1. When people judge you for speaking English in public Once I stopped in front of a clothing store in...
Dding Dong Safe Space for LGBT Youths in Korea There are still many challenges ahead for the LGBT community in...
As we welcome in another New Year with copious amounts of food and alcohol in homes or at local pubs and clubs, let us pause for a moment and reflect on how the New Year was celebrated by Koreans a century ago. Although the solar New Year – December 31/January...
Cringeworthy English Moments We Know Too Well Korea Moments That Awaken Your Inner Grammar Nazi “When I see your face,...
Sailors, adventurers, diplomats, and businessmen made up the initial foreign community in Chemulpo, known today as Incheon.
When American gold miners weren’t hoping to strike it rich, they were hoping not to strike out at the annual Fourth of July baseball game. One of the largest enterprises in Korea in the early 20th century was the American-owned Oriental Consolidated Mining Company (OCMC). The OCMC, often referred to...
In 1882, three courageous American officers became the first Westerners to step foot in Busan. When the intrepid elderly British adventurer Isabella Bird Bishop visited Fusan (modern Busan) in January 1894, she declared, “It is not Korea but Japan which meets one on anchoring.” She was, of course, referring to the large population of Japanese that literally dominated the foreign settlement of that port, and, for the most part, the surrounding Korean community.
If New York is the city that never sleeps, then Seoul is the city diagnosed with clinical insomnia. With virtually...
Being Gay in Korea South Korea seems highly modernized from the outside; it boasts one of the fastest internet connection in the world, has the highest education level in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, and its citizens seem to be naturally born workaholics. But those who have...
From unwieldy pipes to black-market cigarettes, tobacco has been an important part of Korean society for over four hundred years....