Reading the Dead: What Korean Graves Tell Us
Send us a text Winter is cemetery season in Korea. With the grass dead, snakes gone, and sightlines open, this is when Korea’s hillside cemeteries qui...
Who Should Still Be Driving in Korea?
Send us a text South Korea became a super-aged society in 2025. The effects are showing up everywhere, but nowhere more visibly than on the roads. In ...
Where Have All the Soju Tents Gone? Part 2
Send us a text Our 300th episode! Pojangmacha didn’t disappear by accident. In Part 2 of Where Have All the Soju Tents Gone, Joe and Shawn trace how S...
Where Have All the Soju Tents Gone? Part 1
Send us a text There is no Waffle House in Korea. For decades, the pojangmacha was the last line of defense against going home hungry, broke, or black...
Christmas Nightmares 2: Holiday Crimes
Send us a text Christmas is often framed as a moment of peace, forgiveness, and reflection. But in Korean history, Christmas Eve has repeatedly been c...
Christmas Nightmares 1: Darkest Holiday Stories
Send us a text Christmas is supposed to be a time of warmth, safety, and reunion. But history doesn’t always cooperate. In Part 1 of our two-part Chri...
K-Hacked: How Coupang Exposed Korea’s Cybersecurity Mess
Send us a text Shawn and Joe dig into Korea’s crumbling cybersecurity myth and the Coupang leak that exposed almost every user in the country. Korea s...
Weird Tours
Send us a text Shawn and Joe trade war stories from the front lines of Seoul’s tour scene. Influencers melting down in costume, drunk guests apologizi...
Short: The Expat Quest for Thanksgiving
Send us a text This is a blog post I (Joe) wrote on ZenKimchi.com in 2012 about the extreme lengths expats in Korea would go to for creating Thanksgiv...
The Secret Military Club That Hijacked Korea
Send us a text Korea’s modern history has plenty of villains, but Hanahoe might be the most quietly terrifying. This was the private club of military ...