[Kim Seong-kon] Overcoming the ‘three S words’ in our traits

In the eyes of foreigners, Koreans are often said to have many admirable, charming character traits, but one also hears of a few negative ones as well, such as having a “short memory,” “shortsightedness” and a “short temper.” These are often known as the “three S words.” As for having a “short memory,” it seems generally true that we tend to forget things too easily. For example, we seem to have completely forgotten how we have survived

Jan. 31, 2024

[Lisa Jarvis] Post-Roe America’s national shame

It’s now been about a year and a half since the Supreme Court’s decision to revoke the constitutional right to abortion. Over that time, new data has been gradually filling in the picture of what access to reproductive health care looks like in much of the US. And the image forming is increasingly grim. Consider a gut-punch of a research letter published this month in JAMA Internal Medicine, in which researchers estimate that nearly 65,000 pregnancies have resulted from rape in the 1

Jan. 31, 2024

[Grace Kao] The appeal of K-pop to Americans

What is the appeal of K-pop to audiences in the United States? I am a fan and researcher of K-pop, so I think and talk to college students and fans of all ages regularly about it. If you do not live in the US, it might be difficult to imagine the level of visibility of K-pop here in the United States. It is not everywhere: We don’t see idols in advertisements and we do not hear K-pop songs in public settings, except perhaps at a Korean restaurant. Still, most Americans have heard of K-pop.

Jan. 30, 2024

[Yvette Wohn] The need to protect intellectual property in K-pop

All able-bodied South Korean men are obliged by law to serve in the military for a minimum of 18 months. The Camp is a commercial Web and mobile application sanctioned by the country’s Ministry of Defense to enable communication between service members and their families, friends, and loved ones. The app provides photos and updates of the soldiers and allows those “waiting on the outside” to send letters to the soldiers and create online communities. Active duty soldiers have l

Jan. 30, 2024

[Yoo Choon-sik] More money to boost child births? Ask babies, not politicians

The phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” is generally recognized for emphasizing the significant effort required to ensure a child’s upbringing in a safe environment, but the proverb holds particular relevance for South Korea as it grapples with a desperate battle to halt or, at the very least, slow the decline in birth rates. In a race against time, the South Korean government and provincial administrations are rolling out a range of financial incentives and benefits t

Jan. 29, 2024

[Jieun Kiaer] AI natives: How children should read in our time

The term digital native was coined in 2001 by Marc Prensky. In his article "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants," Prensky applied the term to young people who grew up surrounded by computers, mobile phones and other tools of the digital age. The devices and technologies that Prensky was referring to were greatly different to those we use now. We no longer have dial-up internet connections or clunky computers. Our digital experience has undergone dramatic changes. ChatGPT was released t

Jan. 29, 2024

[Robert J. Fouser] The 'local' bookstore boom

For much of January, I had the privilege of being invited to give talks on two books that I wrote in Korean. “Why Do Cities Preserve History” is a new book, while “How to Read Cities” is a revised edition of a 2019 book. As I met readers and signed books, I thought about the meaning of bookstores in South Korea in 2024. Bookstores have a prominent place in the history of South Korea. For decades after the Korean War, bookstores, both new and used, were an important center

Jan. 26, 2024

[Michael Bröning] Should Germany’s AfD be banned?

The recent revelation that politicians from Germany’s far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) met with right-wing activists last November to discuss an extremist “re-migration” plot has brought the debate over banning the party to a fever pitch. The clandestine meeting, held at a lakeside hotel near Potsdam, reportedly centered on the possibility of mass deportations of non-ethnic Germans if the far-right were to come to power. Alarmed by this horrifying vision, leaders fro

Jan. 25, 2024

[Wang Son-taek] Is war coming on the Korean Peninsula?

These days, Seoul is very confused about the possibility of war breaking out. There is a hard, cold warning that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has decided to go to war, and that the Korean Peninsula is seriously in danger. On the other side, there is fierce opposition that the threats from Kim are only psychological warfare. The two voices contain different assumptions and premises, leading to different responses. If the former "war decision" argument is correct, half a million regul

Jan. 25, 2024

[John M. Crisp] Our dangerous failure of imagination

Generally, comparisons between Donald Trump and Adolph Hitler aren’t particularly persuasive. They often reflect an over-the-top, sky-is-falling semi-hysteria. Trump and Hitler? Let’s not get carried away. On the other hand, do we have something to fear from a too-casual complacency engendered by a failure of imagination? I was thinking about this last week as I read an op-ed entitled “American democratic system will endure,” by Jonathan Turley, a commentator and law prof

Jan. 24, 2024

[Kim Seong-kon] “The Batman”: from an avenger to a healer

The 2022 American film, “The Batman,” is different from previous versions of the Batman series. Throughout the film, the screen is dark and gloomy, and the story revolves around vengeance. Bruce Wayne, who is the Batman, is preoccupied by a personal vendetta for the murder of his parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, by a street mugger when he was a child. That is why he has been fighting crimes in Gotham City as “Batman.” It is only natural that his nickname is “Vengea

Jan. 24, 2024

[Ashoka Mody] The slow death of India’s brief secular democracy

On Jan. 22, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will preside over the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. Executive power will symbolically fuse with the Hindu religion -- harking back to myths of Indian rulers as incarnations of Supreme Lord Vishnu -- at the former site of the Babri Mosque, demolished by self-styled “angry Hindus” in 1992. Indian children will celebrate the mythological Lord Ram. State-owned railways have promised to transport more than a thous

Jan. 23, 2024

[Antoinette Burton] The AI irony around Claudine Gay

When the history of Claudine Gay’s six-month tenure as Harvard’s president is written, there will be a lot of copy devoted to the short time between her appearance before Congress and her resignation from the highest office at one of the most prestigious and powerful institutions of higher education. Two narratives will likely dominate. One will be the highly orchestrated campaign -- outlined in clinical, triumphant detail by conservative activist Chris Rufo -- by the right to mobili

Jan. 23, 2024

[Ashwini Deshpande] Main cause of low female employment

In China, the painful custom of binding young girls’ feet to alter their shape began in the 10th century and continued for a millennium, until it was outlawed in 1911. Although the practice did not truly end until the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, by 1990 China’s female labor-force participation rate had climbed to 73 percent – well above the OECD average. In fifteenth-century Europe, women started wearing corsets, often reinforced with wood, bone or eve

Jan. 22, 2024

[Patricia Lopez] Time to scrap the Iowa caucuses

The Iowa caucus has become an outdated relic. Like eight-track cassettes and checkbooks, it served a valuable purpose at one time, but no longer. Donald Trump, as he has with so many things, reset the rules of the political game here, essentially turning the state into a backdrop for his brand of theatrics. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, played by the old rules. He dutifully visited each of Iowa’s 99 counties, poured money into building the ground game that everyone said w

Jan. 19, 2024

[Daniel DePetris] Strikes on Houthis yet another example of Congress sidelined

President Joe Biden’s decision on Thursday to order a wave of strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen was inevitable the moment the Yemeni militia disregarded Washington’s warnings a week earlier and sent a swarm of 18 drones and three anti-ship ballistic missiles in the direction of US warships. Last week’s strikes, which took place with the cooperation of the United Kingdom and were aimed at 60 locations, were designed to degrade the Houthis’ capabilities and hopefully

Jan. 18, 2024

[Andreas Kluth] World is feeling angst of liminality

The crisis of 2024 “consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Symptoms such as extreme polarization, democratic corrosion and neo-fascism in the US and elsewhere, in turn boding conflict, serfdom and war. Oh, wait. That line above was meant to describe the year 1930. That’s when it appeared in prison notebook number 3, written by Antonio Gramsci, a Marxist philosopher in Beni

Jan. 18, 2024

[Kim Seong-kon] If America chooses to 'leave the world behind'

Currently, the United States of America is experiencing a plethora of domestic and overseas crises. Internally, there is unprecedented political bipolarity, severe inflation and the surge of a COVID-19 variant called JN 1 that have caused widespread deaths. Externally, the Ukraine war, the South China Sea dispute and North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile launches threatening mainland America come to mind. Under the circumstances, many Americans no longer want their country to in

Jan. 17, 2024

[Claudia Sahm] Don't worry about US debt. Seriously

US federal government debt ended 2023 at a record $34 trillion. The worries are bipartisan, with both Republicans and Democrats hearing about out-of-control borrowing from their constituents. In fact, almost six in 10 Americans say reducing it should be a top priority, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. So, it’s not a surprise that Congress is moving closer to passing a budget for fiscal year 2024 that would cap spending at $1.59 trillion which is a bit less than the $1.7 tr

Jan. 17, 2024

[Lara Williams] Prod people into acting more greenly

If there’s a month dedicated to self-betterment, it’s dark and dreary January. The gyms are full, the pubs are empty and green juices are flying off the shelves. At least for now. Even with the best of intentions, the vast majority of New Year’s resolutions don’t last very long at all. Many goal-setters give up on their commitments within just three months. We’re now in the second week of January, and some of you may have already slipped up on your promises. There&r

Jan. 16, 2024