Sex, identity and beer in WangsimniNicky Bisquits is a big lad. One of those people who you have to look at whenever they enter a room. Like something passing through your peripheral vision or an evolutionary warning system kicks in. Yet, despite his size, or perhaps because of it, he’s one of the most mild-mannered English men you will ever quite meet. Everything is a smile, a handshake and a constant desire to accommodate others. We were traipsing through Wangsimni one winter not too long ago, the drinking area around Hanyang University, looking for another pub in which to warm ourselves up, having already consumed far too much but not yet ready to head home. As it was well beyond 3 a.m., many places had closed up or were demanding that you order hot soups and hangover food when all our stomachs demanded was more alcohol. For a moment, it felt like our night of laughter and lager might be coming to a somewhat premature end. And then a vintage looking wooden door caught my eye. It had no signs on it other than something that said “Bar.” A speakeasy perhaps. People smoking cigars. Whatever it might be, when I push2d agoBy David A. Tizzard
Church, sex and 'American Hagwon'I thought "Pachinko" was a fantastic book, particularly the first two-thirds. The narrative, the culture, the characters and, most importantly, the continuing sense of claustrophobia. I was there. Trapped. I was a young woman carrying a child, living among strangers, frightened for my future but clinging to hope. That is the power of Lee Min Jin's writing. She takes you there. She makes you feel it. She reminds you not only what it is to be human, but also what it is to be someone else — which is, when you think about it, a rather extraordinary thing for a book to achieve. You sit in a comfortable chair, a cup of coffee somewhere nearby, and voluntarily spend several hundred pages experiencing the suffering of people who lived in circumstances you will never fully understand. You emerge feeling that you've learned something about the human condition. Perhaps you have. Perhaps you've just enjoyed the experience of feeling that you have. That also comes across in the way Lee carries herself in interviews. The empathy. The intelligence. The compassion for others. I have shown her converOct 31, 2026By David A. Tizzard
When Koreans were the foreigners: 'Ode to My Father' revisitedEurope is once again arguing about immigration: who should be allowed in, what newcomers owe the countries that receive them and what those countries owe the people whose labor they need. But there is an uncomfortable historical irony here. The wealthy societies now debating how many foreigners they can accommodate were often built, in part, by people who left poorer countries to do the jobs others would not. Korea knows something about this. Before the world queued up for its music, films and skin care, Koreans were traveling to the mines of West Germany, the hospitals of Europe, the construction sites of Saudi Arabia and the battlefields of Vietnam. They were the foreigners, the workers, the people whose labor was welcome even when they were not. One way to understand what it means to leave your country in search of a better life is to watch someone else do it. That’s why after giving my students lectures on Confucianism and Buddhism, on the fall of the 1392-1910 Joseon Dynasty and arrival of Japanese colonization, on the division of the peninsula, the internecine Korean War and thOct 24, 2026By David A. Tizzard
'Nunchi' levels: upIn Korea, some things are nonnegotiable. You’re gonna have to work hard. Education is going to be everywhere. At some stage, you’ll develop a skin care routine. Bowing is a must. Kakao is life. And then there’s “nunchi.” Literally meaning “eye measure,” it is one’s ability to understand unspoken social dynamics. And if you’re coming from Latin America or the Mediterranean region, you might find yourself gob smacked by just how quiet Korea can be. So much of life is unspoken. The things you need to know are unsaid. The way you’re meant to sit, eat, talk and move is all broadcast in deafening silence. This, of leaves many floundering in a sea of confusion. Or even worse, thinking Korean people are cold and standoffish. Neither of these is true, obviously. Korean people are incredibly warm: full of laughter, tears and livers that would make a sailor blush. They just do a lot of daily life more quietly than you might be used to. An expression taught to me by popular psychologist Lee Seo-hyun says, “Gichimman haedo anda (You should know someone’s intentions even fromOct 17, 2026By David A. Tizzard
Autumn Korea is peak KoreaThere were all sorts of things that surprised me when I first arrived in Korea: the garlic, the toilets that were nothing more than holes in the floor, the widespread availability of counterfeit CDs and movies, the spitting and the cults and religious performers on the subways. And when talking to Koreans, it felt like all the memes were actually true: “Do you know kimchi?” was actually something people asked me fairly regularly. To be honest, at the time, I had no real idea what kimchi was or why it was so important to Korean people. I do now. But there was another question/statement which always caught me off-guard: Do you know Korea has four seasons? I say question and/or statement because it was often used by people in a way as if to tell you something awesome about the country. The grammar structure itself was also the bane of many an English teacher’s life: the phrase “Do you know…” obviously featured in some old education models somewhere, and basically everyone went around using it. A conversation sounded closer to an interrogation at times if you weren’t careful.Oct 11, 2026By David A. Tizzard
Korea is dying. Please keep watchingThe more successful Korea becomes, the more valuable its cultural depiction of itself as a failed society becomes. The country has become extraordinarily successful at exporting a fantasy of its own failure. And it learned from the best; it just flipped the narrative. "Dead-End Job," starring Lee Jae-wook, comes out later this month. Netflix describes it as “A man drowning in debt gets a mysterious gig that pays 50 times the minimum wage ... as long as he never reveals what happens at work.” From all the trailers it looks like another Squid Game-esque dystopia fantasy. It portrays Korean society as a brutal and unforgiving land, inflicted with a spiritual poison that slowly eats at the soul of all those who live here. That poison is often understood as the result of the compressed modernity Korea achieved — going from fields and rice to luxury air-conditioners and high-end coffee in just over two decades. This is seen as a Faustian bargain. A deal with the devil. And while the sowing may have been enjoyable for some time, here comes the reaping. International social media has of cOct 3, 2026By David A. Tizzard
Korea doesn't see race the way you do“They’re kind of shocked when I tell them I’m not American. Then they’re really disappointed that I’m not French either, because they love French people,” a young woman explained to the room. “When I tell them I’m from Africa — I don’t say Gabon because that just makes things more confusing — they don’t know how to react. It’s like they have no frame of reference. Why am I not poor, for example. How can I be in Korea?” I empathized deeply with the student. She wasn’t what Korean people expected her to be. My friend professor Zeljana Zmire has wonderfully described this as “nouveau riche nationalism” — the idea that for many Koreans, the gross domestic product of the country you are from will often have more influence on how you are treated than your actual skin color. For years, I’ve had people asking, assuming or simply stating without fact that I’m American. “Migukin onda (An American is coming),” the kids would shout at me on the street. Nearby tables in busy pubs would make similar comments. These would be especially pronounced when I wasSep 26, 2026By David A. Tizzard
Is Korea still a shrimp between whales?England is a lion. Russia is a bear. China a dragon. America an Eagle. And so on. But what about Korea? What animal best represents the people and the culture? One of my favourite stories comes from Lee Tae-woong’s fabulous KBS documentary on the 1988 Olympics. The country had to choose an official mascot for the event. Something that would be made into toys and posters and spread around the world. Suggestions ranged from ginseng and Silla crowns to Cheomseongdae, Goryeo pottery and even jangseung, those wonderfully grotesque wooden guardians posted at village entrances. If only we lived in the parallel universe where they won. Secretly, however, the design committee had hoped that a rabbit would be chosen to represent Korea. At the time, Korea’s image was very different from today. Instead of today's Gangnam glitz, international images of Korea were colored by Gwangju, political repression and nearly three decades of authoritarian rule. By using a rabbit as an Olympic mascot, the hope was that it would soften Korea’s image. Make it appear more approachable, friendlier. Cuter. ThSep 19, 2026By David A. Tizzard
Why did everyone in old Korea wear white?If you have the good fortune to spend time looking over photos and videos of Korea in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, you will notice something quite striking: nearly everyone’s wearing white. There is a uniformity in the appearance of the people, marked by their plain, unadorned white clothing. Contrast this with the bright pinks, blues and greens we see foreigners wearing around the palaces and bursting through our screens in high definition as part of the latest K-drama, and you realize that there’s a disconnect between the past as it was and as it is imagined today. Consider the following 1920s quote: “While China and especially Japan are using so many different colors in their dresses, there is no such trend in the neighboring country, Joseon. They wear no color but white. Even when they use a color, it's an almost colorless jade. What makes everyone, regardless of gender or age, wear white? There are many countries and nations in the world, but none are like Joseon.” But why did Korean people wear white? And why were they known as "Baekui Minjok" (People in white cSep 12, 2026By David A. Tizzard
How Korea was really colonizedFor 35 years, the place that I inhabit today was not known as Korea, but rather it was part of Japan. While during the 1392-1910 Joseon Dynasty the capital was known as Hanyang, from 1910 to 1945 during the Japanese colonial period the city was officially known in Japanese as Keijō and in Korean as Gyeongseong. Only following liberation did it formally adopt the previous vernacular term of Seoul. My father-in-law, to this day, speaks Japanese very well. This is not because he was associated with the Japanese empire, but rather those that lived in this land went to school, had to face Tokyo, had to bow, had to assume Japanese names and language while in public, and then go home and speak Korean and dream of the flag and liberation and hope. In 1936, when Korean athletes competed at the Berlin Olympics, made famous by Jesse Owens for defying Hitler's terrible ideology, they did so with a Japanese flag on their chest. The most famous was Son Kee-chung, who won the marathon and became the first Korean to win an Olympic gold medal. His fellow Korean Nam Seung-yong won bronze in the same rSep 5, 2026By David A. Tizzard
