Yechan C. Lee (Charlie Korean Bihari)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Yechan C. Lee

• Charlie’s parents hail from South Korea.

• While Charlie’s father pursued a master’s degree in the US, his mother pursued a language programme in India. At that time, they were in a long-distance relationship. During her stay in India, she fell in love with the country and convinced Charlie’s father to move there.

• However, in a vlog, Charlie said that his parents were social workers and wanted to move to an underdeveloped country for work; therefore, they chose India.

• In 1995, Charlie was born in the US.

• At his birth, when his parents informed the nurse that they had named the kid Yechan Lee, the nurse said that it sounded like “Charlie.” That’s how he got his English name, Charlie.

• Charlie’s parents moved to India when he was one year old. They settled in the Ashiana Nagar area of Patna, Bihar.

  

• His father pursued a PhD in Public Administration in India.

• Charlie lived in India on a student visa till Class 12.

• He learnt the local Bihari accent at an early age and spoke Korean only with his parents at home.

• Growing up in Patna, he received a lot of attention for being a foreigner, which led him to become an introvert.

• When Lee was in Class 4, he went to South Korea with his family for around a year. He didn’t appear in his Class 4 exams.

• After returning to India, he changed his school and enrolled in Class 4 again.

• Around the same time, one of his uncles visited him from Korea. He taught basic chords of the guitar to Charlie. At that time, Charlie was fascinated by singers and guitarists like Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, and Jason Mraz.

• Eventually, Charlie became a skilled singer and guitar player. He would play the guitar at school events.

  

• The first video he recorded was with his friend Prashant Kumar in which he played the guitar while Prashant sang the Bollywood song ‘Baatein Yeh Kabhi Na.’

• He was an intelligent kid and scored a 10 CGPA in Class 10 from the CBSE board.

  

• He took commerce stream with mathematics in Classes 11 and 12.

• He also participated in numerous extracurricular activities. He used to play football. He represented his school in debate competitions on national and international levels, in Delhi, Singapore, and the US. He was also into arts & crafts.

  

• In Class 12, he recorded covers of the songs “Give Me Love” and “The A Team” by Ed Sheeran and uploaded them on SoundCloud.

• After living in Patna for 20 years, he moved to the US to attend college in 2015.

• At school, his classmates would be curious about his name, where he came from, and what he brought in his lunchbox.

• In 2018, he uploaded a singing video on YouTube.

• Later, he had an opportunity to lead a worship band of a church.

  

• After that, he enlisted in the South Korean military and carried out his mandatory military service for a year and nine months.
  

• At a family dinner, he met a group of professional singers who ran the YouTube channel LightHouse of Aradhna. The channel majorly featured Hindi-translated covers of Christian worship songs.

• The members of LightHouse of Aradhna were looking for a translator who could translate English songs into Hindi. Although Charlie was first included in the team to translate songs, he later became a singer for the channel.

• In August 2020, he voiced the first song for LightHouse of Aradhna, “Hamaree Man Samajta Hai”

  

• Later, he translated and sang various songs for LightHouse of Aradhna like Hum Gaye Hosanna (2021), Mahan Tu Prabhu (2021), and Mahan Tu Prabhu (2022).

• In February 2022, he started a YouTube channel titled 40Kahani.

• On the channel, he uploads daily lifestyle vlogs talking in Hindi with a Bihari accent.

• In his first video, Charlie revealed that he had been trying to establish a YouTube channel for a long time. He started shooting his first clip in South Korea in August 2020. However, as he couldn’t find a niche, he didn’t upload a video until 2022.

• The title 40Kahani is a wordplay on the phrase ‘Charlie’s Kahani’ (Charlie’s Story).

• He pursued a short filmmaking course by American YouTuber Casey Neistat.

• In June 2022, he started the Kaccha Aam podcast with fellow YouTuber Drew Hicks, who runs the channel Indiadrew.

  

• A cross-cultural social media star, Charlie came to be known as a South Korean vlogger who speaks in a Bihari accent in his videos.

• In May 2023, he visited India after three years to attend an event in Hyderabad. However, upon landing, he discovered that the event had been cancelled. Therefore, he decided to visit his parents in Patna, Bihar. To pass the time, he went out with his school friend Prashant and created a vlog speaking in Hindi with a Bihari accent just for fun.

• First, he uploaded the 20-minute-long vlog on his YouTube channel, 40Kahani.

• Then, his friend took a clip from that video and put it on his Instagram.

• In the Instagram video, he talks about the transformation of Patna’s Marine Drive area. Then, he also visits a local fair meanwhile continuing the conversation in Bihari with his friend. The video went viral on the internet and gained more than 5 million views on Instagram.

 

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• In June 2023, Charlie and Drew Hicks produced another viral vlog titled ‘Do Bihari Sab Pe Bhari.’ Two foreigners, blogging in Hindi, in a foreign land, that too in a desi Bhojpuri accent blew people’s minds.

• In Iowa, he juggles his part-time work and his career as a content creator.

• From December 2021 to July 2023, he worked as a retail associate at Target in Iowa.

• He occasionally consumes alcoholic beverages.

• He has a private account on Instagram with the username ‘chalpeng95.’

• He always wears a watch.