Several major Korean companies made headlines recently for asking their employees to address coworkers and bosses by English nicknames instead of their formal titles. This is not a groundbreaking development - Messenger app company Kakao adopted the use of English names between employees more than 8 years ago. But more companies appear to be getting…
April 25, 2022
At the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, the popular Korean boyband BTS was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group. When they left empty-handed, Korean fans and critics alike were outraged - not by the loss itself but by what appeared to be the Grammy’s exploitation of the group’s popularity to improve their own declining viewership. Korean online…
April 11, 2022
South Korean president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol recently announced plans to relocate the presidential residence from its current location to Yongsan, a district in Seoul best known for previously hosting a U.S. garrison. The decision has been controversial. Among speculations on Yoon’s unstated rationale, a prominent line of discourse attributes the move to longstanding rumors about the…
April 3, 2022
Working mothers in South Korea are in a battle to balance family and professional life. One of the largest barriers to achieving this balance is inflexibility in the workplace with newborn infants coupled with inconsistencies in childcare. One mother, National Assemblywoman Yong Hye-in, is challenging these inconsistencies to strike a balance. National Assemblywoman Yong, a…