South Koreans love their fried chicken. So much so, in fact, that they’ve used it (cheekily) as a determinant of political party affiliation, labeled the country chimaek (chicken and maekju, or beer) republic, and consume 800 million chickens annually, in a country of 51 million people. Now, they’ve combined fried chicken with yet another core aspect of national culture: test-taking.
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
In 2014, pop star Park Bom, of the group 2NE1 made headlines with her alleged drug usage back in October 2010. The singer had ordered 82 amphetamine pills labelled ‘gummy bears’ from the U.S. and dispatched them to her grandmother’s address in the port city of Incheon
