In February 2020, an African man landed at Incheon Airport in South Korea, seeking asylum. He had fled his homeland, where a civil war had killed many of his family members and relatives. The South Korean immigration office, however, refused to accept his application for refugee status, on the grounds that he was a transfer passenger. His eligibility as a refugee was not even reviewed. For months that followed, the man lived in the transit zone. He slept on chairs near the terminal gates, ate fr

Hashtag Korea May 15, 2023

HAI PHONG, Vietnam -- In this coastal city in northern Vietnam, it's said that having English skills can double your salary, while having Korean skills can triple it. Although the saying may be somewhat exaggerated, it certainly captures the high value placed on proficiency in the Korean language. Korean companies and institutions are prominent employers in the city, running immense factories, leading a variety of business projects, and they attract top-quality manpower with solid compe

Hashtag Korea May 13, 2023

A Korean proficiency exam for Vietnamese job seekers saw the highest number of test takers in 10 years, data showed Wednesday. This year, a total of 23,412 Vietnamese applied for the “EPS-TOPIK (Employment Permit System’s Test of Proficiency in Korean),” more than doubling from 11,600 applicants a year earlier. The 2023 figure was also the highest in a decade, according to the Department of Overseas Labor under Vietnam’s Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs. The

Social Affairs May 10, 2023

Of all colleges and universities in South Korea, Hanyang University had the highest number of international students last year, with a total of 6,999 enrolled -- 4,816 at its main campus in Seoul and 2,183 at its branch campus in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province -- according to data on Monday. Kyung Hee University came next with 6,912 students, followed by Sungkyunkwan University with 6,676, according to the data compiled by the Korean Educational Development Institute. These colleges were followed by Y

Social Affairs May 8, 2023

Seoul's ritzy southern neighborhood of Daechi-dong is the hub of Korea's private education, where hundreds of private cram schools cater to students vying to enter the country’s prominent universities. On April 3, an appalling scam targeting unsuspecting students on the streets of this neighborhood sent shockwaves across the nation. Over 100 bottles of drinks laced with methamphetamines and ecstasy were distributed, falsely marketed as study aids to enhance concentration and me

Hashtag Korea May 2, 2023

A 3.1 magnitude natural earthquake hit Okcheon, North Chungcheong Province, Sunday, the state weather agency said. The quake struck 16 kilometers east of the town, 149 kilometers southeast of Seoul, at 7:03 p.m. with no damage reported so far, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration. The quake, which occurred at a depth of 14 kilometers, was recorded up to Level 4 on the seismic intensity scale, the strength at which most people can feel tremors and can wake up if the quake occurs a

Social Affairs April 30, 2023

Similar to South Korea, North Korea is grappling with tumbling childbirths. The cause, however, is starkly different: famine and persistent economic hardships. The communist state’s total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime, stood at 1.9 in 2022, according to a report titled “State of World Population 2022,” published by the United Nations Population Fund. The figure was higher than the South’s 0.78 estimated in the same year, but

Social Affairs April 30, 2023

Sgt. 1st Class Joseph P. Khamvongsa arrived here in 2018 to be part of the US military forces stationed in South Korea. Though not necessary for his job, he soon started taking Korean classes out of a desire to better understand the country he was helping to protect. “I can’t forget the first time I had the combo of jokbal (pig's trotters) and soju with my Korean roommate, whom I met while serving at the ex-US military base site in Uijeongbu in the same year,” Khamvongsa t

Hello Hangeul April 30, 2023

"History through The Korea Herald” revisits significant events and issues over seven decades through articles, photos and editorial pieces published in the Herald and retells them from a contemporary perspective. – Ed. In the summer of 1983, Seoul’s Yeouido Park and the nearby area surrounding a TV station building turned into a sea of people, each clutching signboards covered with the details of someone they were searching for. Thousands had gone there to post a poster fo

Hashtag Korea April 26, 2023

HANOI, Vietnam -- In 1996, Vietnam National University opened its department of Korean language and culture. Tran Thi Huong was among its first 30 students enrolled. Their teachers were Korean missionaries and volunteer workers from the Korea International Cooperation Agency’s branch office in Hanoi, who took turns teaching them. Pocket-sized Korean-English dictionaries, given by the KOICA volunteers, were their first textbooks. “The dictionaries had to be photocopied multiple ti

Hello Hangeul April 23, 2023

HANOI, Vietnam – Located a five-hour flight from Seoul is a country where the Korean language's popularity is second only to its homeland of South Korea. Here, kids as young as 8 -- or elementary school third grade -- are learning Korean at school, although not as a compulsory subject. This is the same age when they start learning English. Another indication of the Korean language boom in Vietnam is the number of those who take the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK), an exam for

Hello Hangeul April 23, 2023

As the train rolls toward the platform, a familiar tune begins to play. An announcement, first in Korean and then in English, follows soon after. It's a simple melody, yet one that is instantly recognizable to not just Seoulites but anyone who has spent some time in the city. It is the sound of the Seoul subway. Recently, it seems there has been a newfound appreciation for the subway platform music. Jonah Aki, an American choreographer who has lived in Seoul for a decade, owes much of his r

Hashtag Korea April 22, 2023

On a recent Tuesday morning, a sense of calm pervaded Black Hawk Village, a remnant of the Yongsan Garrison, the old headquarters of the US Forces Korea. Once home to American soldiers and their families, the village of 18 buildings is a relic from a time when the foreign military had its headquarters right in the heart of Seoul. For Hwang, a bride-to-be in her 20s, however, it is the perfect backdrop for her pre-wedding photo shoot. “The hues of the brownish-red buildings, green lawns and

Travel April 11, 2023

Javin Rukia, a 49-year-old English teacher at a middle school in the Solomon Islands, used to teach Hangeul, the writing system for the Korean language, about a decade ago. It was when two provinces in the island country -- Guadalcanal and Malaita -- chose Hangeul as their official alphabet for transcribing their indigenous languages which had been passed down orally but did not have a writing system. The southwestern Pacific archipelago, made up of 992 islands, is one of the most linguistically

Hello Hangeul April 9, 2023

In Seoul’s Yeonnam-dong, a trendy neighborhood for young hipsters, a particular trend has taken over an entire street: instant self-photo studios popping up almost next to each other. “Nine new self-photo studios have opened within just a few months in this area,” shared a person surnamed Hong who runs another such studio near Hongik University Station. It was a Tuesday afternoon and the freestanding photo studios inside stores like “Life Four Cuts” or “Haru F

Hashtag Korea April 8, 2023