column

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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.

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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’

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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,

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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

Se-Woong Koo
Members Free to read

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