Seoul
US Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris shaved off his moustache at a traditional barbershop months after his facial hair became the object of unusual criticism. Harris has several times been the object of controversy in the South, and accused of high-handedness. Even his facial hair became an issue of debate. The envoy’s mother was Japanese and, with Koreans still bitterly resentful of Tokyo’s 1910-45 colonisation of the peninsula, commentators claimed the moustache alluded to the fashions of imperial governors-general from the period. In January Harris retorted that his grooming was a matter of personal choice, and that his critics were “cherry picking history”.—AFP
