Korea Times K-Culture Reporter
Lee Hae-rin is a City Desk reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues, tourism and taekwondo. She is passionate about speaking up for the rights of minorities, including women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and animals as well as discovering the latest makgeolli trend in town. Feel free to reach her at lhr@koreatimes.co.kr.
Korea remains a hostile environment for women’s rights amid an intensifying gender divide and ongoing anti-feminist backlash in politics.
![[INTERVIEW] Memories of #MeToo will shape coming generation's worldviews despite ongoing anti-feminist wave](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
JEJU ISLAND – Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju is renowned for its wonderful natural environment featuring translucent turquoise seas and hiking trails in mountainous and volcanic terrain.
Chinese group tourists visiting Korea on package holidays are herded into stores and pressured to pay for optional tour programs by travel guides here, a lawmaker said, Wednesday.
As growing numbers of people visit parks along the Han River for autumn picnics, Seoul city's current regulation, which forces them to leave two sides of a tent open at riverside picnic areas is sparking debate over privacy concerns.
The Military Manpower Administration (MMA) has been considering expanding military conscription to orphans and North Korean defectors to compensate for armed forces personnel shortages and the low birthrate, an opposition lawmaker said Saturday.
Foreign diplomats stationed in Korea, or their family members, have committed some 70 crimes such as driving under the influence (DUI) and theft in the past five years. But 98.5 percent of them enjoyed diplomatic immunity and avoided criminal punishment, an opposition lawmaker said, Friday, calling for the need to overhaul the diplomatic immunity system.
Korea sees an annual average 36,000 criminal suspects of foreign nationality, a ruling lawmaker said, Thursday.
Eastern Seoul’s Seongsu-dong is one of the most tagged locations on Instagram and emerging as a trendy must-visit for young people.
The number of gambling addicts in Korea who received hospital treatment has nearly doubled in the last four years, increasing sharply among those in their 20s, an opposition lawmaker said Tuesday.
Lee, a 19-year-old high school student based in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, said high-caffeine beverages, such as coffee and energy drinks, are a necessity to aid her in her studies, as she has had a hectic academic schedule ahead of the College Scholastic Aptitude Test (CSAT) slated for November this year.