Autistic character joins children’s show first for Korea

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Educational Broadcasting System recently announced that its “Ding Dong Dang Kindergarten” will welcome its first autistic character in its upcoming episode, marking the first time a local children’s show will feature a character with autistic spectrum disorder.

The new character “Byeori” will make her debut on the Friday episode of the show, aired every weekday at 8 a.m.
The show describes the child character as perceiving sound, smell and color more strongly than others and that “understanding Byeori’s world will help one be good friends with her.”

“As a childhood is when one’s perception and attitude toward others sets in, (introduction of Byeori) will present a challenge for the children to learn the value of respect and diversity,” it said in a statement.

Having aired since 1982, "Ding Dong Dang Kindergarten" is among the most popular children’s TV shows in South Korea. The program has featured children characters of diverse backgrounds, including a child of international marriage, one from a divorced family and one with a physical disability.

Characters with ASD in pop culture are nothing new: The 1988 film “Rain Man” featured Academy Award-winner Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of an autistic savant. In 2015, the Sesame Street featured debuted its first autistic character Julia.

But such portrayals have been rare in South Korea, where autistic people were commonly referred to in derogatory terms in the past due to lack of understanding of their conditions and behaviors. In recent years, however, a growing number of pop culture content here has been featuring autistic characters with deeper understanding of the condition than in the past.

Arguably the most successful such case was 2022 “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” starring Park Eun-bin as the titular protagonist with ASD who is also an ingenious lawyer. The ENA show was among the biggest hits of the year and sparked interest in the condition.