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In Rumor We Trust: Proliferating Fake News in South Korea
South Koreans are used to hearing sentences that end in hadeora, a verb meaning “it is said that….” This particular way of phrasing is something of a cop-out, though. It conveys information without taking ownership of the fact. And given that Korean verbs do not require a subject, it is
Goodbye, Mr. Half
The return of former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Jan. 12 was one of the most closely watched events in recent memory, perhaps barring only the political scandal that has afflicted the impeached president Park Geun-hye. When Ban arrived, hundreds of his supporters greeted him rapturously at the airport.
Ethics Be Damned: South Korean Journalism Fails
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
The Choi Soon-sil Gate: The Saddest Political Drama Ever Told
I am quite fond of South Korean costume dramas, though my friends are skeptical of the genre’s value. Plotting royals and devious courtiers aren’t their thing, and they are even less enamored with the endless power struggles over who gets to be master of the realm. “But it’
In Defense of Feminism
A voice actress puts on a T-shirt that reads “Girls do not need a prince” and tweets the photo. That seemingly innocuous phrase prompts widespread accusations that she is a man-hater. Angry men bombards Nexon, a game company for which she did work, with complaints. The company terminates
Children of Misfortune: Child Abuse in South Korea
Over dinner one evening, a South Korean journalist friend posed what seemed like a riddle: “Let’s say there is a high school reunion. One classmate is a Samsung executive with a high-school graduate for a son. Another is a security guard whose son attends Seoul National University. Who do
Gaejeossi Must Die
Ajeossi (n.) a form of address for a male relative from one’s parents’ generation, excluding brothers of one’s father a form of address for an unmarried younger brother of one’s father a form of address for an adult male stranger the title of a 2010
South Korea's History Textbook Whitewash
Half my life was spent outside South Korea, but I still cannot forget certain history lessons from childhood in Seoul. Dokdo, rocky islets claimed by both South Korea and Japan, is an inalienable Korean territory. Hangul, the writing system credited to a 15th-century king and used by the two Koreas,
War of Words over the State of South Korea
We live in an interesting time. Some of you may know I published an opinion piece in the New York Times last month condemning the South Korean government’s move to overhaul history textbooks. I didn’t know but apparently the foreign ministry “lodged a protest against
Korea, Thy Name is Hell Joseon
One of the biggest scandals of 2010 involved Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan, whose own daughter was found to have mysteriously qualified for a plum job inside the ministry, presumably with the father’s backing. This itself would not have been ordinarily such big news in South Korea, but the timing
When We Became Gangnam
There are a few things I cannot forget from my childhood: picking mugwort with my sexagenarian babysitter at a nearby park, to dry and put in bean-paste soup; delighting in a cheap candy ring that came in a range of bright shades so pretty I dared not eat it; a
South Korean Evangelicals' Anal Obsession
“They enter into carnal relations with multiple people several times a night, and wipe the semen, shit, blood, and lymphatic fluid from anal sex with discarded towels on the floor. Each morning the whole room is full of such towels and condoms covered in blood and feces. […] They reuse the