His grandfather was Han Yeong-gyo, a prominent theologian in South Korea, who founded Yonsei University with Horace Grant Underwood.
[4] His father had a large local printing business with an American wife and a new family, and had completely forgotten the Korean language.
[3] As a high school student, Hahn saw his father only twice a week, and he composed songs and played guitar in the attic of their Long Island home.
[4] Meanwhile, Hahn wrote songs and performed at open mic nights in the West Village in front of hippie audiences.
[1] In 1968, Hahn Dae-soo, who was working in the photography industry, returned to South Korea due to his mother's persuasion and in protest of the U.S. stance on the Vietnam War.
"[3] His first and second albums, Rubber Shoes (1975), though not explicitly anti-government, were enough to attract the attention of South Korea's dictatorship system.
In New York, he formed a post-punk rock band called Genghis Khan and performed at CBGB.
[6] In 1992, while searching for an apartment in Brooklyn, Hahn met Oxana, a Russian-American 22 years his junior who worked in New York's financial sector.
The couple briefly settled in Seoul, but returned to New York after their daughter struggled to adjust to the South Korean public education system.