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Jason Lim

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

260,000 members

That's supposedly the number of men who paid “Baksa” meaning a Ph.D., up to $1,200 in cryptocurrency to receive a link that would take them to chat rooms hosted on Telegram or Wickr.

2020-03-29 17:05

Stories on toilet paper

The world is running out of toilet paper because everyone's buying it up to somehow ward off the coronavirus. Seriously, the disconnect between toilet paper and anything that might be helpful to protect one's family during a coronavirus crisis is difficult to bridge. I understand people stocking up on water - what if they have to leave on a road trip into the countryside to escape the marauding zombies?

2020-03-13 17:49

'Othering' as human imperative

James Lane Allen once said famously, “Adversity doesn't build character; it reveals it.” If this is true, then the coronavirus scare will be downright pornographic about the character of South Korea as a nation and people. As we hit over 3,000 confirmed infections in Korea, what's been unclothed so far hasn't been pretty. This is unsurprising and fully expected, yet it's still cringeworthy to note how consistently mean and base our instincts tend to be when faced with threats and fear, especially in our need to create the “other” to point fingers at and lay blame.

2020-03-01 17:13

Sneezing while Asian

Sneezing in public is risky business these days when you're an Asian. With the coronavirus so closely linked with Wuhan, China, all Asians have become automatic suspects overnight as carriers of the virus. The suspicion grows worse with the finding that you don't have to show symptoms to infect others. It was a bit jarring to realize that a bunch of people getting infected by a new virus in the middle of China (where I've never been) could instantaneously reach out and influence my immediate environment in such a personal way by making me hyper-sensitive to what I look like when I am sneezin...

2020-02-16 17:27

Arbeit macht frei

“Work sets you free.” These words probably formed the most ironic phrase ever witnessed in the 20th century as they greeted millions of Jews who were marched under the iron wrought gates of Auschwitz. Jan. 27 marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet troops, a place in which the Nazis systemically killed 1.1 million Jews within its walls.

2020-02-02 18:00

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