No Country for Old People: South Korea's Dire Problem of Elderly Poverty
Living in South Korea, I find it hard not to notice the old. The subway is full of them at every time of the day, presumably because seniors over the age of 65 get to use the system for free. It is difficult to take a seat because soon enough
Admiral Conquers South Korean Cinema, Exposing Fissures in Politics
Source: CJ Entertainment It’s a big-screen scene to thrill the heart of even the most cynical South Korean moviegoer. The year is 1597, and the forces of the Joseon Dynasty – the precursor to the modern Korean nation – and Japan are at war. The last remnants of
Inter-Korean Marriage and Pursuit of Assimilation
A North Korean woman, alone in her cheap government housing, asks, “I want to get married. Where is my love?” She daydreams of being only in her underwear, straddling her ideal South Korean man, and calling out to him in affection, “My dear husband.” That controversial advertisement by a matchmaking
An Assault Upon Our Children: South Korea's Education System Hurts Students
After my older brother fell ill from the stress of being a student in South Korea, my mother decided to move me from our home in Seoul to Vancouver for high school to spare me the intense pressure to succeed. She did not want me to suffer like my brother,
A Brief Note on the History of Korean Cannibalism
Between August 2011 and July of this year, Korea Customs Service apprehended 117 illicit shipments of human flesh capsules to South Korea. The quantity amounted to 27,852 capsules in 2013 alone. Human flesh capsules are reportedly made in China from aborted fetuses that are dried and pulverized into powder.
The Republic of Konsumerism
Upon entering a supermarket in Seoul for the first time, I was completely lost. What I thought would be a simple challenge became nerve-wrecking: choosing a tube of toothpaste. Everywhere I looked, each product claimed to be better and cheaper than the last. “Three for the price of two”, “20%
600 Years vs. 17 days: Pyeongchang Olympic Games' Environmental Cost
Before the end of the month, the construction of a downhill ski slope in a remote part of South Korea’s countryside is set to begin, demolishing a centuries-old forest. With little time left to act, environmentalists are urgently searching for ways to halt the project and protect the land.
South Korea's Military Industrial Complex
Source It is a strange phenomenon that nation-states hold public exhibitions and expositions of objects which cause human fatalities and mass misery. The purpose of these exhibitions is the very sale of weapons that obliterate human beings in a near or far geographical location and leave them without limbs or
A North Korean Views South Korea
It has been more than a decade since I left North Korea, but every time I read George Orwell’s Animal Farm I am reminded of my life back ‘home’. The novel points to the North Korean regime’s hypocrisy without using complex language. Published on 17 August 1945, just
Welcome to Korea Exposé
exposé [ɛkspoʊˈzeɪ]: A French noun meaning project or presentation. Also means to be exposed. In the English language, the word also refers to investigative journalism. The Korean Peninsula has been divided for more than six decades, with a fast-developed capitalist state and a