Battle's Not Over for Samsung Leukemia Victims
Earlier this month, a group of activists sued the Ministry of Employment and Labor for information they hoped might explain the deaths of people who worked in Samsung semiconductor and LCD factories, the latest phase in a legal battle that goes back a decade. On Thursday, Suwon District Court handed
For Better or Worse, All Roads Lead to Namuwiki in South Korea, Not Wikipedia
“All roads lead to Namuwiki,” a popular saying goes. Type any search term into Google Korea. Chances are, you’ll be taken to Namuwiki, not Wikipedia. Namuwiki is South Korea’s indigenous open-source encyclopedia, which started out as a half-baked collection of pages deep in the bowels of Korean cyberspace.
App-ward Mobility, South Korean Style
91 percent of South Koreans use a smartphone. Backed by the world’s fastest internet speed, their country’s mobile app market is thriving. So what killer apps do South Koreans rely on to guide them through the complexities of 21st-century life? Here, we dug up a
Public Wedding Ad Angers Young South Koreans
A beaming young bride and groom step through a door into a sunlit future, accompanied by the strings of Wagner’s Wedding March… only to be confronted by a daunting row of hurdles. So begins a public-service advertisement from Kobaco (Korea Broadcast Advertising Corporation) released on
A-maizing Ambition: "Dr. Corn" Runs for South Korean Presidency
It’s not uncommon for seemingly random figures to run for power in a democracy. South Korea is no different: On Friday, a man dubbed “Dr. Corn” will announce his bid for the presidency in a press conference at the International Corn Foundation in Pohang. His name is
153 Forgotten Days at Seoul National University
The student sit-in at Seoul National University lasted 153 days, before being disbanded just a day after president Park Geun-hye was ousted from office. Their long-drawn protest, like many news stories, has been subsumed by the Park Geun-hye scandal. What’s going on in the country’s
"A Day Without Women" on the Streets of South Korea
Today was International Women’s Day, and South Korean women took this celebration to another level. Korean Women Workers Association (KWWA) held a “Day Without Women” march in downtown Seoul and other cities nationwide, calling out for women to fight against the gender wage gap.
Battle of the Nudes: Political Satire Targets Lawmaker and His Wife
Editor’s note: This post contains nudity and may offend some readers. Passersby outside South Korea’s National Assembly today were greeted by an unusually colorful banner: Four clumsily photoshopped images portrayed the faces of the opposition Minjoo Party lawmaker Pyo Chang-won and his wife pasted onto various
Former Spy Claims NIS Spied on Constitutional Court
An unnamed former agent claimed that South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) secretly interviewed officials from the Constitutional Court, reported the Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS). These claims come as the Constitutional Court prepares to deliver its final verdict on Park Geun-hye’s impeachment, most likely
All That THAAD: South Korea Rattled By China Tourism Curb
Last July, South Korea announced the decision to deploy THAAD, a U.S-produced missile defense system. Since then, the Chinese government has retaliated with a number of subtle and explicit measures, including denying South Korean entertainers access to its lucrative market. Its latest pushback appears to be discouraging Chinese citizens
Korea's Independence Movement Had Women, Too
Mar. 1 marks one of Korea’s most famous pro-independence protests, which saw hundreds of thousands take to the streets against Japanese colonial rule in 1919. Many protesters are remembered today as national heroes, but among them, Yu Gwan-sun is one of the few female leaders that most South