South Korea's Nordic Obsessions

A couple of months ago, I bought a monstera, a potted plant that my Swedish friend recommended as an indoor-friendly houseplant that grew in minimal natural lighting. He showed me photos of his place in Sweden with monstera plants hanging off the Nordic wooden shelves. When I looked up this perforated dark green plant on Naver, a popular South Korean search engine, an impressive number of results popped up, often containing the term “Nordic” in their descriptions of the plant (although it’s in