Of the 154 fatalities from last weekend’s Halloween crowd crush in Itaewon, nearly two thirds were women. As of Monday, a total of 98 women are confirmed to have been killed in the deadly human stampede, compared to 56 men. The significant gender gap has led many to wonder why the accident proved to be much more fatal to women than men. The gender ratio of the crowd at the time of the deadly crush remains unclear, but some medical experts say those with smaller body frames and less physica

Social Affairs Oct. 31, 2022

Many Koreans have a love-hate relationship with traditional shamans, or “mudangs” as they are called here. While it is not unusual to find a practitioner around the block, they are still widely frowned upon by the majority of the public. Jeong Ho-geun, a 58-year-old veteran actor better known as a shaman nowadays, has experienced such prejudice firsthand since he decided to become a shaman in 2014. His friends started dodging his calls and people left him “like the parting of t

People Oct. 29, 2022

Over 60 Vietnamese tourists who entered South Korea this month using the visa-free system have fallen out of contact with immigration authorities, raising suspicion that the individuals came here for illegal stay. Sixty-seven out of 1,600 Vietnamese tourists who came through Yangyang International Airport in Gangwon Province from Oct. 13-25 for packaged tours remain unaccounted for, as of Friday, according to the Korean Immigration Service. Earlier this week, Vietnamese media reported that its F

Social Affairs Oct. 28, 2022

Two-hundred and fifty-six. That's the number of people between age 10 and 20 that took their lives due to mental health problems last year. Of a total 13,205 deaths by suicide in 2021, some 5,258 had histories of mental health treatment, according to police data provided by Rep. Oh Young-hwan of the main opposition Democratic Party. The same data shows that the number of suicides aged 10-29 age groups jumped each year from 2019, with the figure for the latter marking 888 as of 2021. The figures

Social Affairs Oct. 24, 2022

The Korean Methodist Church’s court on Thursday upheld its earlier decision to suspend a pastor from his duties for two years for blessing sexual minorities in 2019. “According to the creed of the Methodist Church, praying in front of sexual minorities can be seen as advocating or agreeing with their actions,” the court said, on why it decided to deny the appeal made by Rev. Lee Dong-hwan, the 42-year-old pastor of Glory Jeil Church in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. The decision was

Social Affairs Oct. 21, 2022

An attempted cyberattack that occurred during the recent outage of South Korea’s biggest messenger service KakaoTalk may have been the work of North Korean hackers, a news outlet has reported. According to Radio Free Asia, various individuals working in services related to the communist country, along with several North Korean defectors received an email claiming to have been sent by the Kakao tech service team on Sunday, as the extended outage that began Saturday took down most of the tec

North Korea Oct. 18, 2022

King Sejong of the Joseon era, or simply Sejong the Great, is arguably the Korean who has left the biggest mark on the nation’s history. Every single day, people across the country use the monarch’s creation --- Hangeul, the Korean writing system. How highly Koreans think of him can be seen in numerous instances. Among the many things named after him are a Seoul street, a city, a university, a performing arts center, a naval Aegis destroyer, a satellite and the country’s Antarc

Culture Oct. 7, 2022

From a ruler to an academic, a musician and a linguist, King Sejong wore many hats. And the 15th-century monarch who invented Korea’s writing system Hangeul has also been an inspiration for Korean filmmakers and TV drama producers. The most recent of the big-screen attempts to convincingly depict Sejong was 2019's “The King’s Letters,” directed by Jo Chul-hyun and starring none other than “Parasite” star Song Kang-ho as King Sejong. The film follows the t

Film Oct. 7, 2022

The 53rd Air Demonstration Group of the Korean Air Force, nicknamed the Black Eagles, demonstrates a flying stunt at the ceremony to mark South Korea's 74th Armed Forces Day on Saturday. The event held at the Gyeryongdae military headquarters, 160 kilometers south of Seoul. (Yonhap)

Defense Oct. 1, 2022

A half-naked elderly man stood precariously on a balcony of a high-rise building in Jongno-gu, central Seoul, hoisting a banner with an anti-Japan message. A few meters away, a group of elderly women shouted insults at two dozen people taking part in a rally, locally referred to as "the Wednesday protests," demanding an official apology by Japan for the sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II. A few others standing nearby claimed the whole thing as a fraud. The women w

Social Affairs Sept. 28, 2022

In a recent interview with British newspaper The Guardian, Cho Dong-youn, a former co-head of the Democratic Party of Korea candidate Lee Jae-myung’s presidential campaign, revealed that she had contemplated taking her own life after revelations about her personal life were made online, causing an onslaught of online bullying. The allegation that Cho had a child out of wedlock -- which she later revealed was the result of a sexual assault -- was made by a controversial far-right YouTuber K

Politics Sept. 26, 2022

Was that Kim Jong-un’s daughter on TV? North Korean watchers are zeroing in on a girl who appeared on the reclusive state’s national TV during a recently televised event, saying she could be Kim Jong-un’s only daughter, Ju-ae. The UK's Daily Mail first reported about the child among a pack of preteen children attending the anniversary of the founding of North Korea from a broadcast of the Korea Central Television. It cited a self-proclaimed North Korean analyst of InDPRK.c

North Korea Sept. 26, 2022

“I’m not going home until I make it big.” Just as Lee Jung-jae said through the words of Lee Han, the character in his first-ever movie gig, “The Young Man” in 1994, the now internationally acclaimed actor returned home Sunday after becoming the first Asian ever to win for best actor in a drama series at the Primetime Emmy Award last week. A day after his win, it was confirmed that Lee’s big-screen debut will be rereleased in local theaters on Sept. 29, offe

Film Sept. 20, 2022

The National Museum of China has decided to withdraw the table of Korean history from its ongoing exhibition after complaints from Korea that the table does not include the ancient Korean kingdoms of Goguryeo and Balhae, the National Museum of Korea said Thursday. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also confirmed that the museum will remove the controversial table from the “Auspicious Metals From the Orient: Ancient Bronzes of China, Korea and Japan” exhibition, a move that came two day

Culture Sept. 15, 2022

Boksun was once hailed as a hero for helping save her owner while he was experiencing a stroke three years ago. Last month, she was found bleeding heavily at her home in Jeongeup, North Jeolla Province, having been brutally injured by an abuser. Her owner took her to a vet, but after learning about the hefty medical costs, gave up on saving her. She was later found dead inside a refrigerator of a dog meat restaurant. The tragic story of Boksun, made public by a local animal rights group, raise

Social Affairs Sept. 14, 2022