Test your knowledge of Korea with our weekly quiz on the language, culture, history or anything K-related. -- Ed. Find the answer at the bottom of this page. You may know of Samsung just as a TV or phone brand. But on its home turf of South Korea, it is a household name for many more things -- almost too many. Here, a person can be living in a Samsung apartment, wear Samsung suits to work, eat lunch at a Samsung-run cafeteria at work, check stock prices via Samsung’s securities app, get

This month, the famed literary magazine Literature & Thought published its 600th issue, commemorating its 50th anniversary. Founded in 1972 by the late professor Lee O-young, the magazine has not only survived, but also thrived for half a century, steering Korean literature in the right direction and significantly contributing to upgrading it from national to world literature. Considering that it is a monthly magazine, the longevity of Literature & Thought amazes us, especially in this e

On Oct. 5, OPEC+ announced a dramatic reduction in production quotas, by 2 million barrels per day. According to oil ministers, the goal is to boost crude prices and “encourage investment” in the sector -- making it sound like they are doing the world a favor. In fact, this is an extraordinarily harmful step that will push oil prices up -- when the global economy is in a precarious state amid persistent inflation pressures. Americans may first notice the effects at the gas pump.

  In recent years, thanks to the strong political will of Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, a completely new system of ensuring human rights and freedoms has been created in our country on the basis of large-scale reforms carried out to glorify human dignity and comprehensively protect their interests. At the same time, the work on improving national legislation, bringing it into line with international standards, reforming agriculture and other sectors, the widespread application of

Koreans do not stick their spoons or chopsticks vertically into their rice. This behavior is reserved for funeral ceremonies or for a jesa, a memorial service where food is offered in memory of the deceased. This is why foreigners should refrain from doing this; it would be considered rude and offensive. By Min Byoung-chul Min Byoung-chul is an endowed chair professor at Chung-Ang University who is widely known as a multicultural educator and for his practical English teaching. This conten

Following a week of financial-market turbulence, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss was forced to scrap her plan to abolish the 45 percent top income tax rate for high earners. This U-turn, an attempt to counter a stunning market sell-off that caused the pound to crash and saw the Bank of England launch a massive bond-buying program to prevent “material risk to UK financial stability,” is a necessary first step toward stabilizing the economy. But unless Truss reverses more of the tax cuts

In August, Springer Nature, the publisher of 3,000 academic journals, including the Nature portfolio of the world’s most influential science journals, announced new ethics guidance for its editors, addressing the balance between academic freedom and the risk that publication of some research will harm specific groups of humans. The guidance also mentions, though much more briefly, research using animals. There are long-established guidelines proscribing the publication of articles based on

The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iranian police custody last month sparked the country’s biggest protests in years. Under the rallying cry, “Woman, Life, Freedom,” protesters have ground dozens of cities to a halt. The response from Iran’s authoritarian regime has been swift and harsh, with security forces opening fire on crowds and killing dozens. Though the protesters remain undeterred, it’s hard to imagine how they prevail. When the regime in power has a m

No one could have foreseen that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s popularity would nosedive so soon after the Liberal Democratic Party triumphed in July’s election to the Upper House of the Japanese Diet. Until recently, Kishida’s government received consistently high approval ratings. But the LDP’s links to a controversial religious group, along with the costly state funeral of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzō, have shaken Kishida’s political base, endangerin

You can take Koreans out of Korea, but for some, you cannot take Korea away from Korean Americans. That's what leads to Korean America, a thriving Korean culture overseas that parallels the motherland. Korean-language newspapers, radio and TV define Korean Americans as Koreans who live in the US away from their homeland. Canada and the US are home to the largest numbers of Koreans outside of Korea, combining for some 3 million out of the 7.3 million documented Koreans living in 193 foreign

“Every step I take, you follow me. I bet you know where my mind goes.” Kwon Si (1604-1672) wrote this poem called “The Shadow” at age 9. “Learning is nothing special. You should be perfectly honest with yourself and seek the right way. That is all,” his father said when he was being home schooled. Kwon is not a well-known scholar, but his pen name “Tan-ong” tells us what he sought in his life as a scholar. The pen name was taken from the name of a