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Opinion

Tue, January 22, 2019 | 21:17

Opinion > Blogs >

Walking in the footsteps of the Past: Suwon 1884 (Part 2)

In the morning, George C. Foulk, dressed in his uniform, and called on the magistrate or governor of Suwon. His notes are rather sparse (unlike his notes of other locations) but he did describe the fortifications and the location of the yongmun - with which he seemed fairly ple...

Walking in the footsteps of the past: Suwon 1884 (Part 1)

Twice, between early October and November 1884, George C. Foulk, an American naval ensign attached to the American legation in Seoul, traveled to Suwon. The first time was in an open chair carried by two Korean coolies - or servants - and the second was part of his larger expos...

Tales of Jeju: The legend of Snake Cave

Whenever I visited Fred Dustin at his home on Jeju Island, we would sit by the fire at night eating popcorn and drinking grape juice while he regaled me with tales from the past. Dustin's home was quite isolated and surrounded by trees. It could be pretty spooky there at night ...

Notes from Seoul Fashion Week, October 2018

I have just finished covering Seoul Fashion Week and am now at Vietnam International Fashion Week to look at fashion there and Korean influence on it, which I have seen and been told is considerable. Rather than an extended prose description, I will allow the photos and caption...

Fashion field notes from Danang

As an ethnographer, I'm always thinking about people, the groups they see themselves as part of, and the way they define discrete cultures. As a visual sociologist, I think about our extremely visual culture in which identity and the very important economic acts of consumption ...

Multiculturalism: Korea's most obstinate 'iron cage'

I'm going to do something writers aren't supposed to do - lose the reader immediately. Well, that's not actually my goal, since I'm doing this deliberately with the goal of making a point. And the first line of this piece, along with the gob-stopping opening image, should be en...

'Sky Castle' and the deep fissures in Korean society

Koreans have been riveted to their television sets for the last three months watching the JTBC hit drama “Sky Castle.” This tragicomedy relates the machinations of four families who live in an exclusive development that houses the restless, the reckless and the ruthless super-r...

Inconvenient parallels between responses to the Holocaust and to climate change

A comparison between the culture of denial and self-deception that swept Europe during the Holocaust and the disgraceful failure of so-called “advanced nations” to take even the most basic steps to address the catastrophe of climate change may strike readers as a painfully stre...

Meditations on the word 'unification'

The debate about North Korea's future has been reduced to a fight between those on the one hand who favor expanding cooperation with North Korea and thereby increasing investment, business activities, transport networks, electric grids and energy ties, and those on the other ha...

Me Cook? No, You Cook!

Years ago, I saw a birthday party ruined in spectacular fashion. An American friend, an advanced Korean language learner, was chatting with two Korean women who began ridiculing his pronunciation, repeating to each other “Mikuk” (not “Miguk,” which means American) several times...

14-year-old j.knife surprises Korean indie fans with folk-pop album 'Familiar Sounds'

When most Koreans are 14 years old, or 15 Korean age, they're studying hard in preparation for high school, and already readying themselves for the college entrance exam that will decide their entire futures. Jennifer Kim may not be much different, but she also somehow makes th...

Recent trends in gaming industry regulations

A few years ago, a panel of celebrities on a TV show was asked to rank Korea's cultural contents industry exports in terms of sales volume. The categories were movies, music, and electronic games, the last of which turned out to be the clear winner. Panel members expressed grea...

Handy tips for using ride-sharing services

The business-to-consumer ride-sharing market in Korea has rapidly increased and 5 million people here have used such a service. The whole process can be controlled by a smartphone application and you do not need to see or speak to anyone from the rental company.

Smart factories and pending Personal Video Information Protection Act

One of my clients is a software development start-up that is jumping on the bandwagon of the deep learning Smart Factory system. In the course of developing an automatic system to analyze the progress of shipbuilding for a leading Korean shipbuilder, a system that applies deep-...

My life at a Korean law firm (part 46)

Once a month KOCIS produced a glossy magazine that was distributed free to consular offices, cultural centers, libraries, and Korea-well-wishers around the world. When I was there it was simply called “Korea,” and it may still have that name. This publication was not produced i...

My life at a Korean law firm (part 45)

Working at Korea.net involved mainly improving government press releases rewritten in English or finessing the texts of my Korean colleagues who wrote original articles on recycled themes about growth in Korea's exports, aspects of its culture, that month's festivals and so on....

My life at a Korean law firm (part 44)

This week a slight diversion from, but one that dovetails with, my life story. I'm going to write about my Canadian friend Michael Spavor, whose situation I am concerned about, because he is an unwilling guest of the Chinese government. Spavor was arrested on his way catch a fl...

Defectors 'amazed' by South Koreans' positive reactions to Kim's Seoul visit

On December 9, several North Korean refugees visited the Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR) office at the invitation of a TNKR student studying in the organization. The refugees were in agreement in denouncing South Koreans for welcoming Kim Jung-un to South Korea

Defectors' view of Kim Jong-un's Seoul visit

I'm busy with other things, such as learning English, so I don't really think about Kim Jong-un. Even when I was in North Korea, I didn't really care about him. A wonderful thing about being in freedom is that I am free to ignore North Korea and Kim.

A North Korean defector's account of English speech contest

Saturday November 3 was a regular day for most people in the world, and it started that way for me too. I got up as usual, I got dressed. Then I headed out to be an assistant at the second English speech contest hosted by the Korea Hana Foundation, the government agency that as...

When color can be too much

I love color - sometimes too much. But there are times when color simply gets in the way of a good photograph. Bright colors can enhance, but they can distract. Often the better photograph focuses on tone and patterns. In such cases, monotone (black and white) photographs are t...

Finding your kind of street photography

If you ask serious photographers just what is “street photography,” you are likely to find many definitions. At times, street photography can resemble travel photography. But travel photography tends to be less artistic and more about personal documentation of one's experiences...

Festivals make great photos

Jongro-3ga, Lantern Parade. All photos by Tom CoynerTom CoynerWith the warming temperatures, come festivals and similar events. These colorful events are both challenging and rewarding. They can be confusing as a three-ring circus in determining what to photograph, and it can b...

Children deserve better