Much as in the United States, the National Assembly plays an important role in the process of governance and the result of the 2016 legislative elections have the potential to influence Korea’s future direction as well as its international relations.
What interests you about this job? What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses? What are your measurements? One of these questions would raise red flags if asked by a potential employer here in the United States, but it is still relatively common in Korea
Last month, the Korean Ministry of Education announced major changes to the way South Korean students will learn English. Some of them are positive, and can potentially help ease the overwhelming classroom workload for Korean students. But these new policies may also have some unintended side effects.
Earlier this year in state of the nation addresses, both presidents stressed the importance of enhancing the lives of middle class families and their centrality to revitalizing their national economies. The work-family balance is no longer a matter of individual life, but a national (even global) issue that governments and policymakers should pick up and do something about.
Although hardly a new phenomenon, a number of native religious movements both large and small have attracted scores of devout Korean followers, intermingled with political causes, and in some cases have notoriously landed in news headlines.
One of the most difficult internal challenges Korea will face after unification is integrating the North Korean population into South Korean society.
A young defector summed the allure of pop culture to North Koreans best: “No matter how many people die, the sensational popularity doesn’t die…that is the power of culture.”
After the first meeting between North and South in 1972, the North Korean delegation already noted a marked change in the Korean language that both sides spoke, changes that have made a marked difference in each dialect that goes beyond regional differences.
With the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II over the weekend, KEI takes a look back at what has changed on the Korean Peninsula from the 1945 to today.
In a June article, Foreign Affairs magazine decried the “decline of international studies,” citing a broad trend of “the scaling back of a long-term national commitment to education and research focused on international affairs.”