Korea Deconstructed

Dr. Jungmin Kwon is an assistant professor of digital culture and film studies in the School of Film at Portland State University. Her research and teaching interests include digital culture, film and media, gender and sexuality, media industry, fans and audiences, media celebrity, and Korean/East Asian popular culture. She is the author of Straight Korean Female Fans and Their Gay Fantasies (2019...

Growing up, Sylvia rejected her Korean identity and it took her decades to come to terms with it. Her attitude changed when she began writing and researching the tragedy of sexual slavery, particularly that carried out by the Japanese in Korea. She discovered generational pain: something passed down, unresolved. Something, she says, that might be "han". A Long Road to Justice: Stories from the Fro...

If you've ever tried to learn Korean, there's a really strong chance you did so by listening to Hyunwoo. The founder of Talk To Me In Korean, he has become a leading figure in the language learning community thanks to his books, podcasts, and videos. He shared his thoughts on the Korean language and how hierarchy and democracy plays into all of this, particularly with age and honorific systems. Hy...

Hallyu is not a sudden phenomenon, Dr. Lee says. It's been an international culture since the 1990s. But from about the 2010s, enjoying Korean popular culture for non-Asians has become a new trend in cyberspace. This means Korean popularity is closely connected to technological changes in the media environment and industry. The two are interdependent. Despite the earlier popularity of Japanese cul...

Jinu sees himself as a humble musician who focuses on providing solidarity to those suffering from oppression, violence, and health problems. He describes having seen firsthand young hired thugs ('용역') and police carry out acts of violence against the workers of Noryangjin fish market in central Seoul, workers who are often elderly women. They are decent people, citizens of Seoul who enjoy trot...

Chan is an artist and a friend. She is 100% Korean in terms of nationality but has at times distanced herself from this identity. Her friends call her a 외국인 (foreigner) but she identifies as a TCK (third culture kid). She has often tried to look different from other people and loves standing out, avoiding clichés and stereotypes where possible. In Korea she has received lots of comments on her...

Jasmine Lee came to South Korea in the 1990s. Here she talks of her early experiences with South Korean culture, people, and language. This leads to ideas of multiculturalism, family, identity, and nationalism. Jasmine became a nationalized Korean but still found trouble in terms of acceptance despite speaking the language fluently and having a Korean passport. After a successful television and me...

Jae Chong grew up the son of first generation Korean immigrant parents in California listening to Ozzy Osbourne and Van Halen. An early experience with Jeff Buckley pushed him further towards music and he was soon playing guitar, drums, bass, and piano. He sent an album recorded on a 4-track in his bedroom over to Korea in the early 1990s and started down a path that would see him play a revolutio...

Jungahn Yu was a young ballet dancer who found herself in the K-pop industry from the age of 15. After completing her training, she debuted as the rapper in Momoland under the name Daisy. Huge success followed but she eventually left the industry and went to university. She talks about auditions, training, fans, diets, mental health, creativity, and more

Bori (he/him) is a Korean leftist with visions of a pan-Asian communist future. During our conversation he suggests that despite people's aspirations for an independent nation, South Korea was built on the basis on anti-communism and remains today under a bourgeois dictatorship. This then affects what it means to be a leftist in 21st century Korea and how the experience is often characterized by a...

Haley Yang is a culture reporter at the Korea JoongAng Daily specializing in K-pop, Korean society and multiculturalism. She was also a big fan of K-pop growing up.  She spoke to me about how K-pop began to find its own unique style following the break from J-pop in 2007, the effects of Big Bang on the music scene as OG gender benders despite some of them later being involved in crime rings, and K...

Heejeon Kim has worked in the Korean movie and television industry as a distributor and producer. Here she offers her own personal opinions on how she survived the toxic masculinity that characterized the early chapters of her career, the Korean film  renaissance and why it took place, and the dark nature of Korean movies. She also addresses concepts of identity and what it means to be a Korean am...

In this episode of Korea Deconstructed, Kwak Yong-hwan, a certified medical doctor at Soonchunhyang University Hospital, discusses the changing trends in Korean health over time. He also explains how the current system, which benefits the customers and citizens, is based on prices set by the government which often cause hardships for doctors. The result of this is that more and more medical profes...

In this episode of Korea Deconstructed, Kyungeun Lee discusses how the Korean government allowed adoption to be operated as a private system until 2012, giving its newly-born children no state protections and denying them their human rights. This resulted in 200,000 young Korean children, often under the age of 1, being sent abroad.  Truth, justice, and reconciliation are required, but is Korean s...