Work Text:
Profile of K-Pop Power Couple: Mark Tuan-Wang and Jackson Wang
By Melanie Shawn
Rolling Stone Magazine
April 24th, 2022
This K-Pop couple is the perfect example of opposites attract. One is long and slim, the other stockier and curvy. One is soft-spoken and quiet, the other louder and brash with a sense of frenetic nervous energy. One prefers an iced americano to drink, the other water because of another diet. One wears comfortable yet stylish sweatpants and a matching oversized hoodie, the other dressed in fitted jeans that accentuate his nicely shaped thighs, a designer shirt and sunglasses that cost more than the average person’s rent. One has a quick, open mouthed smile and the other shows more reserve, lips closed, the corners tipped up just slightly. The old adage rings true and the more time I spent with them, the easier it is to see why. However, they are not opposites in one respect, one that is quite unusual for the K-Pop music industry. They are a same-sex couple.
Meet Mark Tuan (now Mark Tuan-Wang) and Jackson Wang, members of K-Pop super group GOT7 and the first openly gay couple to come out in South Korea’s notorious K-Pop industry.
I first met Mark and Jackson at Incheon Airport, in the area for private planes. It was an entirely different experience than when I arrived in Seoul, South Korea from the states. Security was friendly, polite and relaxed. There were no huge terminals, just a small intimate waiting area with a complimentary coffee stand that served all sorts of caffeinated beverages, smoothies, alcoholic drinks, sandwiches and fried chicken. I walked in, still dripping after my dash from the cab to the airport in the rain. A downpour had started while I was in route and there was no escaping it.
Mark and Jackson noticed my damp hair right away.
“Where’s your umbrella?” Jackson asked, urgently, before we’d even said hello.
I told them I didn’t pack an umbrella for my international trip. It had slipped my mind.
“You should always check the weather,” Jackson told me, earnestly. “Your health is very important. If you get too wet you’ll catch a cold. Rain can be unpredictable here in the spring.”
Mark handed me an umbrella, much larger and heavier than the 10 dollar umbrellas I bought from the drugstore each time I lost one. I held it, then gestured to give it back to him and shook my head. That’s before I noticed the Balenciaga emblem on the side.
“No, you keep it,” Mark said softly. He gestured to Jackson beside him. “We’ll share.”
It’s well known that Mark and Jackson met in the rain. They told the story themselves on a video series GOT7 did called GOT2DAY. The concept was a series of videos between 2 members of the 7 member group. They sat close together in front of a single camera and talked about their shared memories and random thoughts for about 10 minutes. Mark and Jackson’s episodes of GOT2Day were the most viewed videos of the series. In their second episode, Jackson recounted their first meeting.
According to Jackson, the story goes like this: “On my first night in Korea, I met Mark. After I met Mark, we both had a crush at first sight. So we went to buy ice cream. I remember that Mark had short black hair and he had an umbrella.”
The story seemed to be recreated tonight, as we walked onto the runway to board Mark and Jackson’s private plane. Mark’s hair wasn’t exactly black, but it was a rich dark brown, a bit long with a neat undercut. Jackson held the umbrella, wearing designer, fitted jeans and custom made black Adidas sneakers that said Team on one shoe and Wang on the other in gold lettering.
“Mark made me get him a plane!” Jackson told me, with a burst of energy as we boarded. Mark giggled beside him, a soft bout of laughter that made his whole face light up.
“We don’t own it,” Mark explained as he showed me to a seat. “We lease it. We basically rent the plane and the crew service for a monthly fee. But no one uses this plane but us. It’s easier for us to lease the plane to go back and forth to China than fly commercially.”
I could already tell that Mark is the pragmatic one in the relationship. Jackson walked behind Mark, keeping a close eye on him the whole time. Jackson is the protector. He held the umbrella and waited for Mark to slide past him to take a seat by the window before he sat down beside him.
The seats were like nothing I’d ever experienced on a plane. They were more like the seats at the fanciest movie theater in town, but on steroids. They were made of soft, buttery tan leather yet the seat felt like memory foam, melding to my bottom to make me extra comfortable and cradled. Each seat was wide enough to feel like I was in a recliner in my living room. With only 4 seats, the plane was small but large enough to keep every passenger completely comfortable. My seat could rotate 360 degrees and turn into a bed or a dining/work space. The flight attendant offered to show me all of the amenities but Mark and Jackson insisted on showing me everything themselves. They demonstrated how to make the personal flatscreen TV appear, how to access the iPad ordering system, how to turn on the massage function and heated seats.
During this flurry of activity, I couldn’t help but notice the rings, matching wedding bands on their left ring fingers. Mark’s band was rose gold, Jackson’s was silver. Each was encrusted with glittering diamonds of different sizes. They told me they used to only wear their wedding rings during certain times, mostly only when they were alone. Now, since they came out to the world, they are wear them all the time.
K-Pop has become a global phenomenon. Many more Americans than ever are aware of the existence of Korean Pop music thanks to famed super group BTS. But K-Pop is bigger than BTS. It’s long been a genre full of slick choreography, catchy tunes, flashy outfits and most importantly, attractive available idols singing and dancing their hearts out just for their fans. The Hallyu Wave has been cresting over the shores of many countries since the early 2000s. The internet helped it spread even faster and then social media took the wave to a crescendo. By now, many people have heard about what a tough industry K-Pop can be. Groups are often formed via training programs, where young men and women train from months to years in the fine arts of dance, singing, rapping and performing before they are handpicked to join a brand new K-Pop group. These training programs resemble a military boot camp more than the summer camp of our youth. There are never-ending diets, curfews, evaluations, brutal competitions and a strict no-dating rule.
Mark and Jackson both say they didn’t quite know what they were getting into.
“I never knew that dating would be such a big deal when I became a trainee,” Jackson said, leaning forward in his seat on the plane. “I was just focused on making it in the door. I figured that if I wanted to date, it would be the same as when I was a fencer. I’d fit it in when I could.”
“I didn’t really think about dating at all,” Mark said.
Mark and Jackson both came of age as K-Pop trainees. Although they are both part of a K-Pop group, neither are Korean. Mark is Taiwanese-American. He grew up in Los Angeles, California and moved to Korea when he was 17 in 2010 to become a trainee at JYP, one of the top three entertainment agencies in Korea. Jackson is Chinese. His parents are from mainland China but he grew up in Hong Kong. Prior to become a K-Pop trainee, Jackson was a national fencing champion for his home country as a teen. He started a second career at 17 when he joined JYP as a trainee in 2011.
Before that, both Mark and Jackson led a fairly simple life and -- surprisingly, despite the geographical differences -- an American life. Mark grew up in LA, among beaches, boba shops, basketball courts and the freedom to stay outside playing with his friends for as long as he wanted. Jackson grew up in Hong Kong, and although he was on the other side of the world from Mark, he went to an American school where he learned English and American culture from his teachers, classmates and fencing peers as he traveled the world attending international tournaments. These two young men could have ended up anywhere in life.
Jackson was poised to go to the Olympics. He was being courted by Stanford University to attend on a full scholarship. But Jackson wanted to perform. He had his eyes set on joining a K-Pop company and had already been scouted by Entertainment. They invited him to audition. So Jackson’s father, a world famous fencing coach, made a deal with him. Win the 2011 Asian Junior and Cadet Championships and he would let his son go to Korea to train. At the time, Jackson was not in great condition. He had sustained an injury and was still recovering. Still, determination and skill saw him through. To everyone’s surprise, he won the tournament. And he won the chance to go to Korean and follow his dream.
Mark was an ordinary teen living in California. He recently got a car. He hung out with his friends. He wasn’t a remarkable student, but was well liked by his teachers and peers. He wasn’t flashy but in a room full of teens, his good looks always stood out. This was the case when JYP Entertainment sent a scout to Mark’s school and they saw him in the cafeteria. They knew they had to invite him to audition. At first Mark was skeptical. He had no musical background or aspirations. He didn’t even know if he could sing, rap or dance. But his family and friends encouraged him to try something new. The worst thing that could happen was he tried something new. The best thing was that he went to Korea on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. So Mark practiced a song from Eminem, one of his favorite rappers, and went to the audition.
They both passed. Then they met each other in Korea on that faithful rainy day on July 3rd in 2011. I asked them if they thought it was fate.
“Yes,” Mark said, firmly, right away. He looked at Jackson. I see him tighten his grip on his husband’s hand. “I believe that God brought us together.”
“I think we would have met no matter what,” Jackson said. “But that’s still fate. We were meant to be together.”
The plane took off so smoothly that I hardly noticed. Mark and Jackson were obviously veterans. The flight attendant already knew their orders. Iced Americano for Mark and a sparkling water for Jackson.
“Diet,” Jackson told me, giving me a deadpan stare that made Mark giggle.
I scrolled through the iPad, looking at the many choices. There were almost too many to comprehend.
“What do you like?” Jackson asked. “They can make anything. Do you like Starbucks? We do Starbucks!”
I decided on still water. The opulence was overwhelming. But Mark and Jackson seemed right at home. In fact, they weren’t pretentious about their private plane at all. Sitting across from me, Mark and Jackson had the same easy-going, friendly air of a couple you’d meet at a sports bar and casually chat with as you’re watching your favorite team play.
I asked them if they enjoyed sports.
“We like to play basketball,” Jackson said. “Mark likes to do extreme sports. I’ve had to draw the line.”
“Underwater shark cage,” Mark said. “I really want to do it. For my 30th birthday. Jackson has to come.”
“I’m going to die,” Jackson said, big round eyes serious once again. This sent Mark into another fit of giggles.
“We like table tennis,” Jackson continued as Mark grinned. Mark had a distinct grin that where his cheeks pushed up against his eyes and his canine teeth were prominent. “Mark likes to ski and snowboard. We both like to swim. Mark enjoys fencing, too. Mark’s main sport is computer gaming. But we don’t get to do stuff like watch basketball and football games. We’re both too busy.”
I could tell. The only way for me to conduct an in-depth interview with them was to accompany them on their schedules. Currently, we were flying from Seoul, Korea to Beijing, China. Jackson had a solo concert the following night. Mark was meeting with investors and designers for his new clothing line. GOT7, the group, had recently gone into a hiatus. Every Korean male is required to spend 2 years in the military. GOT7’s four Korean members were currently completing their military service duties. GOT7 also has a member from Thailand. He returned to his home country to pursue entertainment activities there. Now Mark and Jackson are spending more time in China, as individual entertainers. They each spent years building up a following, Jackson in music and Mark in fashion. Soon, they would focus their attention one hundred percent in China during this hiatus. But they had to get married first. Again.
“Our relationship started in Korea,” Mark said. “Our main fanbase is in Korea. Our home is also in Korea. Our first home. So I wanted to come out there. I wanted to be honest. And I also wanted to show the world that Korea is changing.”
“It just got to the point where we couldn’t hold it in anymore,” Jackson told me. Mark sat beside him, holding his hand, their fingers slotted together.
“It was making Mark miserable,” Jackson said. Mark nodded, beside him. “Me too. He wanted to be honest with our fans. They’re the ones who make it so we can do what we love. So we can continue to be together. It honestly hurt, lying to them for so long. Something needed to change.”
“We’d been keeping this secret for a long time,” Mark said. “I’m 28 but in Korean age, I’m turning 30 soon. I used to say I wanted to get married at 35, but 30 is long enough to wait. Jackson married me, but I wanted it to be for real. I wanted everyone to know. I want a real wedding. I want our marriage to be celebrated.”
“And I make sure Mark gets what he wants,” Jackson said. “So we told our company we need to go public. We talked about it for a year until we finally agreed on a plan.”
It wasn’t an easy decision. You could say that every boy band is fueled by the fantasy that one of their legions of dedicated fans could get the guy one day. If everything came together. The fan version of fate.
K-Pop uses this fantasy to its full advantage. Each group has their own fan name. GOT7 fans are called iGOT7 or Ahgase, a Korean abbreviation. The members refer to their fans intimately by their group names. GOT7 are always speaking solely to Ahgases. They meet their fans often at concerts and other events, such as fansigns where fans can sit one-on-one with each member for about a minute. Getting into a fansign is not cheap. Fans must buy albums from a designated store sponsoring the fansign. The store selects a fixed number of fans to attend the fansign from those who purchased albums. Attendees are selected randomly, like drawing names from a hat. Each album purchased is another name in the hat. In order to have the best chance of being selected, fans must purchase many albums. Sometimes fans purchase over 100 albums in order to have a chance to be selected for the fansign, which could be over 2000 US dollars.
During the fansign, fans have the chance to make their boyfriend fantasies come true. They can ask the GOT7 members to call them a special nickname, pretend to be their boyfriend for a minute or have a member sing them a treasured love song. This blurred romantic line between fan and idol keeps both parties going. That may be why there’s such a hesitation to break it.
“We love our fans,” Mark said. “We didn’t want to hurt them.” He paused for a moment, looked at Jackson, and then added. “But it was hurting us.”
Dating as a K-Pop star has always been fraught with challenges. When member of veteran K-Pop group Super Junior, Lee Sungmin, announced his engagement, long-time fans demanded his removal from the group. His activities with the group have not been the same since. K-Pop diva Hyuna announced that she was dating E-Dawn, a rapper in the rookie group Pentagon. After outrage from the general public and months of negotiations, their entertainment company dropped them both. In the years since, K-Pop fans have seemed to become more understanding. Super couple Kai from EXO and Jennie from BLACKPINK became instant media darlings when their relationship was announced on January 1st, 2019. Other couples have debuted since then, to much fanfare and speculation, some accepted with more ease than others. Mark and Jackson both noticed that the industry was changing. Both entertainment companies and fans seemed more open to the idea that K-Pop idols were also young adults who wanted the chance to find love, despite their obligations to continuously show love to their fans. But they still faced one significant challenge. Unlike all the previous examples, they were a gay couple.
Mark asked me if I was cold. He encouraged me to turn on my heated seat. Mark and Jackson lounged under a posh, plush blanket. I couldn’t help noticing how attuned they were to each other. Mark refilled Jackson’s glass from the small bottle of Pellegrino without a second thought. Jackson handed Mark slippers from under the seat and tucked the blanket in around Mark’s waist. They were attentive to me and to each other. It was easy to see why they would be so attentive to their fans’ feelings about their relationship.
I asked them to take me through their relationship from the beginning.
“I met Mark on the first night I was at JYP and I took him on a date,” Jackson told me, eagerly.
“He thought it was a date,” Mark said, shaking his head a bit.
“It was!” Jackson insisted.
“Did you ask me?” Mark asked, turning to his husband.
“But I paid!” Jackson said, his eyes still wide and insistent. The laughter they shared was easy-going and teasing.
“Actually, I paid. Jackson didn’t have any Korean money yet. And he didn’t ask me,” Mark told me. “It was a one-sided date. Only he knew it was a date.”
“We’ve been arguing about this for 10 years!” Jackson said, laughing. Mark giggled quietly beside him.
“Maybe it was a one-sided date,” Jackson said, looking at Mark with such a tender fondness, I wondered if they remembered I was in the room. “But I really liked him. I was instantly in love. I wanted him to notice me. I wanted to be his close friend.”
I asked Mark if he felt the same. Mark paused and then shook his head slowly.
“Kind of,” he said. “Maybe not instantly in love, but I wanted to be his close friend, too. As soon as Jackson arrived and spoke to me, I knew I had a new friend. Soon we were best friends. We were inseparable. And after I got to know him and truly trust him, I fell in love.”
“We were always together,” Jackson said. “People used to get us confused. Which is crazy. I mean, look at us! Mark is so much more handsome than me. That’s why he’s a famous model and fashion icon in China.”
Mark sat beside Jackson, smiling. He pulled Jackson’s hand up to his mouth and gave the back of his hand a small kiss.
“They would say our names as one word,” Jackson continued. “MarkandJackson. Because we were always together and they didn’t know who was who. Mark would go everywhere with me. As long as I talked to people and he didn’t have to. Even though my Korean was horrible and his was always better!”
“I was shy,” Mark admitted, giving Jackson a fond smile of his own. “I didn’t want to talk to strangers.”
“We went to different restaurants,” Jackson said. “We went to Han River to play basketball. We rode the bus all over Seoul. That was before Google Maps was reliable, so we got lost a lot. We didn’t have a lot of time outside of training, but we made the most of it.”
“Tell her about Taiwan,” Mark mumbled, patting Jackson’s hand. The look they shared was as if they were trading thoughts, a kind of relationship telepathy.
“I wanted to take a trip with Mark,” Jackson said. “So I suggested Taiwan. Mark’s parents are from there but he had never been. Mark’s dad contacted some of his relatives and they gave us a free place to stay. It was the first time we’d had a week off since we were trainees. This was like… I had been there a year? Two years?” He looked at Mark for confirmation, who nodded. “Yeah, so we went. It was also our first time taking a vacation by ourselves. You know, without our parents? Even though we were hanging with Mark’s fam, we had a lot of alone time to just hang out and go exploring. It was amazing.”
Mark smiled at nudged Jackson a little. Jackson looked over at his husband.
“You talk,” he said.
Mark took over the story easily. I noticed how they never let go of each other’s hand.
“We went to a club in Taiwan,” Mark said. His voice is softer than Jackson’s, but strong. Very measured yet he has the same level of intimacy in his voice that Jackson had. “We danced and stayed out all night. It was a gay club.”
“Mark’s idea,” Jackson interjected.
“My idea,” Mark confirmed.
I asked if they knew that the other was gay at this point.
“Well, we were always together, like I said,” Jackson said, taking over the story again. “So I had told Mark that I was bi a long time ago. Back when we first started talking, I came out to him. It was sort of an open secret among everyone at JYP. Back then, I didn’t know discretion…” He looked at Mark and gave a short laugh, obviously remembering something that was shared between just the two of them. “In fact, an older male at JYP slapped me because I asked to share a shower with him in the locker room. Like I said, once it got out, everyone knew.”
Jackson told the story, almost laughing, like it was a joke, but the fact that Jackson was slapped, seemingly as a result for him being bi in a public shower space, is not a laughing matter. Korea is not known for their acceptance of LGBTQ individuals. Although they’ve recently begun having gay pride parades in Seoul and other small steps towards inclusion, there are still no anti-discrimination laws in Korea to protect LGBTQ citizens. Same-sex marriage is not legal. The public opinion of same-sex couples is still poor, probably due to heavily Christian influences in the country. Many LGBTQ Korean citizens must live underground or faced being shunned from their family and careers. There are only a few celebrities who have come out as openly gay including a famous MC and an independent K-Pop idol who launched his platform around openly expressing his homosexuality.
“I actually warned Mark about it,” Jackson said, looking at his husband again. “That people would probably think he’s gay because he hung out around me all the time.”
“I said, I am gay,” Mark said, staring back at Jackson like he was just talking to him. “I had never admitted that to anyone before. But I had known for a long time. I only told Jackson.”
“And I never told anyone else,” Jackson said, turning to me and speaking emphatically. “I learned from my own mistakes. I made sure it never got out.”
“But when Jackson suggested Taiwan, I thought about going to a gay club there,” Mark said. “Back then, there weren’t too many gay clubs in Korea.”
“No, I wouldn’t let Mark go to one,” Jackson said. “Even if we could.”
“I knew that,” Mark said. “But I convinced Jackson to go to a gay club in Taiwan. It’s more accepted there and we’d be far away from Korea and everyone we knew there. So I thought it would be safe for us to go.”
“I was nervous,” Jackson said. They told the story with such ease, respecting each other’s turn to talk while knowing when it was their turn to speak. “But I really wanted to go, especially since Mark wanted to go, too. Truthfully, we both hadn’t dated much. And we’d only dated girls. I had a few girlfriends in high school. Mark went to school dances and on group dates. We never had a chance to explore dating guys. So this was kind of our only chance.”
I asked them about dating among their fellow trainees. Mark and Jackson exchanged a look.
“People were dating,” Jackson said. “Of course, we weren’t the only guys who were into other guys there. But you had to be really hush hush and in the loop. It was hard for us to know exactly who to trust, especially since we didn’t speak Korean well at all back then. I didn’t consider it a possibility. Plus, I’m not the type of guy that Korean guys like! They like Mark. He’s pretty! He’s skinny!”
Mark shook his head, an amused smile on his face.
“Lots of people had a crush on Mark,” Jackson said. “I knew all about it because people would ask me how to confess. Lots of girls and a few guys. In Korea, confessing is a big deal. They all wanted to confess to Mark. I told Mark and he’d always say no, no. So I had to practically beat them off with a stick. You remember that, Mark? Mark!”
Mark was giggling again by now and he leaned in, pressing his face against Jackson’s shoulder. By this time, Jackson was laughing too.
“I was beating them all off! Fans too, after we debuted. I always had to keep people away from Mark. Or they’d overwhelm him! It wasn’t the same for me. It’s fine, I get it.”
“I always thought Jackson was very handsome and attractive,” Mark said, softly, staring at his husband again. It’s hard to describe these intense love looks the two of them share. They continued throughout my time with them.
“He likes to say that!” Jackson laughed, shaking Mark’s hand. “But yeah, casual dating was hard. So we went to the gay club in Taiwan to have a good time. And then I had to beat men off of Mark with a stick again. They kept asking him to dance but he told me he didn’t want to. I said, Mark, this is your chance and he kept telling me he didn’t want to.”
“I didn’t want to,” Mark said. “I don’t like dancing with strangers. So I only danced with Jackson.”
“Nobody was asking me to dance, so it was cool,” Jackson said with a laugh.
Mark looked at me seriously. “Men asked him to dance,” Mark said. “I said, he could go but he wouldn’t.”
“I wasn’t leaving Mark alone,” Jackson said, firmly, shaking his head. “No way. Besides, I didn’t want to. I only wanted to dance with Mark.”
“And I only wanted to dance with Jackson,” Mark said, that fond smile on his face again.
“We danced all night!” Jackson told me, enthusiastically. “Until… until the sun came up! We didn’t have our shirts on anymore. Everyone took their shirts off. It was hot and sweaty. We really didn’t have money to spend on alcohol so we were sober and everyone around us was really drunk. But that made it more fun for some reason. It just felt… unlike anything we’d ever experienced before. It felt like community. We didn’t have to worry about looking over our shoulders or secrets getting out. We were anonymous. We were safe. We could do anything.”
“So I asked him to kiss me,” Mark said. Jackson laughed, sounding absolutely delighted, like the story was happening all over again.
“I said, are you sure? Are you sure? Like I asked him one thousand times!” Jackson said.
“Finally, I kissed him to shut him up,” Mark said. “Sometimes Jackson doesn’t stop talking.”
Watching them, I can’t help but feel absolutely charmed. The level of ease they have with each other is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in an interview. These men are famous in Korea and China to a level that is akin to American music stars like Ariana Grande and Justin Timberlake. Yet, here they were, casually sharing their private plane and giggling together in front of me. I could tell that they had been together for a long time. That they knew each other inside and out. That they were used to sharing huge secrets. And they were grateful they didn’t have to shoulder the weight of those secrets anymore.
“We were together after that,” Mark said. “It was the same as before, except with kissing.”
“Anddddd…” Jackson said, teasingly, suggestively drawing out the word. Mark playfully smacked his arm and he yelped.
I was curious about that so I asked them how they found privacy to be together.
“It was hard,” Jackson admitted. “As trainees, they keep you really busy. You have classes all the time. If you don’t have classes, you’re supposed to be practicing. They really look down on you if you’re not practicing all the time. Especially me, since I wasn’t handsome, I wasn’t talented and I didn’t even speak Korean.”
Mark let go of Jackson’s hand and placed his hand on Jackson’s shoulder like he was telling him to calm down.
“He was handsome and talented,” Mark clarified. “And he worked really hard. It was really hard for Jackson as a trainee. He honestly was under a lot of extra pressure to prove himself. We couldn’t be found out, as a couple. So we had to sneak away a lot. We had one spot, which was the top of this remote staircase. We’d sit up there and talk and de-stress and... other stuff.” He gave Jackson a pointed look. Jackson, who had begun to look distressed for a moment, looked at his husband and then gave him a genuine smile. It was clear they really knew how to make each other smile.
I asked them if their relationship was an open secret among the company, like Jackson’s sexuality.
“No,” Jackson said, seriously, obviously not joking around with his answer. “It was a big secret.”
“We were scared that if the company knew they wouldn’t debut us together,” Mark said.
“No, I was scared that if they knew they wouldn’t let Mark debut,” Jackson said, looking over at his husband beside him. “And I couldn’t let that happen. Mark worked harder than any other trainee. I knew he was next in line. I knew he was meant to be famous. For me, I was just biding my time until I failed another evaluation and got kicked out. I didn’t know what that would mean for our relationship, but I wanted Mark to debut more than anything.”
Mark reached down to give Jackson’s knee a gentle squeeze. “I knew that we were both going to debut. And I wanted us to make it together.” He reached for Jackson’s hand again. I sat across from them, observing the way that they seemed to breathe in unison. Mark knew just how to reassure Jackson and vice-versa. Their anxieties, their fears, their expectations, they knew them all. They had experienced them together. I could sense this through the looks they shared with each other, through their touch.
We ordered food, although it was only a two hour flight to China. Mark arranged Jackson’s chopsticks for him, made sure he had enough garlic sauce for his sushi. There was a rich history to every movement they made, every story they told together. I hadn’t expected this when I came to profile two members of a K-Pop group. Not at all.
GOT7 debuted on January 16th, 2014. The group is comprised of 7 members: four Korean members, JB, Jinyoung, Youngjae and Yugyeom, one Thai member, BamBam, one Chinese member, Jackson and one American member, Mark. Expectations were high, coming from one of the Big Three entertainment companies in Korea. In reality, their debut started out more as a spark instead of a bang. Their catchy debut song Girls, Girls, Girls caught the attention of fervent K-Pop fans, but failed to connect with the general public. It’s a common perception that any boy group that comes from the Big Three should immediately soar to the top of the charts without any real effort. That certainly wasn’t the reality for GOT7. They weren’t number one on the music charts. They didn’t win music shows. Not for a long time. In the early days, most K-Pop circles GOT7 considered to be a flop.
“I was convinced it was my fault,” Jackson said, when I asked them how they felt back then. “All my fault.”
That mentality is hard to imagine now. Our plane was met by a limo as soon as it landed in on a private airstrip in Beijing. The inside of the limo looked like a rap video, with a full bar taking up one whole side and a lighted ceiling that Mark turned to a soft, peach color. I asked them if they owned the limo as well, but Mark explained that they simply had a dedicated car service in Beijing.
The couple has money. If the plane, the limo and diamond wedding bands didn’t explain, that then their designer clothes and iced out jewelry told the rest of the story. Mark was wearing a large, completely diamond-encrusted rose gold watch that sparkled in the light every time he moved. The rumor is that Jackson bought it for Mark’s 25th birthday for around one hundred thousand US dollars. Jackson has a matching watch in silver.
The limo took us out of the congested city into the lavish suburbs. Beijing is growing by leaps and bounds and so is the suburban sprawl. Mark and Jackson said they bought their Beijing home a couple of years before housing prices got really crazy.
“Our home is worth three times more now than when we bought it,” Mark told me, on the way there.
“It was his idea,” Jackson told me proudly, his arm around Mark comfortably in the back of the limo. “Mark controls our finances for sure. He’s the only reason why I still have money!”
The finances were not always so plentiful. Back in their debut days, Mark and Jackson weren’t sure they would be able to pay back their trainee debts. The company puts up a certain amount of money to invest in each trainee’s debut. Once they debut, the trainee is responsible for paying the debt back through their group earnings. They only begin to earn their own money after that debt is paid off.
Both Mark and Jackson came from well-off families, but it was important to them to earn their own money.
“When we were trainees, we lived on our allowance from the company,” Jackson said. “So we didn’t have a lot. But that was okay, because we found every cheap place to eat within a 20 mile radius! We had fun just walking around and talking. Our parents always treated us with money for Christmas and our birthdays. We’d take turns taking each other out to fancy meals and the movies.”
But not making money after debut was stressful. They were at a point in their lives where they couldn’t expect their parents to bail them out. If the group wasn’t successful, what would they do?
“I knew I had to help GOT7 become successful,” Jackson told me, once we were seated in their home.
I tried not to stare but it was like walking into a palace. High ceilings, marble floors, banisters, decorations from all over the world. Mark and Jackson had obviously worked hard to make it into a home. There were pictures of their families and bandmates all over the place. Most importantly, pictures of them together from when they were trainees, to working on Chinese shows together, to the large portrait of them, staring adoringly at each other in customize-designed Alexander Wang tuxedos, their pre-wedding photo shoot before their lavish wedding planned for that summer. They would have on different custom-designed tuxedos on their decadent wedding day. For now, the designer was top secret.
We sat in the huge living room, on a cozy couch. It was large enough to fit 6 grown men. I sat on one side. Mark and Jackson were curled up in the middle, Mark’s head on Jackson's chest, Jackson’s arms around Mark’s lithe waist.
“I asked them to put me on some variety shows,” Jackson continued. “The company was reluctant because… like I said, my Korean was crap. But I pressed them and insisted. Because I knew something they didn’t.” Jackson leaned in, staring at me like he was sharing a secret. When I asked him what, he blurted out, “I knew that Koreans love to laugh at me!” Jackson laughed brashly after that while Mark gentle swatted his thigh.
Self-deprecating humor aside, Jackson did become a hit on the Korean variety show circuit. He became known as a silly yet earnest guy who could charm anyone who crossed his path. The general Korean public may not be paying attention to GOT7 but they soon knew about Jackson. He volunteered himself as the gateway drug to bring GOT7 some new prescriptions in the form of fans. The plan worked, but it started off a long-suffering theme in Mark and Jackson’s relationship. Separation.
“We told the group about our relationship right away,” Mark recalled. They explained that they trained with their fellow group mates for a while prior to debut, but they didn’t feel comfortable until the actual debut had happened before they officially came out.
“We reasoned that they wouldn’t kick both of us out,” Mark continued.
“And Mark hates to lie,” Jackson added. “I knew he wouldn’t be at his best if we continued the secret. Mark at his best… is the best.”
They shared another one of their many, loving looks. There was so much that passed between them in those looks, I don’t think I could begin to understand it during just one day with them.
“They were supportive,” Mark said. “In the beginning.”
“Honestly, the group was the perfect cover for us!” Jackson said. “In K-Pop they have something called… you know, skinship? It’s basically like… touching someone as a form of friendship. It’s friendship but it’s also a little bit of flirting? It’s a big thing! So Mark and I would be able to touch each other, like he would pat my thigh or I would rub the back of his neck. We could hug. We could even hold hands! And it wasn’t considered weird, it was considered skinship. Fans do like to ship members… you know what that means, right?” Jackson didn’t even wait for me to answer before he went on. “It means like… pretend they’re in relationships! Part of the skinship is that the fans use that as proof the two members are in relationships. It’s fun for them. So everyone gets a couple name. Like my couple name with BamBam is JackBam! Our couple name is Markson.”
“He tried to push for Jark,” Mark said, with an amused smile. Couple “ship” names are usually a mash-up of each person’s name.
“I thought, why not Jark? Why is it automatically Markson? But then I realized that… Mark is better looking than me so he should go first. Plus, Jark sounds weird.” Jackson laughed his signature high-pitched laugh as he stared at his husband. Mark gave him an affectionate kiss on the cheek.
“We liked Markson. We even had a Markson sign in our room. As long as we had Markson, we knew that we could kind of act like a couple all the time. It was kind of like… hiding in plain sight,” Jackson said.
Fans were utterly charmed by Markson. They even got their own show on a Korean variety program called After School Club. The two of them spent an hour chatting with the hosts, playing games with each other and answering questions from fans. It was so popular, the weekly show invited them to attend ten times. Mark and Jackson managed to film three shows.
“I really wanted to return to ASC to film the Markson Show all ten times so we could fill up the card a win a prize,” Mark said, his eyes shining. “But then… management had other ideas.”
Their shipping plan worked, for a while. Mark and Jackson practiced together, performed together, had skinship when they were in front of the camera or in the public eye and then enjoyed their “other stuff” when they were alone. But the formula didn’t last forever. Jackson began to be absent from group activities more and more. The first long stretch was when Jackson had one of his groundbreaking appearances on Roommate. Jackson was living away from the group for over a month.
“I really missed him,” Mark recalled.
“I think back then the problem was I was always trying to impress everyone,” Jackson said. “So I was in a million different places at once. I would get so busy trying to everyone to like me that I neglected the person who loved me.”
“It got hard,” Mark said, quietly.
As Jackson’s variety career began to take off, he’d spend more and more time away from the group. When he came back, the couple said things felt more urgent between them. They needed more alone time than they could get. Most of their life was spent at work. It was typical for them to spend 20 hours a day either on camera, at rehearsal, with fans, rehearsing again, performing. The four hours they got off were meant for sleeping, not for maintaining a connection between a young couple. So their skinship increased, their loving longing looks increased, their neediness for each other increased on and off screen. Fans and management alike began to notice.
“They took us aside and said, look, we know you two are together and you don’t get to see each other as much,” Jackson said. “But we can’t risk your relationship being outed. You need to pay attention to other members on camera and in public. And pay less attention to each other. They had specific instructions, like who we could talk to and what we should do together. They wanted Mark to play up the fact that he was close to Yugyeom. They went on vacation together in LA and the fans really liked that. Called them Tuan Brothers. And they wanted me to be closer to our bandmate Jinyoung, because a lot of fans really love Jinson. So we followed the rules. It was the only way to be together. But it was hard.”
Both men became solemn as we spoke about this period of their relationship. It was obvious that the separation and the pressure for them to turn their attention to others took quite a toll on both of them. Jackson tightened his hold on Mark. Mark closed his eyes for a long moment every now and then.
GOT7 debuted in Japan. Then Jackson made his solo debut in China. They were also touring overseas in other Asian countries, such as Thailand and Singapore, as well as in North America. Although GOT7 was not the most popular in Korea, they became quite popular abroad. They toured the United States twice before BTS set foot on American soil. They helped popularize K-Pop in America. By all accounts, they were an international sensation. But instead of easing up, the pressure to make GOT7 truly successful in Korea continued to build. Jackson found himself juggling three countries and three languages at once. He was in Korea one day, China the next, then Japan. He had his own variety gigs in China and he wanted to make solo music. It quickly became too much.
“Dropping Japan was actually Mark’s idea,” Jackson said, looking down at his husband. “He saw how I was burning the candle at both ends. He urged me to pursue Chinese activities since I was the only member that could really promote there.”
Korea and Chinese political relations were strained at the time, so K-Pop had pulled out of the Chinese market. Jackson, being Chinese himself, was able to create his own studio, separate from JYP and strict Korean association, so he could conduct his Chinese activities. He gave a tearful speech at his final Japanese concert in July 2017.
“This has been a memory I will never forget,” Jackson said, to the adoring Japanese audience. “Thank you very much.”
Two months later, shocked fans learned that Jackson would no longer be attending Japanese activities. His sad speech had foreshadowed the future of GOT7 in Japan without him.
“If I could be in two places at once, I would do it,” Jackson said. “I always want to be wherever Mark is.”
But Jackson’s health was failing. He was suffering injuries and illnesses. He was overworked and overstressed. This compromise -- dropping Japan -- was supposed to make things better.
“The end of that year,” Jackson said, tightening his arms around Mark, who shifted slightly in his embrace. “We were apart for a long time. Nearly 6 weeks straight. I went to China to set up my studio and start focusing on promotions there. I went to a lot of events. I can’t even remember it now. It’s all a blur, really. Mark was busy doing the Japan tour with the boys. They were performing like 10 shows in two weeks so they were very busy. Mark and I didn’t see each other once. We weren’t talking on the phone. It was hard to text. Things got bad.”
“When I wasn’t performing or practicing, I was either gaming or sleeping,” Mark said. “My phone felt like it was always blank. I felt… really alone.”
“Mark lost a lot of weight,” Jackson said. “Like… look at him. He’s always been this skinny. How could he lose more weight? But he did. He wasn’t eating. It was alarming. My Mark loves to eat. He started to become skin and bones. When I realized this, I was really scared for him and for us. I knew I wasn’t doing things right. I wasn’t taking care of him.”
“I couldn’t handle it,” Mark said. “I hadn’t learned how to be on my own yet. I was always with Jackson.”
Mark was still part of his group, but it wasn’t the same as when Jackson was right beside him. Mark is soft-spoken and easy going. He was easily overpowered by the exuberance of his bandmates. GOT7 is known for being hyper and talking over each other. Mark’s thoughts would be lost in the group setting. Jackson always made it a point to step in on Mark’s behalf and make sure he had a chance to be heard.
“I would said, Mark, what do you think? Mark, you decide,” Jackson said. “I wanted him to speak on camera because I knew that he had really good things to say. If the others were talking too much while Mark was trying to talk, I told them to shut up. Mark does the same for me. He’s the oldest in the group so everyone has to listen to him. They don’t really do what they’re supposed to do.”
After the dark winter apart, Mark and Jackson reunited for the New Year. They had a long talk about their relationship and their future. They knew they wanted to be together for the rest of their lives.
“Mark and I have always been soulmates,” Jackson said. “I had to remind him of that. I had to remind myself that I wasn’t just working for me or for the group. I was working Mark and our future. I wanted to make him proud of me. I wanted to make sure that he never worried or went without. I needed to keep him safe and healthy. I wanted to make sure he always remembered how much I loved him and believed in him. We had to remember our purpose. Our purpose was to be together.”
Jackson’s phone rang in the middle of our interview. Jackson pulled it out of his pocket and apologized to us both before he answered the call, switching from perfect English to perfect Chinese. He left the room and Mark smiled at me.
“Jackson works really hard,” he told me. I asked him how he felt about that.
“I feel grateful because I know I’m Jackson’s number one priority,” Mark said. “Family is everything to him and we’re family. He’ll do anything for his family. So I’m proud that he works so hard. One of my jobs is to help him take care of himself. He puts everyone else first.”
I can’t help scanning the room, looking at different pictures. One framed picture shows Mark and Jackson posing for a selfie in the bathroom. They are obviously young, each wearing a backwards snapback and making goofy “gansta” hand poses.
“We used to take a lot of bathroom selfies,” Mark told me with a laugh. He got up and returned with an iPad. It was a digital photo album. I scrolled through, looking at intimate pictures of them together in dorm rooms, in hotel rooms, in cars, on buses, and famous landmarks on their many travels with GOT7. I paused on a picture of Jackson on one knee in front of Mark. Mark looked utterly delighted. They weren’t wearing any special clothing or at a fancy restaurant. It was an intimate home cooked dinner that Jackson had prepared for him. He set up a hidden camera to capture the moment when he proposed to Mark.
“I loved it,” Mark said, recounting the proposal. They were engaged in February, 2018. “It was everything I wanted. Jackson made my favorite noodles. We had the whole evening together. He… what he said to me… made my heart skip a beat.” I could tell it still had the same effect on Mark, all these years later. A pink glow spread over his cheeks as he spoke. “Jackson can say these speeches about this feelings that make my heart stop. Then he gave me the ring and asked me. I said, yes. I knew we would always get married but I thought we would wait longer to get engaged. But when he asked me… after we had been apart for so long… I knew it was exactly what we needed.”
Jackson joined us again a few minutes later. He resumed his hold on Mark, arms around him, and peered over Mark’s shoulder at the pictures we were looking at.
“You didn’t show her the pictures of us in the tub, did you?” Jackson asked. Mark shushed him with a smile.
In 2018, Mark and Jackson felt more mature and secure in their relationship. They no longer displayed the same amounts of skinship on camera. This was a conscious decision made to please management and also because they felt comfortable together. They learned how to communicate through one simple glance. The appreciated simply being in the same room together.
“We were preparing for our world tour,” Mark said. “Jackson still had a lot of solo schedules. But this time when we were apart, we made time for each other. Time to call and text and FaceTime. I also began visiting Jackson secretly, which was something we needed. My schedule had more flexibility.”
“We moved out of the dorms,” Jackson said. “That was huge. It was a hard thing to juggle with the fans. The fans are always curious about our living situation. They love to know who’s roommates with who and things like that. We used to show them our rooms and our dorm. We showed them everything. But then Mark and I needed our own place. We had the opportunity to move out of the dorm and we took it. But our cover story was hard to keep straight.”
“Jackson officially moved out,” Mark said. “That made sense, because he was in China a lot. I said I moved into the new dorm. Jackson said he had a roommate but he forgot he said it.”
“I said it, like, one time!” Jackson said, his eyes widening the way they did sometimes when he got excited. “But the fans! They remembered it forever. Then a long time later, one of them asked me about my roommate. It was my producer friend, BoyToy. He helped us move and he stayed with us while he was looking for his own place. It was temporary but the fans thought it was forever. By the time they asked again, he was long gone and I had forgotten I even said that.”
“We know our fans pay attention,” Mark said. “They take everything we say as gospel so we had to be very careful about our words. The company wanted me to keep a room at the main dorm, so I did. I stayed there sometimes, when Jackson was gone. We have sasaengs who follow us around. A sasaeng is like… a really obsessed fan. So we have to be careful when we drive to the airport or go anywhere. Sometimes I had to go to the dorm, just to throw them off the trail.”
“No one could know we were living together,” Jackson told me. He looked down at Mark and shook his head. “It was crazy. We were like… James Bond. Double-Oh Seven! Good thing Mark remembered our cover stories because I didn’t!”
“About a year later, our company decided to get rid of the shared dorm because everyone wanted to move out,” Mark said. “I did keep some things there. Like I had a new gaming computer I kept toting back and forth and some other stuff. So I did a v-live at the dorm… it’s like a one way video chat with the fans. I showed them my room there. That really pleased them. But honestly, the room was like a movie set to me. It didn’t seem like a real room.”
“Mark’s messy! His real room isn’t that neat!” Jackson exclaimed, then burst out laughing when Mark glared at him. “It’s true, baby. You’ve got so much stuff. Of course you’d have a messy room.”
“Jackson can’t talk,” Mark said, his face deadpan as Jackson continued to laugh. “He’s allergic to throwing things out. I have to do it while he’s sleeping.”
“We’re both messy!” Jackson said. “That’s why we have the best housekeeper in the universe. Two of them, one for our place in Korea and another for this place. Otherwise, we would both get lost in our own mess. But your room was never neat like when you did that v-live, baby.”
Jackson was staring at Mark. Once again, they were lost in their own world. I felt like a mere fly on the wall. They had another conversation without words. I’ll never have any idea what they were saying but the conversation ended with both of them smiling at each other.
“Our fans are very trusting,” Jackson said, turning back to me. “They believe what we put out there. Which is a good thing. We don’t want to lie to them. But there are things we could never tell them. It broke our hearts, honestly. We wanted to tell them the truth. But nobody believed that would be a good thing. Not for a long time.”
Jackson’s phone rang again. He gave me an apologetic look and told me that he had to go to his concert venue for pre-concert meetings. I understood and was about to show myself out but they invited me to go with them.
As part of Mark and Jackson’s entourage, I got a taste of the highlife. They had 5 cars in their huge and a driver on call to take them wherever they needed to go. We sat in the back of their Bentley Bentayga SUV while Mark answered emails on his phone and Jackson made small talk with me. He was easy to talk to, responding naturally to everything I said and cracking cheesy yet truly amusing jokes.
“I’m really excited about this tour,” he told me. “Mark and I have been working on it for like… 6 months, babe?”
“Eight,” Mark said, without looking up from his phone.
“Long time.” Jackson was beaming, but he wasn’t looking at me. Mark seemed busy on the phone until about 30 minutes into the ride. We were sitting in heavy traffic on Beijing’s neon-bright streets when he looked up at us.
“Last minute issues with the rider,” he said, referring the list of requirements each artists gives to a venue.
“He’s a boss!” Jackson declared, clapping a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Do you know he’s directing my tour? He also designed all the outfits. He did the back up dancer outfits and we worked on my outfits together. He also designed the sets and helped me put the set list together. He advised me on how I should perform my songs. He’s the music director, too. He came up with all the arrangements for the live versions of the songs.”
I asked why Mark was behind the scenes and not on stage with Jackson. Surely, the two of them could make music together. Not only was Markson a popular ship in the GOT7 fandom, but their fans loved their concert unit during GOT7’s 2019 world tour, when they performed songs together, just the two of them.
“I decided I wanted to take a break,” Mark said. “From performing.”
“Mark’s problem is that he’s incredible at everything he does,” Jackson said, earnestly. “He’s amazing at music, songwriting, directing, modeling, fashion design… it’s hard to be amazing at everything! Mark has so many things he wants to do. So when we were planning for this break from GOT7 we really talked about what we both wanted to accomplish. Mark decided he wanted to take a break from performing and focus on other parts of his dream.” Jackson leaned towards me a little more, still speaking with much enthusiasm, but this time more like he was letting me in on another secret. “See, Mark puts his heart and soul out there every time he goes out on stage. He honestly does more than anyone else in the group. He interacts with the fans from start to finish, three hours straight! It’s very draining. That’s why nobody else can do that like Mark can. But when he’s done, it takes so much out of him. It’s hard for him to do anything else. He needs to recover. He really needs to rest between shows and it’s hard for him to do something else. So he decided to take a break because he wanted to focus his energy into other things. You need to understand, nobody loves their fans more than Mark. But I assured him that his fans will still be waiting when we’re back from our hiatus and they want to see him succeed in other things.”
Mark was nodding quietly, reflectively. I could tell from the look on his face that this had been a big decision for him. The results seemed positive so far. Mark’s fashion line, 626 Relax, was set to launch in a few weeks and the pre-order was already at capacity. Mark’s fashion of choice was streetwear, comfortable yet stylish outfits that matched the type of airport Mark was known for.
Jackson’s first solo concert was in a modest concert hall that held about ten thousand people. It sold out within the first half hour tickets went on sale. Tickets were currently retailing for 5 times the price on the black market and the concert was the next day. Jackson’s small tour would take him to 4 other cities in China, Macau and Hong Kong.
“I really wanted to make a second show!” Jackson said, when I asked him about the Beijing sold out show. “But I just couldn’t. I feel so bad that not everyone got a ticket. I also feel blessed to have so many beautiful fans. I really want to go to their house one-by-one and thank them all!”
The inside of the venue hall was a flurry of activity. People were everywhere, constructing the stage, setting things up backstage, rehearsing, making phone calls. There was a lot of noise, but the din is happy and energized. Mark was gone instantly. He had many hats to juggle as Jackson’s tour director. Jackson led me to his dressing room which said Jackson in Chinese letters on the door. Inside was a large couch, some comfortable chairs, a table, an old-school pinball game, and a large vanity where Jackson would get his hair and make-up done.
“I want to keep it old school, you know,” Jackson said. “Not too much tech. We want to focus. Mark and I both love the 90s. It’s when we grew up.”
Soon, Jackson was surrounded by his entourage and I was a fly on the wall. Jackson talked and joked with five other men. It was clear that he was the center of everything that they do. They shot the breeze for a while, then Jackson asked for some space. He sat at his vanity and stared in the mirror. I could see the intense mental focus overtake his face. This was the focus of an elite athlete. Some lessons never leave us.
Later, Jackson was on stage, going through a full dress rehearsal. I only sat in the audience, but after a long day of traveling, I felt tired. If Jackson felt the same, he didn’t show it. He looked super human, dancing and rapping on stage. Each outfit was slicker than the last, until he ended up shirtless at the end. The production values were impressive. Laser lights, spotlights in all different colors, black light and glow outfits, a background screen in crystal clear 4K quality showing everything from song lyrics to Jackson grinding on a bed, shot from the perspective of a mirror on the ceiling.
Mark sat beside me, making notes on his iPad. He didn’t take his eyes off the stage. Sometimes, he subconsciously mouthed a word or shimmied his shoulder in the same way Jackson did but most of the time he was observing and noting small cracks or inconsistencies that only Mark saw. Mark was like a stage mom, but much more intense. He and Jackson were both obsessed with perfection. When the concert was over, Mark stood up and went straight to the backstage area.
I thought this would be the point they were finally too busy for me, but one of the entourage told me not to leave. A half-hour later Mark and Jackson reappeared-- both freshly showered-- and insisted on taking me out for their favorite meal in Beijing. Hot Pot.
In the era of social media, access to your favorite celebrity is just a Twitter or Instagram click away. Either the celebrity is posting or someone is posting about them. We headed out to Mark and Jackson’s Bentley and were greeted by a mob of eager fans. They held up their phone cameras, flash on to cut through the darkness, and peppered Mark and Jackson with screams and questions as the famous pair swiftly made their way inside the vehicle. I followed after them, my heart racing. But to them, it was just another day in the office.
Moments later, the Markson hashtag on Twitter, Instagram and the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, Weibo, was filled of brand new pictures of the pair. Scrolling through the hashtag, I was reminded that not only celebrities felt closer on social media. So did their families. Both Mark and Jackson’s families participate on social media, updating regularly about their sons. Jackson’s mom is known for the adorable baby pics of Jackson that she posts on major holidays. Mark’s dad is known for his boisterous use of dad-humor and posting embarrassing facts about Mark from his childhood. Due to his frequent posting, many Ahgases consider Mark’s dad, nicknamed Papa Tuan, a huge part of the fandom. He’s a mini celebrity at GOT7 concerts if he’s in attendance. Fans will line up to take a picture with him.
Mark and Jackson took me to a small restaurant, down a side alley in the middle of Beijing. The door was barely wide enough to walk through. The floors were uneven. There was only one other patron, an elderly gentleman, sipping on tea in the back corner. The lighting was dim and calm. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to read the menu well as we sat at a large table in the middle of the room but it turned out I didn’t need too. A waiter began serving us immediately as an older lady came out and greeted Mark and Jackson warmly, like they were her own sons. They stacked flat plates on the table in front of us filled with thin cuts of meat, bok choy, bean sprouts, mushrooms, broccoli, cabbage and noodles. A hot plate was in the center of the table. On top of the hot pot was a large metal pot with a divider in the middle. The wait staff poured a clear liquid into one side and a reddish looking liquid on the other. I saw a bowl full of spices and then another one with a red paste and a small dish of something that looked like oil. Mark and Jackson busied themselves dropping things into the pot and pouring out different sauces into a dish that sat in front of them. They showed me how to make my own dipping sauce. The hot pot was filled with broth for cooking. One side was a typical hot pot milky chicken broth base and the other a spicy curry broth.
“Do not mix the two!” Jackson told me.
“He can’t handle spicy.” Mark said. “I love it.”
After they prepared the broths, they showed me how to cook my meat and vegetables. They were excellent hosts who never let me feel stupid with what I was doing. They even gave me a chopsticks lesson and for the first time in my life, I was able to use them. Hot Pot is an important family tradition in Chinese cultures. It is meant to be shared, to be savored for hours so you can also savor the time spent surrounded by loved ones.
I asked Mark and Jackson about their famous families. What did they think about their decision to come out publicly? The two husbands exchanged a look.
“It’s complicated,” Jackson said, slowly. “But they are used to the fact that we’re together. We’re married and we make our own decisions, together.”
Mark grew up in LA, in a large family where he was the second youngest of four siblings, but the oldest boy. His dad moved the family abroad for a couple of years. Mark lived in Brazil and Paraguay as a youngster. He even picked up Portuguese. But soon, the family was back in LA again, where they remained through the rest of Mark’s youth. Mark’s father is known to fans as a lovable, teasing father. Stories of Mark youth reveal he was allowed to hang out with friends and stay outside all the time but his parents made sure he had a musical education through piano, guitar and drum lessons. However, there was a strict side to his upbringing as well. One famous story is how Mark’s father forced Mark to use his right hand as a young child when it seemed as if he was left-handed. Now, Mark is somewhat ambidextrous.
Jackson’s family was smaller. His brother is about a decade older than him, so for a large part of Jackson’s childhood, he was the only child in the home. Jackson’s parents were both world class athletes. His father was a member of the China national fencing team and a gold medalist in the Asian games. His mother was an Olympic gymnast. Athletic excellence was in his blood. Surprisingly, Jackson started the sport of fencing late, at about ten years old. But he picked up the sport fast and soon became a top contender.
While Jackson’s father was hesitant to let Jackson move to Korea, Mark’s father encouraged it. As trainees, Mark’s family visited him from the states as often as they could. Jackson would always tag along. Being Mark’s best friend, Mark’s family treated Jackson as a third son. There’s a famous picture of Jackson posing with Mark and all 3 of his siblings on a hotel room bed during a family visit. Another picture showed Mark’s father sitting between Mark and Jackson with his arms around both of them. Together, they looked like the perfect family. Mark’s family took Jackson into their fold with open arms. Until the truth of their relationship came out.
“We told Jackson’s parents and they were fine. They had kind of always known. But I was nervous about telling my dad,” Mark said, as we simmered meat and vegetables in the boiling hot broth. “Because… my dad is very traditional. And I knew he would be… upset.”
Mark stared at the broth, choosing his words carefully as he used tongs to dip his meat. Jackson’s hand was on his back the whole time. He wasn’t looking at anything but his husband, even as he was eating what Mark put on his plate.
I asked about Mark’s sister. He has a sister who is married to a woman, so there was already a same-sex relationship in the family.
“That was hard for my dad, too…” Mark said. Jackson jumped in.
“His sister… like… they always knew. I mean, before Mark’s sister married her wife, they had known about her for a long time. His dad had a long time to accept the idea before she got married. With Mark, they didn’t know. Also, it’s different because Mark is a boy. He’s the oldest boy. I know that sounds sexist but I’m just telling the truth. That’s a big deal in Chinese families. Mark’s dad saw himself in Mark. He wanted Mark to walk in his footsteps. He had this rigid idea about who Mark would marry and how he would live his life. Even after Mark moved to Korea, that was hard for him to shake. I understand. That’s why I supported keeping our relationship a secret until Mark was ready to tell him.”
Mark nodded slowly as Jackson spoke, like he was absorbing every word. Talking about this subject was obviously hard for him. But it seemed like Jackson’s hand rubbing the back of his neck gave him strength.
“So we told him together in the summer of 2016,” Mark said. “At home. My parent’s house in LA. We sat down and had a talk. It… didn’t go well. My dad basically threw Jackson out.”
“He blamed me for everything,” Jackson said. “And it was better me than Mark. But basically be blamed me for ‘turning’ his son. He was really angry. This was also during a party at Mark’s house and there was a social media slip-up that got the group in trouble. So a lot happened that night. It was best for me to stay away. And I did for a long time. But it was worth it. I’d rather he blame me and be angry with me than blame Mark. It was hard for us, having that strain. Mark’s family is very important to him. But I know that Mark’s dad loves him. That’s why he was so upset. He needed time to rethink Mark’s future and realize that Mark’s life wasn’t his own.”
Mark nodded the whole time that Jackson spoke. He looked a little teary but the lighting was so dim, I couldn’t tell for sure.
“Things have changed. Things have been changing over the years. Jackson and I are married. My dad knows that. Jackson isn’t going away. He’s part of our family forever now. He understands that and he’s been coming around,” Mark said, slowly. “When we finally get married… our big wedding...he and my mom will walk me down the aisle. That’s all I want....” Mark tipped his head back with a shaky smile. Jackson pulled his husband into his chest.
Mark and Jackson were married on July 5th, 2018 in an intimate courthouse ceremony with just the two of them and a court-appointed witness.
“We could have invited other people,” Jackson said. “But it got complicated. The wedding really needed to be a secret. We had confidential court documents and everything. We were on tour with a show the next day. Mark had family obligations. I had work. We wanted to get it done. We wanted to be married so badly. So we did it, just the two of us.”
“I wanted it to be just the two of us,” Mark spoke up. “I was happy.”
“I was happy, too, baby,” Jackson said, beaming down at Mark in his arms like the wedding had just happened that day. “It was time for us to be married. We spent a night in a hotel room together as a mini honeymoon. Then it was back to business as usual. Our show was amazing that night. We performed at the Forum. That’s a legendary venue in LA. We felt like rock stars. We were!”
“It was amazing,” Mark agreed.
I thought I was about to burst but Mark and Jackson were still eating. Mark dumped a bunch of noodles into both broths. I marveled at how down to earth they both still seemed to me after spending a day in their world. Their lavish do-over wedding was in a few weeks, after the tour and after Mark’s fashion brand launch. I asked them how they handled juggling everything.
“Our lives have always been crazy,” Jackson said. “So it’s normal for us. And we have a wedding planner! She’s amazing, like the house cleaners! Right, Markie?” Mark smiled while he stirred the noodles in the broth.
Mark and Jackson’s wedding news made headlines all over the world. While most K-Pop couples are outed by a Korean news outlet named Dispatch, Mark and Jackson came out on their social media accounts. They simultaneously posted the same picture of them on Instagram. In the picture they are facing each other, holding both hands, leaning in, foreheads touching, the background a gorgeous sunset over the Han River. The rings on their left ring fingers are prominently facing the camera.
The text under the picture read in Korean, Chinese and English:
Hi, this is Mark and Jackson from GOT7! Today, we want to share something really special with you. We regret we had to keep this from you for so long but we hope you’ll understand. We have been struggling with this for a long time but we believe now is the best time for us to share our good news. We have been in a romantic relationship since 2012 and we got married in 2018. We’ve been so fortunate to be able to share our careers and our lives with all of you. This has always been the missing piece. We plan to have a lovely wedding in China in July so we can finally truly celebrate with our family and friends. We love all our fans so much and ask for your support. We hope all of our baby birds have an opportunity to find the love of their life like we did. We love you all.
#GOT7 #JacksonWang #MarkTuan #WeLoveOurBabyBirds #MarksonIsReal
“I felt such a profound sense of relief,” Mark said.
“He’d been waiting a long time for that,” Jackson said.
“We sat together and timed it. We hit send at the same time. I wrote the message but Jackson added the hashtags.” Mark gave Jackson a happy grinned and serves us our noodles. “I felt like a huge weight was off our shoulders.”
“We told the company the message had to come from us,” Jackson said. “We’ve always had an intimate relationship with our fans. So we didn’t want to go with a newspaper or a press release. It had to come straight from the horse’s mouth. That was the was the best way for our fans to believe us.”
I asked them if they were worried about the reaction. Mark and Jackson exchanged a long look.
“The response was overwhelming,” Mark said. “As soon as we posted, our phones seized from notifications, even though we have most of them weeded out. We both had to delete the app.”
“We went through every worse case scenario,” Jackson said. “Like, what if we went to jail?” He looked at Mark again with one of his trademark laughs. “But we had already cleared it with the company. We cleared it with the group. If something happened, they were prepared to back us up. But we were scared that our fans would turn on us. Our Chinese fans can be pretty passionate. We already had a small fraction of fans who were very against Markson, you know, our ship. They would attack us and our families on social media whenever we had some sort of significant interaction. We were most worried about them. And thing did get ugly for a little while.”
“We didn’t do any press then. We took a vacation right after the announcement,” Mark said. “I knew we’d need to get away. I wanted to focus on us and planning for our wedding. I think that’s the best thing we could do. By the time we got back to social media, the worst of it had already blown over. Then we could choose who to talk to.” Mark gave me a warm smile. “Like you.”
Twitter was in shambles over the news, fans from K-Pop fandoms all over the world weighing in on K-Pop’s newest couple. Instagram saw the same flurry of activity. For weeks, it seemed like Markson was the only thought on the mind of every K-Pop fan. There were think pieces all over the internet about the oppressive culture of K-Pop and the state of LBGTQ affairs in Korea. Mark and Jackson’s relationship made news from Seoul to Santiago, New York to Naples. For a little while, Mark and Jackson were the most talked about celebrity couple since Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. K-Pop had never seen a power couple like them before. I asked Mark and Jackson how their power couple status affected their story.
“It doesn’t,” Mark said, right away. “The only thing I wanted was the freedom to be open about Jackson and to have my dream wedding. Now I have everything I wanted. And I want us to inspire others… others who are like us, in the industry, to try to have the same freedom we do. But we’re not a power couple. We’re just two people who work hard and love what we do. And we love each other.”
“Markson!” Jackson said, grabbing Mark’s hand and shaking it around. Mark smiled at him. He looked like a puppy who had just discovered his first ball. “We’re Markson!” Jackson declared.
They encouraged me to eat the noodles but I was absolutely stuffed. We chatted about wedding plans. They didn’t want to share too many details, except that their entire family would be there. The wedding would be held in a gorgeous venue in the countryside in China. There would be lots of music and lots of food during the weekend long celebration. They hoped that all of the Korean GOT7 members would be able to take leave from the military, but they were still waiting for a final decision.
“I told Mark that it’s not selfish to want a couple of days that are all about us,” Jackson said. “I let him plan the whole thing. I only had a couple of requests. I want my husband in white because he’s always been pure to me. He’s my diamond. He’s a deer. Look at him. He’s skinny with those eyes.” Jackson gestured to Mark, a proud grin on his face. “And I want to surprise him. So some things he’s not allowed to ask about.”
“Jackson is always surprising me,” Mark said, a proud grin on his face as well as they gazed at each other.
When we left the restaurant, I was stuffed and beat. It had been a long day. Mark and Jackson weren’t done yet. They had a late night meeting with a music producer. It seemed like their work never stopped.
Mark and Jackson were gentleman to the end. Their driver took me to my hotel and they got out of the SUV with me and accompanied me inside. Jackson spoke to the front desk staff for me to make sure I had everything I needed in my room. We parted ways with hugs in the lobby. Jackson gave me his personal cell number in case I needed translation assistance in Beijing.
I had spent the day with two of the most famous men in Asia but somehow, I felt like I had made two new friends. Mark and Jackson were making waves all over the world as the first out gay couple in K-Pop but they kept grinding and working hard. They were courageous but they acted like they were no different from anyone else. Like they were just another average married couple. But everything about Mark and Jackson or Markson, from their looks, to their music, to their ambition, to their love, was simply extraordinary.