South Korea - The Korea Times

Only 8% of Koreans would accept immigrants as family: study

While a growing proportion of Koreans say they would accept immigrants as members of society, few are willing to welcome them into their own families, according to a new report. The report, released earlier this month by state-run think tank Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, shows that less than 8.4 percent of respondents said they would accept an immigrant as a spouse or family member. In response to the question, “To what extent are you willing to accept immigrants?,” 38.7 percent of 3,011 respondents said they would accept immigrants as neighbors, followed by as colleagues (30.51 percent), close friends (18.35 percent), family members (8.37 percent) and not at all (4.07 percent). This underscores a notable reluctance to embrace immigrants beyond public or professional spheres, with openness dramatically decreasing for closer relationships. Younger Koreans (ages 19-34) demonstrated a greater willingness to befriend immigrants, with 30.2 percent open to close friendships ― exceeding the national average. However, only 8.6 percent said they would accept immigrants as f

Jul 19, 2025By Jung Min-ho

Only 8% of Koreans would accept immigrants as family: study

MORNING CALM TALES Daejeon's nearly forgotten war memorial

DAEJEON — Not long after I returned to Daejeon last year, I found myself wandering through Boramae Park near City Hall. It was a cool autumn morning, the kind of weather I love most in Korea. Life moved easily here, as if this had always been a place for leisure and lightness. But it hadn’t always been that way. This quiet park was once a Republic of Korea Air Force training base, active from 1952 to 1988. And long before the modern high-rises and shiny new buildings, the city itself had seen war. I had heard there was a monument somewhere in the park dedicated to the American soldiers who died during the Battle of Taejon in the summer of 1950. In those early, chaotic weeks of the Korean War, American troops were rushed in to help slow the North Korean advance. The 24th Infantry Division — just arrived from Japan and unprepared for the scale of the fighting — was sent to defend the city. Outgunned and outnumbered, they tried to hold the line along the Geum River but were eventually pushed back into the city itself. What followed were several days of brutal, close-quarters combat

Jul 16, 2025By Jeffrey Miller

[MORNING CALM TALES] Daejeon's nearly forgotten war memorial

Adoptees raise alarm over NCRC's handling of records

Despite renewed attention and government pledges to support adoptee rights, the National Center for the Rights of the Child (NCRC), now tasked with centralizing decades of adoption records, is facing scrutiny over mismanagement and technical errors. Hopes were initially high when the NCRC took over from private agencies that had historically been reluctant to release documents. But adoptees have expressed frustration over delays, disorganization and technical mishandling of important documents. Data uploaded to the NCRC’s Adoption Central Management System (ACMS) has already led to heartbreaking moments. In one case, an adoptee was falsely reunited with who they thought was their birth mother, before it was revealed the two were not related. There are also files that are still unaccounted for and may never be recovered. So far, the NCRC has received documents from smaller child care facilities such as orphanages. On July 19, it is set to start receiving files from bigger private adoption organizations in Seoul. The data is to be stored at a facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, which

Jul 15, 2025By Antonia Giordano

Adoptees raise alarm over NCRC's handling of records

US hardcore band Bootcamp ready for Korea tour

U.S. hardcore punk band Bootcamp is currently on an East Asian tour that is taking them through Japan, with two shows in Korea coming up this weekend. With three of four members identifying as fem, the band members expressed simultaneous wishes to set an example as fem punks and to move forward on gender issues. "In 2025 the tokenism of fem people in hardcore does absolutely nothing for the scene as a whole," Molly, Juliette and Dolly, three of the band's four members, said in a statement written for The Korea Times. "We want people to fuck with our music because they dig it and care about what we’re saying." At the same time, they acknowledged that society has not moved beyond gender-based discrimination, even in underground music. "A dynamic still exists where we are not perceived as tough or edgy enough, even though a band of all dudes easily gets perceived in that way," they said. "We also, on an unfortunately often basis, all have experienced people making us uncomfortable, even though men being weird to fem performers is perceived as having gone away." Bootcamp formed in the sprin

Jul 14, 2025By Jon Dunbar

US hardcore band Bootcamp ready for Korea tour

YouTuber Cari curates a quieter life

If you’ve ever fallen down a Seoul vlog rabbit hole, chances are you’ve come across Cari. Cari, the face behind both the cari cakes and cari can read channels on YouTube, is best known for travel vlogs, but she doesn’t shy away from processing personal ups and downs with her channel’s 415,000 subscribers. She weaves themes of solitude and nostalgia through her videos, all delivered with a quiet vulnerability that makes her feel more like a friend than an internet personality. A California native, Cari originally came to Seoul as a student in 2012, fell in love with the city and decided to come back for work. Her expertise on working a non-teaching job in Seoul helped her become one of the earliest premier content creators in Korea, where fans eagerly tuned in for Q&A sessions and Korean office tours. “There wasn’t actually a lot of tourism information available at the time,” Cari recalled of her early days in Seoul. “There was no TikTok. I had just gotten Instagram, so I just had to discover everything organically.” What began as a quiet documentation of life in the bi

Jul 12, 2025By Emily Serby

South African poet Manthipe Moila releases debut collection 'Rootbound'

In the history of poetry, never before have there been so many talented and diverse poets across the globe who are existing and writing at one time. There are so many that they can remain undiscovered, joyously found or unfortunately forgotten in the digital landscape. Thankfully, in "Rootbound," the arresting poetry debut by South African poet Manthipe Moila, we behold a stunning collection. The poems compel a reader’s curiosity forward, line after line, page to page and cover to cover. This is a serious new voice that is cautiously youthful and wise beyond measure. From South Africa to South Korea, themes of home and escape and absence and presence buoy the poems with light and levity through a canopy of shadows. Poets tend to have personal imagistic cosmologies like urban topography, mountains and seas, or clothes and tools; for Moila, the world of botany blossoms throughout her work. In the poem “7 ways of looking at the story of us,” we encounter this couplet: “Once plucked from its stem, the flower cannot return alive” The couplet encapsulates an emotional and psychologic

Jul 11, 2025By Kenneth May

South African poet Manthipe Moila releases debut collection 'Rootbound'

Gallus Alice lets 'invasive Scottish words' loose in Seoul's punk scene

There is a new name circulating in Seoul's punk scene, based on an "invasive" idiom from Scotland: Gallus Alice is working to make their mark. According to bassist/front man Pete Wilson, "gallus" is a Scottish word for being "ballsy, brash or brazen." "Often, it’s given a wee bit of rhyming flash — 'Look at Gallus Alice over here!' — even having a second evolution to 'Gallus Alice fae the palace,'” he said. "I wanted to use a Scots dialect word as I don’t see a lot of Scottish culture in Korea. I like the idea of letting a few invasive Scottish words loose." The Alice part led the band down another rabbit hole, literally, as they took inspiration from Alice in Wonderland — "another expat struggling to understand what was going on around her." They commissioned a rabbit logo from Phoebe Munday, a tattoo artist in the U.K. Gallus Alice started off playing covers of punk, grunge and early 2000s alternative songs, having told Debaser Magazine that they like to pick the third- or fourth-most-recognizable song from a band, rather than its best-known — for instance, Nirvana's "Bre

Jul 8, 2025By Jon Dunbar

Gallus Alice lets 'invasive Scottish words' loose in Seoul's punk scene

FINDING THE SCENE 7 7 more great live music venues in Seoul

When I listed the top 10 live music venues in Seoul last year, I warned that the fast turnover rate would likely make the list outdated very quickly. Amazingly, only one of those venues has since closed down. Over the past year, we've seen more venues open, and a few others rise in importance enough that they deserve mention. Here's a new list of more venues you should know about if you're looking for live shows. 7. Subriot The Studio HBC closed at the end of last year, and the space was bought by the owner of nearby indie bar Pet Sounds and jazz venue Boogie Woogie. It was supposed to open in mid-February, but delays pushed the opening show to March 22. Follow @subriot_hbc on Instagram for more information. 6. Binary Studios This venue is primarily a recording studio and practice space, but occasionally also hosts shows, with the audience usually capped at 50. It's a pretty small space, so even half of that makes the place seem full. It's run by Jeff Moses, frontman of melodic punk band ...Whatever That Means and co-owner with his wife Trash of punk label World Domination, Inc. Bands pe

Jul 7, 2025By Jon Dunbar

[FINDING THE SCENE 7] 7 more great live music venues in Seoul

Inter-Korean propaganda leaflets examined in RAS lecture

Using propaganda leaflets in psychological warfare may sound like a thing of the past, but on the Korean Peninsula it's very much still a reality. Jacco Zwetsloot, a self-described "student of Korean propaganda techniques for over two decades," will give a lecture for Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea this Tuesday near central Seoul's Samgakji Station. "For more than 70 years, printed leaflets have been one of the most persistent — and often perilous — tools in the contest for hearts and minds between North and South Korea," he wrote in an online invitation to the lecture. "From Cold War-era air drops by airplane to modern balloon launches by South Korean civic groups, these slips of paper have carried urgent messages over barbed wire and beyond ideology. At times fiercely political and at others surprisingly playful — or even seductive — their goal has always been the same: to influence, to destabilize, to encourage defections and to provoke doubt." He will provide a discussion on the historical evolution of propaganda leaflets from both Koreas, the technologies and tactics use

Jul 6, 2025By Jon Dunbar

Inter-Korean propaganda leaflets examined in RAS lecture

Seoul emerges as world’s third-busiest conference hub

Seoul has risen to third in the Union of International Associations’ annual ranking of cities hosting international meetings, reinforcing its status as a leading global destination for conferences and events. According to the 66th edition of the International Meetings Statistics Report, released last week, Seoul moved up one spot in the 2024 rankings compared to the previous year. The Korean capital now sits just behind Brussels (388 meetings) and Vienna (239), having hosted 180 international meetings. Among Asian cities, Seoul leads the pack, outpacing Tokyo (148), Dubai (109), Kuala Lumpur (71) and Bangkok (65). Seoul Metropolitan Government officials attributed the city’s success to persistent efforts to position Seoul as an ideal host for global conferences, including financial and administrative support for event organizers. The city government said it tried to help facilities host 329 meetings in 2024 ― a notable increase from 299 in 2023. Looking ahead, city officials pledged to continue their support to enhance Seoul’s image as a premier destination for international eve

Jul 1, 2025By Jung Min-ho

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