The Korea Times

Who do we cheer for?

“Who are you cheering for?” It is one of the simplest questions in sports and one we are constantly hearing now that the World Cup is underway. At first glance, the answer seems obvious. You cheer for your country. The world of sports, after all, is among the few remaining institutions that require us to declare where our loyalty lies so openly. Flags hang from buildings, national anthems echo before matches, and television broadcasts divide the world into familiar categories of “us” and “them.” In doing so, sporting events transform abstract ideas of identity and belonging into something visible, shared and deeply emotional. During the matches we are keeping up with this World Cup, for 90 minutes, the complexity of modern life gives way to a simple proposition: choose a side. Yet the more we talked about it, the more we realized how difficult that question has become for many people. Defining what “your country” means is no longer a straightforward answer. Perhaps it was easier in another time. Many of our parents and grandparents spent most of their lives close to where th

1d agoBy Chyung Eun-ju (By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho)

Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho

The invisible labor of 3rd-culture belonging

As third-cultured individuals, there is a very particular and peculiar kind of exhaustion we have always felt in our lives that comes from constantly calibrating ourselves to fit other people’s expectations. For us raised between cultures without belonging entirely to either, our identities seem to become less of a stable core and more of a series of carefully managed versions of ourselves, where we are not simply transitioning between languages, but translating personality, humor, emotion, even silence. As Korean-Brazilians, we often grew up feeling too Brazilian for Korea and too Korean for Brazil. Whenever we are in Korea, our Brazilian directness can appear excessive, emotionally loud or insufficiently restrained. In Brazil, our reservation arising from our Korean identities may be interpreted as coldness, distance or social awkwardness. Now, as more experienced and mature adults, we realize that neither perception is entirely wrong, they are both just incomplete. It seems that the difficulty we faced and continue to face as third-culture individuals lies not in cultural differenc

Jun 2, 2026By Chyung Eun-ju (By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho)

Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho

Korea is everywhere — but do we understand it?

There was a time when Korea felt like a question mark. Growing up, we remember how often people would ask if we were from North or South Korea, as if the two were interchangeable, or mistake Koreans for something else entirely. In Brazil or the United States, the confusion took different forms, but the underlying feeling was the same: Korea existed somewhere at the edges of global awareness — visible, but not fully seen. Today, that has changed. Korea is everywhere. From the global rise of K-pop to the influence of Korean beauty, the country has moved from the margins to the center of cultural attention. Scroll through social media and you will find endless interpretations of Korean life — foreigners documenting their routines in Seoul, commenting on work culture or decoding social norms. Korea, it seems, has become legible. But being visible is not the same as being understood. Last month, one of us participated in a book club in Brazil where the novel in discussion was “We Do Not Part,” by Korean author Han Kang. This was such an interesting coincidence, as the choice for the b

May 6, 2026By Chyung Eun-ju (By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho)

Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho

Exhaustion that sleep can’t fix

We tend to think about burnout as the result of doing too much. But lately, it seems that even doing less doesn’t seem to fix it. There is a particular kind of exhaustion that seems to linger in our lives. It doesn’t lift with sleep or a lighter schedule, or even with time set aside to rest. You can step away from work, cancel plans, stay in for the evening and still feel as though something in your mind hasn’t quite powered down. It’s a quiet, persistent fatigue — and it’s becoming increasingly common. This sense of lingering exhaustion is not just anecdotal. A 2024 report on youth quality of life in Korea found that nearly one in three young people (32.2 percent) has experienced burnout. Notably, the leading cause was not overwork, but uncertainty about the future — an underlying mental strain that does not disappear by simply doing less. For a long time, we’ve framed tiredness as a problem of overload: too many responsibilities, too many expectations, too much pressure to perform. The solution seemed obvious — reduce the load, create balance, rest more. But what if t

Apr 15, 2026By Joel Cho (By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho)

Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho

What it means to age in South Korea right now

For a long time, South Korea’s health care system was treated as one of the nation’s quiet successes, something solid enough to fade into the background of everyday life without much to worry about. It was efficient, relatively affordable and reassuringly accessible for most people. You could walk into a clinic, see a doctor and receive treatment the same day. It felt like a system that worked. That sense of quiet confidence made it easy to look away when cracks began to appear in the system. Lately, confidence in the system has begun to erode. Since last year, the country has seen a medical crisis erupt and fill the headlines. Medical school quotas, student boycotts and residents resigning from their posts has made it evident that South Korea’s health care system had taken a hit, with the crisis making its way into the national consciousness. Recent disruptions caused by the mass resignation of medical trainees were often framed as a dispute between doctors and the government. But to see it only as a labor conflict is to miss the deeper story. What we are witnessing is not just a

Feb 9, 2026By Chyung Eun-ju (By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho)

What it means to age in South Korea right now

Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho

Stories we no longer ask for

As a new year begins, debates about artificial intelligence (AI) often focus on what machines will replace next. Actors, writers, even creativity itself are framed as being under threat. Yet the rise of AI-made short dramas suggests a different question that may be more urgent, which involves understanding not what AI is taking from us, but what kind of viewers we have already become. In an era where quantity of content seems to prevail over quality, what makes the rise of AI-produced short dramas particularly striking is not the sophistication of the technology itself, but the audience’s reaction — or lack thereof. Stories created with minimal human performance, synthetic expressions and automated production pipelines have entered mainstream platforms with little resistance. This quietness of this transition, whether deliberate or not, suggests that the shift may have less to do with artificial intelligence becoming more convincingly human-like, and more to do with viewers growing accustomed to consuming narratives with less attachment, less engagement and fewer expectations. In r

Dec 25, 2025By Chyung Eun-ju (By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho)

Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho

We got AI in education all wrong: Here’s the fix

For decades, Korea’s top universities have relied on a familiar system for judging academic excellence: high-stakes exams, tightly supervised assignments, and essays meant to showcase a student’s individual mastery. Academic integrity, long protected by strict rules and intense competition, was assumed to be easily verifiable. Now, generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude can produce research papers, essay answers, and even personalized reflections in seconds — often more polished than a student’s own writing. A first-year student can ask a chatbot to analyze a poem or summarize a week’s lecture and receive a convincing, submission-ready response almost instantly. This raises a fundamental challenge: Why struggle to reason through a concept when AI can deliver a passable answer without understanding? Recent reports show that even Korea’s top universities are struggling to adapt. Students at Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University were found to have used AI tools like ChatGPT to cheat on exams, exposing the limi

Dec 1, 2025By Chyung Eun-ju (By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho)

We got AI in education all wrong: Here’s the fix

Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho

How Kakao is shaping our behavior, and why we should care

A month after Kakao’s latest update, some users are still frustrated, and the company’s next moves suggest the story is far from over. What was once a simple instant messaging app has started to look and behave more like a social network. The familiar "friends list" disappeared, replaced by photos, activity feeds and algorithmic updates. For an app once trusted as being neutral, private and purely functional, the change has felt unsettling. KakaoTalk isn’t just another app in Korea; it’s part of the infrastructure of daily life. Nearly everyone — from children to grandparents — uses it to connect, pay, shop and work. When the app's interface changed, confusion wasn’t just about usability; it was about trust. People didn’t sign up for a social feed — they signed up to be connected. The reason behind the redesign seems simple: time and money. Kakao’s user base is massive, but users spend less time in the app than they do on platforms like Instagram or TikTok. The new layout was meant to increase engagement and open more advertising space. In other words, it was design

Nov 11, 2025By Chyung Eun-ju (By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho)

How Kakao is shaping our behavior, and why we should care

Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho

Korea wants to lead in AI. Can it both regulate and innovate?

Korea’s Basic Act on AI, set to take effect in January 2026, is more than just another regulatory milestone. It signals Korea’s determination to claim a leadership role in the global artificial intelligence race, but also exposes a deep fault line between innovation and regulation. If the EU wrote the first draft on AI governance, Korea is racing to write the sequel — and unlike in Europe, the country’s startup ecosystem has far more at stake. The draft of the decree that details the legal framework for AI governance was recently made available by Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT, and it has already sparked polarizing debates. At the heart of the controversy is the classification of "high-risk AI" and "generative AI," labels that sound sensible, but with the term "risk" being applied so broadly that even low-risk applications could get caught in the regulatory net. Startups, unsurprisingly, are sounding the alarm. Their fear is not paranoia: Once you force a two-person AI shop to watermark every image and track every model output, you’re not fostering innovation — you

Sep 25, 2025By Chyung Eun-ju (By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho)

Korea wants to lead in AI. Can it both regulate and innovate?

Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho

Exempt today, target tomorrow? Why Korea’s chipmakers can’t rest easy

Samsung Electronics and SK hynix may have dodged the United States’ sweeping 100 percent semiconductor tariffs, but exemptions are not forever. In the high-stakes race for chip dominance, today’s diplomatic reprieve could become tomorrow’s bargaining chip. The U.S. may need South Korea’s advanced chipmaking now, but as supply chains shift and domestic production ramps up, the balance of power could change overnight. For Korean chip giants, the question isn’t just how to celebrate this win — it’s how to prepare for when the rules inevitably change. Today, semiconductors are an essential part of our daily lives — powering everything from cellphones and computers to cars, airplanes, factories and even finance. They are the backbone of modern industry. Once a global leader, the U.S. used to produce nearly 40 percent of the world’s chips. Today, it makes up just 10 percent, and advanced chips under 7 nanometers are almost entirely produced in Taiwan, with South Korea manufacturing only about 8 percent. TSMC, the global leader in the field, controls roughly 90 percent of th

Sep 2, 2025By Chyung Eun-ju (By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho)

Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho

Who do we cheer for?

The invisible labor of 3rd-culture belonging

Korea is everywhere — but do we understand it?

Exhaustion that sleep can’t fix

What it means to age in South Korea right now

Stories we no longer ask for

We got AI in education all wrong: Here’s the fix

How Kakao is shaping our behavior, and why we should care

Korea wants to lead in AI. Can it both regulate and innovate?

Exempt today, target tomorrow? Why Korea’s chipmakers can’t rest easy

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