A year ago, a friend of mine, a female radio producer in Seoul, confided that visiting someone who had just given birth horrified her. She talked about this young mother as being cooped up in the apartment all day while her husband worked, and feeling her intelligence diminishing to the level of her baby’s from lack of contact with other adults and the outside world. She was so starved for meaningful interaction that even the arrival of a deliveryman delighted her.
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
