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More Support for Kaesong Industrial Complex Firms, but No Resumption
On Nov. 10, the South Korean government announced measures to further compensate corporations hit by the shutdown of Kaesong Industrial Complex, one of the last remaining tangible results of...
View ArticleNorth Korean Defector’s Medical Information… TMI?
The headlines were sensational, to say the least: “North Korean defector had 10-inch parasite in his stomach, unlike anything surgeon had seen before” (Newsweek) “Surgeons find parasite unlike any...
View ArticleGovernment Roasts Paris Baguette for Half-Baked Employment Practices
Going by its name, you probably wouldn’t guess that Paris Baguette’s company history begins in the poverty-stricken Korea of 1945. In a video on its website, South Korea’s SPC Group, parent company of...
View ArticleNorth Korea Nuclear Crisis 101
North Korea makes the international news far more often than other countries of its size. Its leader is a young, overweight guy with a funny haircut, and there are regularly big parades in the capital...
View ArticleNorth Korean Soldier’s Choco Pie (NOT Lifetime Supply)
Last month, Oh Chung-sung, a 24-year-old North Korean soldier, made an audacious sprint across the intensely guarded border that separates North and South Korea. He was dragged to safety by South...
View ArticleCan South Korea Learn Anything from North Korea?
In the painting’s foreground, a group of farmers with listless facial expressions stand knee-deep in a rice paddy, just behind a grimy pile of detritus, which includes war weapons and symbols of...
View ArticleHow Did South Korea Become So Rich?
Home to Samsung Galaxy phones, world-class internet speeds and Gangnam Style, South Korea was not always as glitzy and prosperous as it is today. Just half a century ago, the country was one of the...
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KÉ Weekend Journalism School: 2018 Winter Curriculum
Korea Exposé invites you to join our journalism winter school! Whether you want to become a serious journalist, whether you want to write about social and cultural issues in English, or whether you...
View ArticleCould Korean War II Drag in the World’s Superpowers?
This article is meant to offer an answer to the following question posted on Quora: “Who would win in this war: the USA, the U.K, Japan, and South Korea vs Russia, China, and North Korea?” Without...
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Sunshine Land: Where War is Actually a Game
On a crisp December Monday morning in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province, city workers outfitted the students in Noh Min-hyun’s sixth-grade class with child-sized body armor, helmets, and orange...
View ArticleWhy Does China Hate THAAD So Much?
THAAD is a useful acronym to know if you’re interested in the geopolitical tensions in East Asia. The deployment of the U.S.’s Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea caused a...
View ArticleIs North Korean Different From South Korean?
How different is the language of North Korea from that of South Korea? Are there syntactic and grammatical differences due to the isolation of North Korea? In 2004, North and South Korea made a...
View ArticleN. Korea’s Olympics Proposal Undermines U.S. Hawks
At a scholarly conference on international politics and security I attended early December in the U.S., many an opinion was proffered on the state of geopolitics in Northeast Asia. But one dominant...
View ArticleSouth Korea’s Looming Choice
Following Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s address, most of the media and analytical focus tended to revolve around his “nuclear button,” his statement that North Korea would begin “mass production” of...
View ArticleSpirits High As Pyeongchang Olympic Torch Arrives in Seoul
There was excitement in the air as the Pyeongchang Olympic torch arrived in South Korea’s capital Seoul on Saturday Jan. 13. One of the relay’s routes ran from Gwanghwamun in the center of Seoul,...
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Pyeongchang Olympics: S. Korea’s Pro-Unification Cheerleaders
North Korea was once the bane, the thorn in the side, the sore point of the PR machine at the Pyeongchang Olympics Committee in South Korea. Just months ago, countries wary of rising inter-Korean...
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KÉ Interview: “My Sister Married Kim Jong-il”
In a modest Seoul apartment lives Sung Il-gi. To most people, his name would not ring a bell. At the age of 84, he is partially paralyzed on the right side of his body and has difficulty moving...
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Pyongyang Olympics? Burning Tensions Ahead of Games
South Korea has been hit with a cold snap — the mercury plunging to minus 18 degrees Celsius in Seoul on Jan. 26, and some have been burning papers, not to keep warm, but to condemn North Korea and...
View ArticleWhy 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...
View ArticleWhy 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...
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