|
Robert Kelly, an American associate professor at Pusan
National University in South Korea, had been speaking to the BBC
via Skype about the impeachment of president Park Geun-hye, when
his daughter marched confidently into his home office.
His nine-month-old son, James, slipped in shortly afterwards in
a baby walker, followed by his wife, Kim Jung-a, who
dramatically chased and expertly extracted both children as
Kelly tried to maintain his on-camera composure.
"We are just a regular family and raising two young children can
be a lot of work," Kelly said during a news conference at the
university. "We love our children very much, and we are happy
that our family blooper - our family error on television –
brought so much laughter to so many people."
Kelly's four-year-old daughter, Marion, who captured the
internet's attention with her bright yellow top and confident
swagger, sat beside Kelly during the news conference. Kim held
baby James on her lap.
In a follow-up interview with the BBC on Wednesday, Kelly said
he could see a mirror image of the room on his video screen as
Marion walked through the door behind him.
"I was hoping that maybe my daughter might sit down and read a
book or something, even for thirty seconds until we could just
cut the interview, but once my son came in on the little roller,
then it was sort of... then there was nothing I could do," Kelly
told the BBC.
The video was widely shared on social media, with the majority
of comments expressing amusement over the incident. One version
of the video on a BBC Facebook page had over 86 million views as
of Wednesday.
Kelly, who is an expert on North and South Korea and makes
regular international media appearances, said he hoped the
light-heartedness of the video would not harm him
professionally.
"I'm BBC Dad for a while so, I hope that people will still read
my work," he said.
"If we’re still talking about this in six months, then I'll be
quite uncomfortable."
(Writing by James Pearson and Karishma Singh; Editing by Nick
Macfie)
[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
|
