[Korea Quiz] (25) Love and hate over a tree

Test your knowledge of Korea with our weekly quiz on the language, culture, history or anything K-related. -- Ed. Find the answer at the bottom of the page. Ginkgo trees are one of the most prevalent kinds of roadside trees in Korea, along with cherry blossom trees. There are about 114,000 gingko trees in Seoul alone, accounting for nearly one-third of the city’s street trees. They are easy to grow, require virtually no maintenance once established and are tolerant of pollution. The seeds

Oct. 19, 2022

[Land of Squid Game] Sarcasm? What's that?

Among Westerners, especially friends, sarcasm is commonly used in conversation, often taking the form of a humorous, ironic statement (e.g. saying “Oh, that's great” to imply that a situation is not good). Koreans hardly, if ever, use sarcasm. Foreigners should avoid using sarcasm too often when interacting with Koreans as it will most likely not be understood, or worse, it may be taken literally. Min Byoung-chul is an endowed chair professor at Chung-Ang University who is w

Oct. 18, 2022

Ministry backs proposed ban on use of drug references in food advertisements

Alarmed by a rapid rise in drug offenses, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Tuesday it supports a legislative proposal to ban references to narcotics in food advertisements as something irresistibly good. “Using drug references to promote food can have a negative effect on children or adolescents,” a ministry official said. “Once the proposed bill gets passed by the National Assembly, the ministry will take measures, including drawing up an enforcement ordinance to curb

Oct. 18, 2022

[Newsmaker] Kakao Outage: What happens when a country heavily relies on one super app?

Tech giant Kakao has said most of its services have been restored following an extended outage that began Saturday. But as the country suffered a digital blackout for many hours, the dominance of its "super app" has been called into question. Launched in 2010 as a messaging app, KakaoTalk grew in popularity exponentially over the years and branched out to other areas such as shopping and banking. Kakao also launched in-house apps that work in connection with KakaoTalk, such as ride-hai

Oct. 17, 2022

Seoul opens space dedicated to K-pop dance covers

Dance cover videos, created by fans to imitate idols’ moves on stage and in music videos, have been an essential part of global K-pop fandom culture. On platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, one can easily find short clips where amateur dancers from both here and abroad replicate the choreography with incredible attention to details. These videos are often shot in places such as on the street or in a public park. Recently, one particular locale in Seoul has risen a

Oct. 14, 2022

[Korea Quiz] (24) The Samsung brand

Test your knowledge of Korea with our weekly quiz on the language, culture, history or anything K-related. -- Ed. Find the answer at the bottom of this page. You may know of Samsung just as a TV or phone brand. But on its home turf of South Korea, it is a household name for many more things -- almost too many. Here, a person can be living in a Samsung apartment, wear Samsung suits to work, eat lunch at a Samsung-run cafeteria at work, check stock prices via Samsung’s securities app, get

Oct. 12, 2022

[Land of Squid Game] Never stick silverware straight up in a bowl of rice while eating

Koreans do not stick their spoons or chopsticks vertically into their rice. This behavior is reserved for funeral ceremonies or for a jesa, a memorial service where food is offered in memory of the deceased. This is why foreigners should refrain from doing this; it would be considered rude and offensive. By Min Byoung-chul Min Byoung-chul is an endowed chair professor at Chung-Ang University who is widely known as a multicultural educator and for his practical English teaching. This conten

Oct. 11, 2022

Blind: App that has everyone in the workplace talking

Blind, a workplace community app, has been a source of some of the biggest company news stories and viral social media posts globally. They range from the Korean Air “nut rage” incident and the 2017 sexual harassment allegations at Uber to the controversy at US food delivery platform DoorDash over an initiative that requires all employees to make one food delivery every month, to name a few. One of the latest corporate news stories to come out of the anonymous user-based platform for

Oct. 11, 2022

[Newsmaker] 30% of international schools in Korea teach 'Sea of Japan'

  Over 30 percent of international schools in South Korea have been using textbooks that refer to the East Sea, a body of water between South Korea and Japan, only as the Sea of Japan, a lawmaker said Tuesday. As of August 2020, 12 of 38 international schools were using textbooks that solely use the Japanese name. The number of those textbooks with the Sea of Japan reference marked 24, according to the office of Rep. Ahn Min-seok of the opposition Democratic Party of Korea. The office refer

Oct. 11, 2022

[Subway Stories] Heritage and trends mix fashionably in Seongsu

  The following is part of Seoul Subway Stories -- a Korea Herald series exploring subway stations and their surrounding areas across the city. – Ed.   Strolling through the vicinity of Seongsu Station, one can get an idea of what is considered hip in Korea these days: It has to be artsy, independent and youthful, with stories, preferably of heritage and history, to tell. Seongsu-dong’s status as a mecca of hipness in Seoul can be seen through millions of Instagram posts in

Oct. 11, 2022

Korea urged to join race for foreign talent: report

South Korea needs to bring in more professional foreign workers to cope with a continuous decline in the working-age population, a think tank said Friday. According to a report published by the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, educators, researchers, engineers, artists and highly-skilled workers accounted for a mere 10 percent of last year’s total 406,669 foreign nationals with employment visas. The rest were mostly low-skilled workers in agriculture, construction and

Oct. 7, 2022

Response to teenagers cartoon leads to 'Streisand effect'

On Sept. 18, a teenager’s cartoon satirizing President Yoon Suk-yeol won a top prize at a local cartoon contest. No major news outlets gave it major coverage. The work was displayed for three days until Monday at the Bucheon International Comics Festival. It drew some attention, and mixed comments, on social media. Then on Tuesday, a day after the exhibition’s end, the work was thrust into the national spotlight when the Culture Ministry issued a “strong warning” against

Oct. 7, 2022

A journey through Seoul in honor of Hangeul and its famed creator

King Sejong of the Joseon era, or simply Sejong the Great, is arguably the Korean who has left the biggest mark on the nation’s history. Every single day, people across the country use the monarch’s creation --- Hangeul, the Korean writing system. How highly Koreans think of him can be seen in numerous instances. Among the many things named after him are a Seoul street, a city, a university, a performing arts center, a naval Aegis destroyer, a satellite and the country’s Antarc

Oct. 7, 2022

Films about King Sejong and Hangeul

From a ruler to an academic, a musician and a linguist, King Sejong wore many hats. And the 15th-century monarch who invented Korea’s writing system Hangeul has also been an inspiration for Korean filmmakers and TV drama producers. The most recent of the big-screen attempts to convincingly depict Sejong was 2019's “The King’s Letters,” directed by Jo Chul-hyun and starring none other than “Parasite” star Song Kang-ho as King Sejong. The film follows the t

Oct. 7, 2022

[Korea Quiz] (23) Hangeul, the Korean alphabet

Test your knowledge of Korea with our weekly quiz on the language, culture, history or anything K-related. -- Ed. Find the answer at the bottom of the page. October 9 is a public holiday in Korea marking the birthday of Hangeul, the country’s native writing system. Hangeul was invented and introduced by King Sejong, the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, in the 15th century, which makes it one of the youngest scripts in the world. It is also unique in that its inventor is known. King Sej

Oct. 5, 2022

University festivals return in full glory after pandemic hiatus

With cooler and crisp air, the season of university fall festivals has arrived. Since mid-September, major universities across the country are holding their biggest and most exciting campus event of the year. During the past two years of the pandemic, university festivals had faced a hiatus, like many other in-person events. But with social distancing rules and the outdoor mask mandate lifted, the festivals are back in all their glory, with their typical elements of K-pop, student-run food sta

Oct. 5, 2022

[Land of Squid Game] Piling

This game is called "malttukbakgi," or the piling game. First, the heads of two teams decide which team is the offense and the defense by playing rock paper scissors. Then the leader of the defensive side stands against a large tree or wall and the rest of the players place their head between the legs of the person in front of them, making a horse. The objective of the team on offense is to climb on the horse. Each member of the offense runs and jumps onto the back of the team on def

Oct. 4, 2022

‘Leeds era’: How one English city's name became a buzzword in Korea

Buzzwords come and go in Korea after a few years. But one has stood the test of time -- “Leeds era,” which is read as “lijeu sijeol” in Korean. The term, believed to have originated from online football communities around 2005, is used to refer to a period of one’s greatest success or popularity, similar to a heyday or a golden era. It is used in various contexts including the appearance of celebrities to the performance of athletes. Since July this year, local cabl

Oct. 2, 2022

[Korea Quiz] (22) National Foundation Day

Test your knowledge of Korea with our weekly quiz on the language, culture, history or anything K-related. -- Ed. Find the answer at the bottom of the page. Oct. 3 is the National Foundation Day, which is a public holiday in South Korea. Called Gaecheonjeol (개천절) in Korean, meaning the day when the sky opened, it commemorates the foundation of the very first kingdom on the Korean Peninsula more than four millennia ago. Dangun, the mythological forefather of the Korean ethnicity and the son of

Sept. 28, 2022

[Land of Squid Game] Playing rock scissors paper before deciding anything

Koreans choose the order of something or the 'It' person when playing games with the 'rock-scissors-paper' game. This culture continues into adulthood and so when making minor decisions as a group, they will often play rock-scissors-paper. In schools or daily life, they may decide who has to present first or who should pay after having lunch together. By Min Byoung-chul Min Byoung-chul is an endowed chair professor at Chung-Ang University who is widely known as a mu

Sept. 27, 2022