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Jason Lim

Moon and Korea's zeitgeist: a grand narrative needed

A Facebook friend recently posted a 2017 interview Der Spiegel did with French President Emmanuel Macron that deeply resonated with me and resulted in a lingering curiosity. What is Korea's zeitgeist today?

2020-11-01 17:58

Trembling Tiger, Roaring Dragon

The Korea Society's Annual Gala Dinner held Oct. 7 was the organization's premier event of the year, held to mark the U.S.-Korea relationship and honor those who work to maintain the alliance.

2020-10-18 17:33

Pandenomics for women

Korea's young women are dying during the pandemic. Not from the disease but by their own hands. Suicides among young women were up an alarming 17.9 percent in April when Korea imposed strict social distancing measures. The overall suicide rate for people in their late teens and twenties in the first half of 2020 was up by 7 percent from last year. To note, the statistics only record successful suicides, with the consensus that women attempt far more suicides than men - they just don't succeed as often. In short, it definitely looks like that there is a parallel pandemic of suicides among you...

2020-10-05 17:20

Bradykinin hypothesis

I'll be the first to admit that I had never heard of the term, “the bradykinin hypothesis” before. Then again, I had never heard of “cytokine storms” either before the pandemic made it into a household term.

2020-09-06 17:49

To send or not to send to school

Anya Kamenetz and Corey Turner recently published an article in NPR titled, “20 Questions To Help Decide What's Best For Your Kids (And You) This School Year.” As a parent of a rising 3rd grader, I responded to the questions to see where it led me.

2020-08-23 17:16

Shattering self-betrayal

Strangely enough, when I heard that Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon had taken his own life, an obscure passage from one of the Dune books popped into my head. I can't recall the specific text or the even the characters that uttered the words, but the passage featured the Bene Gesserit, an all-female quasi-religious and political society, as they were planning a conspiracy against the “Kwisatz Haderach,” the all-seeing god-king.

2020-07-17 17:14

Not your dad's North Koreans

By Jason LimNorth Koreans of the “arduous march” generation ― those who starved to death in mid-1990s in quiet desperation while waiting in their homes for the public distribution system to deliver rations that never came ― are forever gone. Today's North Koreans are market-savvy burgeoning capitalists. There is now a moneyed class ― consisting mostly of party and military officials who have profited from the trade between North Korea and China. There is conspicuous wealth, from new high-rises and department stores filled with modern electronics to pricey restaurants and amusemen...

2020-07-03 17:10

Too comfortably numb

It's pretty obvious that Lee Yong-soo “halmeoni” (grandmother) feels disrespected and disenfranchised from the very movement for which she has long been one of the most active and visible “comfort women” ambassadors.

Kim Ji-soo | 2020-06-07 17:11

One of the most amazing pieces of news coming out of April 15 general election in South Korea wasn't that the ruling party won a super majority. Rather, it was that Thae Yong-ho, the most famous of North Korean defectors, won a seat in Gangnam, the richest district in Seoul.

2020-04-26 17:45

Immunity passport

In midst of an unprecedented economic downturn, various governments have been broaching the “immunity passport” idea. The concept is simple.

2020-04-12 17:06

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