Last Thursday, a 30-year-old man committed suicide on a mountain near Mapo district, Seoul. He was a gongsisaeng — a student preparing to take a civil service exam for officials-to-be in lower levels of management. In his hand was a piece of paper on which he had calculated his score in a recent exam. Realizing that he had failed to make the cut for another year, he decided to take his own life.
RIP, Baek Nam-gi Baek Nam-gi, the farmer knocked over by a police water cannon, has succumbed to his injuries (a skull fracture and brain hemorrhage) and passed away yesterday after being in a coma for the last 10 months. He was 69. As of press time there is a sit-up
I am from South Korea, but I make it a point not to write or speak in Korean about this country. That my Korean language skills have ossified from disuse is only one reason; it is more that my brushes with South Korean media are rarely uplifting. A case in
