South Korean influencers wow Bangladeshis and Indians with their love of Bengali language and culture

While pursuing a degree majoring in Hindi, Lee picked up the basics of Bengali grammar from local friends in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal and watched Bangladeshi news channels to improve his speaking skills.

His experience has since grown into an all-consuming passion with the creation of Bengali Lala, his Bengali-language YouTube channel, in early 2021. Since then, Lee’s channel, which he runs from Seoul, has attracted almost 2,700 subscribers. He also runs Korean Ka Lala, his Hindi-language channel, which has 278,000 subscribers.

“I love Bengal’s unique culture and [knowing] the language is the best way to understand and experience the culture,” the 26-year-old told This Week In Asia, who said he is a huge fan of the Bengali detective series Feluda and adventure series Kakababu.

One of Lee’s followers, Enakshi Bhattacharjee, says in a comment on Lee’s Bengali Lala YouTube channel that she is mesmerised to hear a non-Bengali person speak the language impeccably.

Luna Yogini, also known as Dasom, shares updates in Bengali about her daily activities from Seoul and places she has travelled to with her 102,000 Instagram followers, such as driving at night in Kolkata, dancing with tribal women in Santiniketan in West Bengal and sporting a new hairdo.

In one video, Luna recommends a popular antiseptic cream used by many Indian Bengalis for chapped lips. In another, she ropes in her mother to sing a Bengali song praising Kolkata, which is home to 2.7 million Bengalis.

Luna began living in West Bengal when she was five years old and was brought up by her mother, who wanted her to grow up in a multicultural environment. The 35-year-old and her mother, who works as a yoga trainer, are currently living in Seoul and setting up