Traditions8 min
The Korean wedding: the pyebaek, the hall and the envelope
A thirty-minute ceremony, the pyebaek rite, congratulatory cash envelopes, dowries and a marriage rebound: how South Korea gets married today.
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The Kotoba Interactive journal.
Editorial features on the cultures, history and languages of Asia. Filter by culture, by topic, or search for what inspires you.
11 articles
Society9 min
Korean military service: length, exemptions, realities
18 to 21 months depending on the branch, a seven-grade fitness exam, vanishingly rare exemptions: how South Korean conscription works and what it costs.
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Society11 min
Mukbang: the Korean origin of a global phenomenon
Mukbang, those videos of people eating on camera, was born in South Korea around 2009. The story of a portmanteau, a shared distant meal and a worldwide hit.
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Society9 min
Cosmetic surgery in Gangnam: the district of clinics
Hundreds of clinics in a few streets, double eyelid surgery as a graduation present, medical tourism, and the real figures of the Korean market.
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Society11 min
Palli-palli: The Culture of "Hurry, Hurry" That Keeps Korea Running
Bullet delivery, the world's fastest internet, the Miracle on the Han River: inside palli-palli, the national reflex that built Korea and sometimes broke it.
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Society9 min
Oemojisangjuui: Korean lookism and its vocabulary of lines
S-line, V-line, small face: the vocabulary that turns a body into geometry, Gangnam, appearance-based discrimination, and Escape the Corset.
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Culture9 min
Jeong: understanding Korean affective attachment
Jeong (정), the Korean affective bond said to be untranslatable: definition, miun jeong, uri and the culture of we. Understanding the feeling that weaves society.
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Society5 min
The haenyeo: the sea women of Jeju
History of the haenyeo, the traditional women divers of Jeju Island: free-diving harvest, matriarchal society, the sumbisori breath and threatened UNESCO heritage.
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Society6 min
The jjimjilbang: the Korean sauna that never sleeps
Discovering the jjimjilbang, the 24-hour Korean public bathhouse: hot and cold baths, heat rooms, matching uniforms, baked eggs, body scrubs and the etiquette of nudity.
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