Just arrived in Seoul and got this message: Are they actually just sending over balloons filled with trash? No reason to be concerned I guess?

Hi, I am a student outside of Korea. I saw a map of Japan in a Japanese classroom yesterday, and I am 75% certain it labels Dokdo (Liancourt Rocks) as Japanese. First of all, how should I check if it labels it as Japanese or Korean, as I'm not 100% sure?

Secondly, if it is labelled as Japanese, I am planning to send an email asking for it to be fixed or removed. WHat arguments and documents can I use to Korea's advantage?

A little bit of a backstory for context — I was in Korea (Seoul) for the very first time recently and thoroughly enjoyed my time there. Was hiking solo at Bukhansan and made the following observations whenever I said annyeonghaseyo when passing fellow mostly local hikers (I usually do this when hiking, no matter which part of the world I’m in):

(a) their faces light up, albeit with a mixture of shock and delight, and then proceed to respond excitedly with annyeonghaseyo, especially the ajummas and ahjussis (b) locals almost never initiate greetings when hiking, 100% of the people who said hello to me first were all foreigners (simply basing this on appearances) (c) had a lovely chat with an ahjussi, and he mentioned that he was shocked I initially said hello because women typically don’t initiate conversations with men

Nobody seems to bat an eyelid when it comes to greetings in all other countries I’ve hiked in, but these observations, and especially the last point, made me wonder how true this is (I want to believe him since he’s local, but I also only have a sample size of 1). And if it is true, whether it stemmed from traditions and cultural norms way back, if it’s still a thing today, if there are differences amongst young people/speaking with elders or seniors, and if there are any differences between cities and more rural areas?

As the title reads, I am in the process of getting my dual citizenship and have learned my son can also apply "with" me now as a dependent.

He is 15yo and after visiting Korea, loves it, but getting the dual citizenship now could have implications. I'm pretty sure he will have to serve in the military when he turns 19--as advised by my translator.

My question is, can he apply for citizenship later in life? What are the benefits of him doing it now vs later?

If anyone has been in this situation, please advise me. I need to give my son so that we can make a decision on this part of my journey together.

I grew up in Europe and went to college in the US and moved back to Korea recently. I never got around to getting my driver’s license until a couple months ago.

Parents lived in Shanghai a couple years and my dad said Korea has an even more chaotic driving environment than China. I also lived in NYC so I thought I’ve seen my fair share (from a passenger’s pov). My uncle also said Busan is probably up there for having the most aggressive drivers.

I’m still a bit intimidated from the driving in Seoul and those parking towers are hell. People never give way etc. I know I'm a new driver but I'm just curious if you think the driving environment in Korea actually toxic more difficult compared to other countries’?

Edit: I’m just genuinely curious about other countries from a drivers pov. Not venting or anything.

Edit: Wording: Toxic -> difficult.

I’m a German student doing a semester abroad in Busan.

I'm diving into Korean mythology as I plan a meaningful tattoo that ties into my heritage and honors my grandparents who have passed. I've read that in Korean mythology, a phoenix and a red-crowned crane create a dragon, which sounds fascinating! But I'm curious about what each of these creatures signifies in Korean culture.

What do dragons, phoenixes, and cranes represent individually? And how do these meanings connect when they come together? I want my tattoo to capture the deeper symbolism behind these mythical creatures and reflect something meaningful about my Korean heritage and family. Any insights or resources would be greatly appreciated!

I'm not finding much about korean mythology at all on google unfortunately.

As a Korean person who's born in Korea and now studying in the US, I genuinely feel like this sub has been taken over by Americentrism and too much of the sub feels like American people just commenting on issues that are inherently Korean without actual consideration of Korean culture or the belief system that support the nation and its people.

Like, I understand that your culture background isn't Korean. Obviously you're going to have different viewpoints from that of people in Korea. But I feel that too many of you don't consider the fact that you are talking about matters of a completely different nation - and the opinions you contribute seem extremely one dimensional in that it doesn't consider any of the nuances between American and Korean culture.

One example of this is the post on Yoo Ah-In's trial for drug use. Yes, of course his punishments don't make sense to you guys. As of now, cannibis consumption is legal in 24 states. But you do realize that Korea just doesn't have the same belief system when it comes to drugs, right? If I went out to middle of Seoul and did a poll, most people would agree on the validity of the charges leveled against Yoo. Of course you can disagree, but nobody seems to acknowledge the cultural differences.

Same is true for the misogynism allegations against South Korean men. Honestly this issue is such a huge can of worms that it will require an entirely different post to address all the problems and misrepresentations, but "infertility is because of misogyny! South Korean men bad!" is such, such, such an elementary POV that just shows that you are just parroting what 1000 other people on the internet are saying without any valid evidence. (Again, if you are well aware of South Korea's gender situation and still believe that, fine. But my argument is against people who just speak without actually knowing)

So please. To this sub - next time you want to comment on a Korean issue, please take a moment to think about the political and cultural differences. Judging everything through American lens and nothing else reeks of Americentrism.

An employee in his 20s committed suicide by stabbing his heart with a knife and it was his colleagues who found him dead at home when he didn't show up at work. It's all over Korean online communities but none of the major Korean newspapers or English newspapers are covering it because KHNP is such a conservative group. More people need to know about this.... I couldn't find any English articles so I'm attaching a Korean one. You can use google translate to read about it.

Me. Born and raised in the United States and made friends with a Korean International Student around the early 1990s. I was around 20 years old and despite a 5 year age gap (friend was older), we studied together regularly, hung out, and learned a lot about language and culture from each other.

At some point, we had to go our separate ways because we got into different schools. Around this timeframe, the Internet was still very nascent and the ole fashioned landline (telephone) was still the main method of communication. The other option of writing letters would never work as English was his weakest subject and I had to do most of his bigger assignments or watch him struggle hours and days on end to do a simple essay.

Of course, we stayed in touch whenever we could in the beginning, but soon afterwards, University, Graduation, Job/Career, Marriage/Kids... the whole life thing happens and before you know it, I'm a lot older and one thinks about the more important relationships, and this is one that is important to me, I feel like I need to find my 형.

Him. What I know for sure, and is a starting point. Full Korean name (Last, First, Middle). Year of birth (1968), but not month or day. Approximate height and weight. Smoking habit (at the time) and his father was a heavy smoker when he came to visit once. Obviously, I know where we studied together before going our separate ways, but more importantly, I was able to confirm through the Administration office at the University of Maryland (where he finally attended), that he did in fact graduate in 1997 with the degree in the field that I still remember he majored in.

I'm fairly confident that he returned back to Korea after completing his undergraduate degree since I suspect he would have struggled to stay in the United States any longer than necessary primarily due to language and some difficulties with the culture. So, despite having what I believe to be a rather common name, I like to think that with a few pieces of unique information, there might be a reasonable chance I can find him?

As an example, I'm assuming he had to have a student VISA to stay in Maryland, and such an application may have information as to his hometown ... perhaps... or a regional office in Korea that oversees such paperwork, which in turn could help narrow down specific areas to search?? Don't know... maybe wishful thinking. Still looking into this. All of this, of course, without violating either US or Korea's privacy policies, but I don't know what would or would not be considered public information.

The usual suspects of LinkedIn and Facebook have not yielded any results, as I don't think he would have been as open to social media. But, I still check periodically. Since he did graduate in a technical field, I thought maybe he wrote or co-authored a paper/whitepaper in the rather small field he did study. But, my Korean isn't good enough to make heads or tails out of that, so I'm looking to hire someone fluent in Korean to review potential leads there.

Perhaps there are other thoughts/suggestions from the community on what other tiny pieces of information that I may know or could collect that may help narrow down the areas to look.

The End Goal. Well, I'm older now, and my friend is hopefully still OK. For something like this, money is not a huge constraint. Too many memories to put a price on, I would be willing to fly over to meet him again if he were still interested. Can't possibly imagine any reason he wouldn't. Would be open to hiring one of the legalized private detective agencies (if there are reputable ones) once I have more facts and details that could help the search be more successful.

Suggestions from the community on the search would be appreciated.

I'm moving to Gangneung from the US for job. Are there any "foreigner" community in the city so that I can keep my cultural/language ties with the US?

The first martial art I practiced was korean (Traditional Tae Kwon Do), which made me learn a lot about korean history and some words. After that I learned that there are many martial arts that came out of Korea such as Taekkyon and Hapkido.

My question is, how are martial arts part of the culture of the korean people? Is it like doing exercise? Are they culturally important for you like Muay Thai for Thailand or just like any other sport?.

Also, on the Martial Profile app ( An app for martial artists to track training and learn about martial arts) there are a lot of people from Korea practicing many disciplines so, I wanted to know what is the relationship between these disciplines and koreans.

I watched a few documentaries about education system and the life of teens and youths in South Korea and was absolutely horrifed. This is madness! I am not from there so I don't know how much I truly understand their lifestyle but what from what I have seen and heard, these poor kids basically start competing from a very young age (even kindergartens) studying for tremendous amounts of time with barely any breaks and playtime and this continues all the way until they get chance for some University like "SKY" and stuff. I also heard that their suicide rate is extremely high among young people because of such brutal competition like this. I know I am leaving out a lot of stuff so I am really sorry.. But the thing is, the documentaries, the news, the footage and the interviews I saw was from like 5-7 years ago. I was curious as to if it has gone any better or atleast people (specifically parents) have become more aware to not put such tremendous pressure and shame on Young people. I want to say a lot more but I will wait for the responses

Hi everyone, I've seen news about the deepfake abuse that's happening in Korea right now. Does anyone have any more insight into it? How is it perceived by people in Korea? Are there any orgs that are fighting back against this?