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Parchment Made of Sheepskins

Dr. Scott Shepherd is a British-American academic. He received his Ph.D. from the University of London on the text and performance of Hamlet, and has taught in universities in the U.K. and Korea.

Parchment Made of Sheepskins

Who to blame for Korea's World Cup failure

After Korea’s early exit from the football World Cup, I find myself among the ranks of those disappointed by the team’s performance, though certainly not the most disappointed. I had hopes that Korea would do fairly well this time, hopes that have been emphatically dashed. Certainly, Korea did much worse than it should have, especially given that the expanded number of teams meant more routes for getting through to the next round. And while a loss to Mexico on its home turf is fair enough, much less forgivable is the failure at least to hold South Africa to a draw. I have no intention to anatomize the mistakes and failures which led to this disappointment. Plenty have enthusiastically taken up that task. Most of the blame has landed at the feet of former head coach Hong Myung-bo, who for the second time in his career has failed to guide the team out of the group stage. The charges leveled against him seem fair: He showed inferior leadership, insufficient creativity and made poor tactical decisions. But it is more than that: The very process by which he was appointed has become the s

Jul 4, 2026By Scott Shepherd
Who to blame for Korea's World Cup failure
Parchment Made of Sheepskins

How much does K-pop cost?

The upcoming concerts of BTS in front of Gyeongbok Palace and Blackpink at the National Museum of Korea are milestones for basically the world’s most successful national branding strategy. The culmination of K-pop’s bond between public bodies and private companies, these concerts demonstrate how the persistence of successive governments is reaping dividends for the country both culturally and financially. Alongside masterpieces such as "KPop Demon Hunters" and "Culinary Class Wars," the concerts hint at what’s next for Korea’s apparently endless cultural expansion across the world. The choice of these two venues reminds us that the post-war physical development of the nation came hand-in-hand with government-sponsored cultural projects. As such, hallyu has been as much a politically-driven national project as the development of Korea’s heavy and light industries building ships and computers. As far as I have seen, the many recent successes abroad of Korean products have been met here with nothing but pride, tinged with perhaps a touch of the inevitable nationalism. Less notic

Feb 28, 2026By Scott Shepherd
How much does K-pop cost?
Parchment Made of Sheepskins

Investigating Coupang

For the most part, things seem to have died down for Coupang since its massive data breach last year and the messy aftermath. Bigger news stories have pushed it out of our minds. The issue is unresolved, though, and I’m sure in a few weeks when we can all concentrate properly and the news cycle returns to Coupang’s problems, everyone will again remember to feel properly outraged. Certainly the company’s image will take a long time to recover, thanks mainly to its own actions. The offer of 50,000 won in vouchers to everyone affected was a mockery, and the refusal of Coupang’s founder Bom Kim to attend an ear-bashing at the National Assembly met with predictable anger. Now the company’s interim CEO Harold Rogers — who had suffered the politicians’ wrath instead — has apparently fled the country to avoid investigations into his testimony at the hearings. To be fair to Kim, the National Assembly hearings seem more focused on shouting at Coupang executives than actually getting to the bottom of the issue, as many have already pointed out. Yet the thing that causes the most l

Jan 17, 2026By Scott Shepherd
Investigating Coupang
Parchment Made of Sheepskins

Seoul travel blogs as American fantasy

Recently I read a blog post by an American family who travelled the world and, as part of their journey, spent 48 hours in Seoul. It is an old piece, though the site still seems to be active. What struck me was that this family, who had travelled so far and seen so much, seemed to have left America in body only, not in mind. They came with a specific notion of Korea, and when they encountered any of Seoul’s quotidian realities that contradicted their mental image, they dismissed them and quickly left: “We were hoping for crazy foods and strange sights and smells, and without those, the four of us quickly grew bored. Time to move on to the next thing.” Then they found “just what we wanted, the real deal”, which fit their preconceived version of Korea: “a small restaurant, a hole in the wall kind of place, with rickety chairs, dirty floors, and an open kitchen area.” They ate “multiple dishes of mystery food” and drank too much of what they thought was “Korean beer,” which turned out to be much stronger than they expected. They first suggest that it “may have been

Jul 19, 2025By Scott Shepherd
Seoul travel blogs as American fantasy
Parchment Made of Sheepskins

Electronic liberation

A few years ago I wrote a piece called Phone-free Fridays in which I announced my plan to loosen my phone’s grip on me by attempting a kind of digital abstinence once a week. I wanted a more balanced existence where I could participate as an active element in my own life, rather than passively following the commands of the digital overlord in my pocket. In my utopic vision I would retrieve those hours stolen by the phone and use them for all kinds of good purposes. Psychologists could probably point out all the constituent details that doomed my plan from the start. Whatever the reason, my resolve only lasted about two weeks. The attempt to employ willpower alone while making no concrete changes to my life was like a nicotine addict trying to quit smoking while holding a lit cigarette all day every day. Several years have passed since I wrote that article, and in that time I have used my phone much more than I should have. But a few months ago I unintentionally came upon quite a simple solution which has helped me to achieve the very goal I missed last time. During a class, some stude

Jun 7, 2025By Scott Shepherd
Electronic liberation
Parchment Made of Sheepskins

The children of K-pop

A few weeks ago The Korea Times reported on the controversy over the K-pop audition show UNDER15 which, the article reports, would features girls as young as 8 competing for a spot in a new girl group. I couldn’t bring myself to look at anything else about this show. Do I really need to? Does anyone? If this report is even half right then there’s no need to judge for ourselves the exact details of how risqué the clothes were, how inappropriate the choreography was or how commodified the children seemed. Just cancel the show. The phenomenal success of the Korean entertainment companies probably can’t be separated from the exploitation and, let’s be frank, objectification of minors. It is hardly news that the K-pop industry hypersexualises its performers, nor is it a secret that plenty debut before they reach adulthood. Usually producers and managers seem more careful with younger stars, though as I’ve argued in the past, they don’t always get it right. And conversely, the singers who have actually passed the age of consent are often stylised to look younger. How many K-pop v

Apr 5, 2025By Scott Shepherd
The children of K-pop
Parchment Made of Sheepskins

'Yoon must go'

On July 11 2023, I started writing an article titled “Autocracy Rising” about Yoon’s tendency towards misusing his power. I gave up on the piece after three days. I felt it was too controversial and may open me and my young family to some kind of attack — even before this week’s chaos, Yoon has demonstrated a habit of going after his critics. There was also a more mundane reason: I wasn’t happy with the way it sounded and I didn’t have any more time to spare on editing. In September this year I restarted work on the piece but again after a few days of tinkering I gave up on it.

Dec 7, 2024By Scott Shepherd
'Yoon must go'
Parchment Made of Sheepskins

Disappearing towns

Every so often, the Korea Times publishes an article about the destruction of one historic neighborhood or another, usually in a poor district of Seoul. Each piece brings for me a nostalgic pang for the Korea of yesteryear. The intricate alleys and passageways of the city’s older districts are a relic of one of the most important and transformative stages in the country’s history – a time of rapid post-war growth when a people united in the face of a common threat, rebuilding a nation and forging a future together. That future has now arrived in the form of sparkling buildings looming into the sky, and it is destroying the very towns where its progenitors were born, lived, worked, died.

Mar 24, 2024By Scott Shepherd
Disappearing towns
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