of "ChaMe" with her fellow actors.
