South Korea
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Why Are South Korea and North Korea Enemies?
The first thing that needs to be addressed is, are South and North Korea enemies? My short answer would be yes and no: They are frenemies in a love-hate relationship — a result of a complicated history of division that originates in the Cold War. To get into the details,
Ho Kyeong Jang: On #MeToo in South Korea for BBC World
Did #MeToo just start in South Korea? Well, yes and no. There hasn’t been the sort of huge, widespread hashtag campaign that #MeToo has prompted; but there has been similar hashtag campaigns in the same spirit. Korea Exposé writer Ho Kyeong Jang spoke to BBC World about the
Study: "Dating Violence Prevalent in Seoul"
88.5 percent of women living in Seoul have experienced dating violence, in some form or another, according to a report published on Jan. 30 by Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG). The report, titled “Dating Violence Leads to Domestic Violence After Marriage,” was based on an online survey of 2,000
Why Are South Koreans "Meh" About North Korea in the Olympics?
#Olympics: Why are some South Koreans “meh” about North Korea’s presence? Sports diplomacy? Symbolic peace gestures? Sure, it’s not the first time North and South Korea have done all this. But remember, the last time the two even communicated was in February 2016. At
The Artist Painting Seoul's Streets
Meet the street artist painting her impressions of Seoul — on Seoul. She illustrates the walls and buildings of the city, filling them with vibrant colors and characters.
Do I Need to Wear a Face Mask in South Korea?
Walk along the street in any South Korean city and you’ll see plenty of people wearing surgical-style face masks. Covering the nose and mouth and held in place by elastic loops that reach back behind the ears, the masks are cheap and sold in almost all convenience stores and
What's in an Olympics Medal?
What can show a fundamentally Korean DNA while resonating with a global audience? Industrial designer Lee Suk-woo designed the medals for the Pyeongchang Olympics, which starts next week. Korea Exposé spoke to him about his thought process.
Juwon Park: On Cryptocurrency for PRI
An excerpt of business writer Juwon Park’s “I am a 24-year-old South Korean and my hopes are in cryptocurrency” has been published on PRI’s The World. “Cryptocurrency … is like a ray of sunshine for me,” Park, who recently invested about $2,500
Stop Attributing Everything to Confucianism
To some, Confucianism is synonymous with East Asia. Anything and everything about East Asian countries, good or bad, seems to be explicable through Confucianism. Perhaps sociologist Max Weber set the trend when he argued in 1915 that Confucian values had discouraged capitalist development in China. A century later, the Economist
K-pop 101: Why Do Artists Keep Singing "Niga"?
Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with the N-word. Niga (니가) in Korean literally means ‘you.’ More specifically, 니 (ni) means ‘you’; 가 (ga) is a particle that indicates the noun attached to it is the subject of the sentence. K-pop, which stands for Korean popular music, is
Let's Talk About Depression Differently
In a country plagued with high suicide rates, there is still surprisingly a lack of informed awareness about mental health. Pervasive stigma surrounds depression and therapy. The former is still commonly perceived lightly as a passing mood, an exaggeration, a passing abnormality; there is little awareness about the usefulness of
How Influential Is Islam in South Korea?
Islam has a very small presence in South Korea. As recently as 2005, the religion section in the country’s census did not offer “Muslim” as a category. Currently, the number of Muslims in South Korea reportedly stands at roughly 200,000, or about 0.4 percent of the population.