It’s a balmy afternoon sometime in 2010, and you and 40 co-workers are gathered at a scenic park on the eastern outskirts of Seoul getting ready to shoot Scene No. 45 of episode 12 of a highly-rated television drama. Despite the tranquil appearance, there is a small and pressing problem: Episode 12 is scheduled to air later tonight. The director of photography (DP) is desperately staring up at the sky; if they don’t finish shooting in the next 45 minutes, they will lose the sun to

Indian ambassador to Korea highlights strengthened partnership in Aug. 15 Liberation Day message

In my last essay for The Korea Herald, I introduced the idea of the "Paradox on the Han River." To understand South Korea today, one must squarely face two contradictory realities. One is of incredible success, a rag-to-riches story with global brands, an addictive K-culture and a rising power at the Olympics. Political progress followed this success. Korea is a rare nation in the modern era with a conviction around constitutional democracy. At the same time, Korea’s youth is cha

The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris wrapped up a 17-day run with a dazzling closing ceremony on Sunday. Although the South Korean team participated in the event with its smallest number of athletes since 1976, it exceeded expectations by winning 32 medals, including 13 gold medals. In the overall medal standings, South Korea ranked eighth, placing itself among the ranks of France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany as one of the top 10 sports powers. It may look natural now to

The way we perceive things is often provincial and parochial rather than global and universal. We assume that people in other countries think the same way as we do. In many cases, however, foreigners think differently due to cultural differences. Therefore, we need to think big and global, while embracing different opinions and perspectives. Our love of ivy and pine trees can be a good example. In Korea, we like ivy because it decorates a building beautifully by crawling all over it and giving i

Even if you didn’t care about or respect women’s choices when it comes to having children, the “childless cat ladies” comments from Donald Trump's running mate JD Vance are still deeply problematic because they suggest a misunderstanding of a vital policy issue: fertility. To the extent that this deeply personal choice can be aggregated and tracked, it is akin to a performance measure of the economy -- and the data is flashing red. The US fertility rate has been fall

Waymo One is the first “autonomous ride-hailing service” available to customers. It advertises itself as offering a safer ride and allowing the autonomy of “people who can’t drive -- whether elderly, blind, or disabled -- to get around and do the things they love.” While many of us are cautiously optimistic and sometimes fearful of technology, in this particular case, I couldn‘t agree more with Google, the parent company of Waymo One. Recently, I visited San F

The tumultuous history of the Korean Peninsula can be seen through a myriad of prisms. In some cases that defy conventional wisdom. Well-educated Koreans in the South moved willingly to the communist North before the Korean War and stayed. One exceptional case caught the attention of Ryuta Itagaki, a professor of historical anthropology, and the outcome is an illuminating saga of a prominent linguist. In 2010, Itagaki, then a visiting scholar at the Harvard-Yenching Institute, met Kim Hye-young,

Sheikh Hasina could have left gracefully. Instead, Bangladesh’s prime minister resigned and fled to neighboring India, ending her 15-year-long rule as chaos has engulfed the nation. The army wasted no time stepping in to form an interim government, although what shape that will take is still unclear. The military needs to find a swift path to a peaceful transfer of power. Any delay will risk damaging the country’s reputation with the international financial community even further --

Languages change all the time, and Korean is no exception. In the age of social media, words that go viral quickly become mainstream, but other changes happen slowly and are hard to notice. I started learning Korean in 1983, and the 41 years since then have revealed a number of interesting changes. The most obvious change is the decline in the use of Chinese characters. In the early 1980s, Chinese characters were much more common in newspapers, books and street signs. Newspapers used vertical te