When Thai-American youngster Nichkhun was approached by talent scouts asking if he wanted a shot at pop superstardom, he didn't hesitate for a second. "I was like, no!" he says. "I don't even know who you guys are, you know? I didn't know how to sing or dance. I was just like some shy little boy, so I was like, no way I'm doing this!" Fortunately for K-Pop fans, the scouts, from legendary South Korean pop producer Jin-young Park's company JYP Entertainment, persisted. Following a string of phone calls, a ramshackle audition took place outside a Starbucks in Los Angeles, where they had all been attending a South Korean cultural festival. "They were like, sing something! So I sang something, and it was bad, and they were like, OK, this is not going to work. About three weeks later they called me back and said, 'We'd like you to come to Korea and start training.'" But Nichkhun's unorthodox recruitment is far from the only thing setting this young pop sensation apart. In South Korea's distinctly homogeneous entertainment industry, Nichkhun is that rarest of things: a foreigner.