Korea Deconstructed

Mark Peterson first arrived in Korea in 1965. He then completed a PhD at Harvard University. He is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah. He has written countless books and now runs a popular YouTube channel on Korean history. Dr. Peterson has developed a strong understanding of the language and culture and used these to develop his own...

Lieutenant General Chun In-Bum (ret.) has played an important role in the history and development of South Korea. Now retired, his popular YouTube channel helps address contemporary issues facing the current generation as they prepare for or look back on their own mandatory military service. At the age of 65, the General has seen and experienced more than many of us could imagine. This is an oppor...

Youngwoo Park majors in Italian Area Studies and International Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. His fields of interest include human rights, development cooperation, and the sociology of gender and race. Youngwoo is currently working as a translator in the Department of Operations and Support for the Seoul Queer Culture Festival. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/youngwoo-park-...

Jumin Lee is a Korean trial attorney and former Air Force officer. He writes regularly for NK News and Korea Pro on Korean politics, with a recent focus on gender, discrimination, and protections of minorities in South Korea. We spoke at length about key issues in Korean politics, the problems facing both major parties, the struggles of the Justice Party, and revisited influential characters such...

This is a conversation about K-Dramas and mental health, covering Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Hometown Cha Cha Cha, Our Blues, Tomorrow, and much more. We talk about the romance, the beauty standards, the soundtracks, the coping mechanisms, and the international success.    Jeanie Chang is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a bestselling author on Amazon, an international corporate speaker,...

Chun Su-jin is a South Korean writer who is proud of her North Korean heritage. Born and raised in Seoul, Chun dreams of living in Pyongyang in a unifed Korea. She writes in both Korean and English and has covered the Presidential Office, the Foreign Ministry, and the Unification Ministry.    Su-jin has recently written and published a book called  North Korean Women in Power: Daughters of the Sun...

Kim Yung Hee was found by the Yeongdeungpo-gu police on October 26, 1973. She has since found her biological father. Now she is looking for her biological mother whose name is Lee Geum Soon or Lee Geum Sook. Her father's nickname for her mother was "망고". She is about 75 years old. Her mother's hometown is Cheonan, Chungcheongnam-do. In the early 1970s, her mother lived with her sister across fro...

This is definitely a conversation in two parts. For the first hour, we talk about LGBTQ literature and poetry in South Korea, particularly the work of Kim Hyun. We ask what it means to write queer poetry, who the leading figures in South Korea are, and what this says about society changing over time with the rise of institutions like Ding Dong. There is also a focus on the newly-published English...

Recent shockwaves in the Korean crypto world have been caused by the crash of Luna and subsequent investigations into its founder Do Kwon. Hyun Joon (Andre) explains the Korean crypto world, the 'Kimchi Premium', Korean law and the reason foreigners are banned from the Korean crypto exchanges, the effects of the Luna crash, and the future of the industry. Hyun Joon (Andre) Lee is a Business Develo...

Dr. MinJung (MJ) Doh is a US-licensed psychologist and the CEO of You&Me Psychological and Consulting Services (YPCS) in Seoul, Korea. Her specialties include Depression, Anxiety, Relationship Issues, Trauma, Eating Disorders, Identity Difficulties, Bereavement, Adjustment, Alcohol Use, Transracial Adoption, and Military Families. This conversation is about counselling and mental health in Korea....

Lina Kwon is a TV/radio personality based in Seoul. She has hosted Arirang TV's "Showbiz Korea," EBS FM's "Morning Special" and currently hosts Arirang Radio's news magazine show "Good Morning Seoul." During her career she has interviewed and worked with some of Korea's biggest stars. We discussed the nature of fame and celebrity in South Korea. We also explored the media's role in all of this and...

Kyungyeon (Kay) Park is an 18-year-old Korean high school student. She has won competitions in the National Student Heritage Commentating Contest (전국학생문화유산외국어해설 텐츠대회) and been recognized by the National Council of Youth Organization in Korea (한국청소년단체협의회). She is also in the process of writing a book on aspects of Korean history. Alongside her studies, she works as a tour...

Sihoon Baek is a phenomenon. We spoke about Generation Z, their values, their interests, and fears as well how this plays out across technology. We also spoke about one of his great passions: politics and social issues. Despite the growing complexity of political discourse, Sihoon is able to explain and analyze what takes place in South Korea from a very real perspective and cognizant of the effec...

This is a conversation which explores the concept of "han" (한/恨) – something previously ubiquitous in Korean literature and western writing about the country but which Dr. Kang challenges. He argues that Koreans are being condemned to passive suffering and then manifesting that through a perceived essentialist concept which is believed unique to them. He points to its destructive nature as well...

Wooseok Ki is the author of K-POP: The Odyssey - Your Gateway to the Global K-Pop Phenomenon  and a NYC-based corporate lawyer focusing his practice on blockchain and technology. He is a graduate of University of Pennsylvania Law School and UC Berkeley, and has been featured in The Korea Times, Korea Daily, and NBCLX. If you are interested in K-pop or Korean hip-hop, this conversation takes a jour...

Beth is a writer and translator whose roots are in Seoul and Vancouver, Canada. She is currently a copy editor at The Korea Herald, where she also co-hosts a Korean books and culture podcast. This is a conversation about Korean literature and feminism as well as the interaction between the two. Beth describes the ways in which the lived experiences of Korean women has manifested in writing and how...

Yunjeong Hwang is an English-speaking lawyer and provides legal services in Korea. She runs Lawyer Hwang Law Office and legal services cover civil, criminal and family cases, and international divorce cases. We spoke about the culture and law of divorce in Korea. This includes issues related to adultery, compensation, custody, visas, and differences between judicial divorce and divorce by agreemen...

Dr. Bong Youngshik holds a Ph. D. and an M.A. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Yonsei University. He is a Research Fellow at the Yonsei University Institute for North Korean Studies   Dr. Bong is positive about Korea's democracy, the role of youth, and the possibilities for the future. He also interesting observations about human nature and political action....

Dr. Sojin Lim is a Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, Course Leader for both MA North Korean Studies and MA Asia Pacific Studies, and Co-Director of the International Institute of Korean Studies (IKSU) at the University of Central Lancashire. She works as Co-Editor of the 'Routledge Research on Korea' series and is also one of the Editors-in-Chief at Asia Pacific Viewpoint (Wiley). She is the au...

Subin Kim is a writer, translator, and journalist. His work currently appears in Al Jazeera and he's previously been associated with the BBC and NK News. He's a self-described serf and a lover of pigs. Our conversation started with understanding what webtoons actually are and who reads them. We discussed the popular webtoon Miaseng (미생) and how a lot of content seems to be based on daily life an...

Seohyun Lee was born and raised in central Pyongyang, North Korea. She went to China to study when she was a sophomore at Kim Il Sung University and earned her bachelor's degree of Science in Finance from Dongbei University of Economics and Finance in 2014. She defected from North Korea in October 2014 during a heightened period of brutal purges by the Kim Jong Un regime. With her long- term visio...

Se-Woong Koo is founder of Korea Exposé. Before joining the media world, Koo earned his PhD from Stanford University for a dissertation examining the intersection of politics and religion in modern Korea. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France, from 2012 to 2013; and he taught at the Asian University for Women and at Yale...

Regina Kim is a Culture and Trends Writer for Netflix. Her articles on the hallyu phenomenon and Korean content have appeared in  Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, ELLE, MTV News, Vulture, Entertainment Weekly, NBC News, and Teen Vogue . They also include an interview with Squid Game director Hwang Dong-hyuk. We talked about what it feels like to be writing about Korean content whil...

Becky White is a model, a singer, a podcast host, a writer, and countless other things. She is also the daughter of a Korean mother and an American father. Drawing on her own experiences growing up and then living and working in Korea, she created The Halfie Project : a journey to discover the meaning of a mixed identity - an identity which inhabits two cultures. We talk about what it means to be...

Lee Taewoong is a producer for KBS, holding a position in the sports bureau since 2003. After his initial feature lengths explorations of ssiruem, football, and archery, he soon turned to more historic, social, and cultural work. His hugely successfully and acclaimed documentary 88/18 depicted the real life experiences of Korean people as they prepared for the Olympics, from the President, to midd...