When I was a kid, I enjoyed drawing. I created, in my view, not-so-bad paintings. I won some awards at drawing contests. My classmates said I was talented. I even dreamed of becoming a cartoonist. Full of confidence, I had asked my parents to pay for a private art class. I attended art class far more enthusiastically than regular classes at school, learning various basic techniques from simple drawing to watercolor and oil paintings. Naturally, drawing is one of my main hobbies. Somehow, I h

South Korea’s battle with COVID-19 took a turn for the worse as cases started to jump in the middle of August. Unlike the first wave, which centered on Daegu, the recent spike in cases has been nationwide. The government has strengthened rules on social distancing and is considering a national shutdown if the situation worsens. After its success in squelching the Daegu-centered outbreak in the spring, many nations looked to Korea as a model of how to deal with COVID-19. In the US, major n

  Last Sunday, many Christians in Korea held online worship services from their homes, as requested by the government. Sitting before their computers or holding smartphones, they listened to sermons by their pastors standing at the pulpit in the empty chapel and prayed individually for an early end to the pandemic. It was the second time this year that the churchgoers were forced to stay home since they had the first such experience in March when outbreaks surged in the nation. At that t

The Republican National Convention may be built around the cult of personality of Donald Trump, who is stronger, faster, smarter, richer, more magnanimous, truthful and handsome than any human in history, but even the unparalleled glories of Trumpism are, in the end, mere reflections of the party’s true obsessions: persecution and aggression. Those themes shape the rhetoric that conveys conservative values and inform the fantasies that occupy the party’s large and growing cohort of

When you receive a card that says RSVP, which stands for the French “repondez s’il vous plait,” it means you must reply immediately whether you accept or decline the invitation. The same thing goes for emails and text messages, even though there is no RSVP attached. Since it all depends on the person -- we cannot stereotype people. However, it is undeniable that older Koreans are notorious for not responding to emails or text messages. The only problem is that older people fr

Many of the governments once lauded for their textbook COVID-19 responses, replete with strict lockdowns, sophisticated contact-tracing apps and clearly articulated policies, got tripped up by something in the end. In Singapore, it was an outbreak in foreign worker dorms. In South Korea, it was the premature reopening of nightclubs. Then there were other countries that did nothing glaringly wrong and still suffered. It only goes to show that there’s no winning the coronavirus recovery.

Of the coronavirus’s many side effects, perhaps the least appreciated are psychological. Those who’ve had a bad case and survived, like people who’ve been in war or accidents, may suffer post-traumatic stress for years. And even people in the as-yet-healthy majority are hurting. Young adults, in particular, are getting more depressed and anxious as SARS-CoV-2 uproots whatever budding life plans they’d been nursing. It’s long been clear that COVID-19, like any major

The price of gold reached an all-time high of $2,000 per ounce in early August. And while mainstream economists have treated gold as a sideshow since the world abandoned the gold standard in 1971, this recent price spike is a significant signal. Three explanations for the elevated gold price -- related to US monetary policy, risk and investors’ growing desire for a safe-haven alternative to the dollar -- have been offered. Each contains some truth. The US Federal Reserve has eased moneta

One of the most severe floods in decades is ravaging the industrial heartland, just as China struggles to shake off the impact of COVID-19. The Yangtze River’s inundation has so far caused direct economic losses of 178.9 billion yuan ($25.7 billion), including collapsed buildings, flooded factory floors and homes and livelihoods lost for millions of people. Average rainfall for June and July surpassed previous years; fixing the damage has barely begun. The latest disaster feeds into a pic

When he took office early last year, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had what looked like a plan: Crush corruption, rescue Brazil from social liberalism and revive the economy from the worst recession in a century. Nineteen months on, that bold agenda is mostly history. It’s tempting to blame the flop on the coronavirus pandemic -- a “meteor strike,” in the words of Economy Minister Paulo Guedes -- and its devastating toll on lives and livelihoods. But that gets the story

It felt as if I were a character in a zombie movie. I was driving home from the office Monday evening when, over the airwaves, I heard a crisp, measured male voice announcing the number of new daily COVID-19 cases: 188 local cases and nine from abroad. This cannot really be happening, I thought. I panicked at the surreal nature of it all, despite having been bombarded by hourly updates on the increasingly grave situation all day. The imminent danger had not really sunk in until I heard it on

Examples abound of how reprehensible leadership has worsened Latin America’s plight during the coronavirus pandemic. After consistently flouting public health safeguards, right-wing populist Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his left-wing coeval, Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, turned their countries into COVID-19 killing fields, with a fifth of reported global fatalities between them. Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega went AWOL, failing to show up in public for more tha

The building of China’s high-speed rail network counts as one of the greatest transportation success stories so far this century. That doesn’t mean the country can repeat the trick. When plans for a nationwide network of trains traveling at up to 350 kilometers per hour were first hatched in 2004, it was thought such projects could only be viable in rich countries. Beijing’s economic planners proved those naysayers wrong. Now, two-thirds of the world’s high-speed rail is

Keeping schoolchildren home again this fall will come at a hefty price for families and economies around the world. In Hong Kong, authorities may be underestimating the cost. The government’s decision to start the new academic year online after a resurgence in COVID-19 cases has generated little public discussion. That’s a surprise, given that the poorest will suffer disproportionately from another prolonged shutdown. Caution is appropriate when it comes to a virus, especially in

Sometimes outsiders can see what insiders cannot; that is why foreigners’ perspectives are often illuminating. Recently, foreign commentators have expressed concern and puzzlement about the policies and performances of some of our Korean ministries. First, many have raised a question about the necessity of the Ministry of Unification. We know that the Ministry’s primary task is to prepare for the unification of the Korean Peninsula and deal with matters related to North Korea. In