The Korea Times

The memorial I walked past a hundred times

The first time I saw a protest in Seoul, I expected chaos. Back home, a protest meant something specific: shouting matches, riot shields, streets that emptied fast. So when I turned a corner near Gwanghwamun on a Saturday afternoon and found myself facing a crowd that filled the square end to end, my first instinct was to leave. Instead, I stayed and watched. Rows of police stood beside the crowd, almost like an escort, not against it. Nobody threw anything. Nobody ran. Families with children stood near the front. I remember thinking: Where is the part I'm supposed to be afraid of? Months later, walking behind the central library on my own campus, I found myself on a path students call "Democratization Road." Halfway along it stands a modest bust I had passed a dozen times without seeing it. It commemorates Park Jong-cheol, a student who was tortured to death by police in 1987. That night, I read everything I could find about him, unable to stop thinking that this quiet stretch of pavement marked a nation's turning point. Weeks after Park's death, another student, Lee Han-yeol, was struc

6h agoBy Munire Nur Sen

The memorial I walked past a hundred times

Melakong Bridge

A small marker stone, measuring 60 centimeters in height and 30 centimeter in width, is located at the corner of the Mokpo train station in Mokpo City, Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City. The marker stone records the completion of the Melakong Bridge construction on April 20, 1964. That construction was achieved by a man named Park Gil-su. Before 1964, a stream next to the Mokpo railway station posed great difficulty for train passengers. To reach the station, they had to take a long detour. Worse, accidents were common because students walked along the railroad tracks to avoid missing the train. In 1960, Park, 32, was employed as a cargo worker at Mokpo Station. The stationmaster — who thought that Park resembled the character of a Japanese samurai’s henchman from a movie — gave him the nickname “Melakong.” Mr. Park was a polio patient but his diligence and benevolence made him interested in the lives of ordinary people. He decided to make it easier for people to get to the station safely and quickly. To begin, Park visited the city mayor and proposed building a bridge

1d agoBy Kim Jin-heon

Off the beaten path

Exploring the backroads and backwoods of Korea’s glorious countryside is one of my passions. While the major attractions are worth visiting, getting off the beaten path brings unique rewards. On my recent visit to Korea’s newest city, Jeonnam-Gwangju Special City, in the southwest of the peninsula, I ventured from the populated area to Boseong County. Tucked away in a cozy canyon, many kilometers up a winding, cherry tree-lined road, is Daewon Temple, one of Korea’s earliest Buddhist temples. Daewon Temple was founded in 503 C.E., the third year of King Muryeong’s reign, by the Venerable Ado, the renowned Buddhist missionary. During the Unified Silla period, the temple was one of the eight major temples of the Nirvana Order. Tragically, in the weeks following Korea’s liberation in 1945, most of the buildings were burned down during the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion. Only the Hall of Pure Land was left standing. Since 1990, a restoration committee has been devoted to rebuilding the temple, including facilities to house monks, several shrines and the entrance gates. The temple ground

2d agoBy Steven L. Shields

Time to manage risks of US-NK dialogue

As the signs of resuming dialogue between the United States and North Korea, also the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), emerge with possible dates touted as around November or December this year, South Korea is feeling the pressure just even at the dialogue's potential feasibility. Not only are there domestic political pressures to consider, but the uncertainty and risks surrounding the U.S.-ROK alliance could grow further. The security situation on the Korean Peninsula is once again in a state of significant flux. U.S. President Donald Trump suspended joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington shortly after holding his first summit in Singapore with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un on June 12, 2018. He did so again this year. However, the current situation is different and complex. With the U.S. midterm elections just less than two months away and the war with Iran dragging on, the Trump administration finds itself in need of a change in momentum and tangible diplomatic achievements. The most immediate and pressing issue is the lack of clarity regarding the u

2d agoBy Lee Sun-ho

The resilience of weeds

When I first acquired a farmyard in Yangdae-ri, nestled in Ipjang-myeon of Cheonan, decades ago, I had grand visions of cultivation. After much deliberation, I decided to plant mugunghwa — the rose of Sharon, Korea’s national flower — persimmons and chestnuts, along with various garden and ornamental trees. I imagined the property transforming into a vibrant rural canvas in spring, painted with the brilliant colors of wildflowers and fruiting trees. Yet reality on a farm has a way of altering one’s perspective. The beautiful blossoms I anticipated proved fleeting, fading almost as quickly as they appeared, replaced by the relentless growth of weeds. Despite my determined efforts to clear them, every visit to the farm became a seemingly endless battle with the soil. Bent over under the scorching summer sun, sweating and frustrated, I found myself ignoring whatever understated beauty these wild plants possessed, focusing only on ripping them out by their roots. “Why does this useless grass even exist? What purpose could these troublesome weeds possibly serve?” Then, out of a q

Sep 20, 2026By Choe Chong-dae

The day I thought 9/11 might cancel my college entrance exam

Twenty-five years after Sept. 11, I still think about the distance between witnessing a catastrophe and living through one. On Sept. 11, 2001, I was a high school senior in Korea. On the television in our classroom, black smoke was rising from the World Trade Center. Then, another plane struck the other tower. Not long afterward, the buildings came down. I was frightened and wondered whether this could lead to war. But then I had another thought: "Maybe they’ll cancel the college entrance exam." In about two months, I was supposed to take Korea’s College Scholastic Ability Test, or "suneung" — the high-stakes national exam that plays an enormous role in university admissions. America was very far away. The suneung was very close. The exam was not canceled. The next day, I went back to school and solved more math problems. Two months later, I took it as scheduled. When the television was turned off, my workbook was still there. A few years later, after completing my mandatory military service and returning to university, I met an American exchange student named Timothy. He was from New

Sep 17, 2026By Park Myung-kwan

The day I thought 9/11 might cancel my college entrance exam

The region has no table, Korea must rekindle the trilateral

Near the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Japanese Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi and Qing statesman Li Hongzhang signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, in which Qing China acknowledged Joseon as a fully independent and sovereign state. It stripped away Chinese influence over the 1392-1910 Joseon Dynasty — a moment still invoked today as a symbol of China's "Century of Humiliation." Fast-forward to 2026: Chinese President Xi Jinping, pursuing the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" and seeking to restore the pre-1895 East Asian order, stands opposed to U.S. President Donald Trump who is entirely rejecting the declining, rules-based post-World War II liberal international order and pushing the world toward multipolarity. Given how squarely Northeast Asia now sits at the center of the global geopolitical chessboard, South Korea needs to think about geopolitics with creativity and flexibility — working to rebuild a framework for trilateral Korea-China-Japan dialogue and cooperation, while above all finding a way to strengthen the U.S.-Korea alliance and Korea-U.S.-Japan co

Sep 17, 2026By Chang Se-myeong

The region has no table, Korea must rekindle the trilateral

Recalling an entrepreneur of dreams and passion

Though it was a very hot summer this year, I had the privilege of spending a few rather cool days in a mountain village in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province. While looking out from my residence over the expressway leading toward the East Coast, I recalled a trip along that route to a cement manufacturing plant in nearby Okkye, which I made nearly half a century ago in the company of a businessman determined to build heavy industries in his country. I was an employee of Hyundai International when its chairman, Chung In-yung, a legendary figure in Korea’s history of industrialization, asked me to accompany him on a trip to the cement factory. At the time, many of my colleagues were working in the basement of the chairman’s home because our main office building in Seoul and the large machinery plant in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, had been forcibly taken over by the new military government in 1980. Bitterly shaken we must have been, but Chung was calmly reading a newspaper. He was an avid reader of newspapers, including The Korea Times. Chung himself had been a reporter for the da

Sep 16, 2026By Chang Seung-ik

Recalling an entrepreneur of dreams and passion

Off to see Jungfrau

Some time ago, my wife and I embarked once again on a journey to Europe. The main purpose of the trip was a visit to Jungfrau. The German name, meaning “maiden" or "virgin," aptly captures this mountain's pristine beauty. More than a geographical feature, Jungfrau embodies nature's majesty and has long inspired awe in all who behold it. Although Jungfrau, at 4,158 meters above sea level, is lower than Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps at 4,808 meters, it is widely regarded as one of the Alps' most celebrated mountains. Its enduring popularity owes much to the mountain railway that offers easy access to this awe-inspiring part of the world. On our way, we stopped in Paris, which we had visited twice in the past. We spent two days revisiting the familiar landmarks of the city. Even as we walked along the Seine and passed by its historic monuments, my thoughts were already drifting toward the Alps. From Paris, we boarded a train bound for Geneva. As the train sped across the French countryside, fields and villages slipped past the window like scenes in a moving painting. About thr

Sep 15, 2026By Lee Hyon-soo

Hidden key to leadership? It may be spirituality

In 2005, three management scholars set out to study something business schools had long treated as taboo. Eric Dent, Eileen Higgins, and Deborah Wharff read 87 academic papers on spirituality in the workplace. They were not writing a sermon, but building a dataset. The findings were striking. Among the papers that took a clear position on performance, 48 found evidence linking spirituality to it. Only one found no relationship at all. For decades, business schools ran the other way. Leadership got measured by revenue, retention and quarterly numbers. Spirituality resisted all three. It rarely showed up cleanly in a spreadsheet or a turnover chart, even when researchers tried surveys and interviews instead. That made spirituality the embarrassing cousin of leadership theory, mentioned in commencement speeches and avoided in serious research. That separation is harder to defend than it looks. The 2005 review sorted the scholarship into eight distinct categories, covering how spirituality was defined, whether it connected to religion and whether it could be taught, measured or tied to prod

Sep 14, 2026By Choi Hee-jin

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