I visited Seoul in the last week of June, and I had a great time! I was so busy meeting friends and scholars, visiting palaces, bars, and museums.
A couple of highlights:
Dr. Cheong Seong-Chang, the Director of Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute, was gracious enough to invite me to dinner after I interviewed him about the security situation in Northeast Asia and the argument for the ROK’s independent development of a nuclear deterrent.
Dr. Cheong has made the case before in a series of articles that was published here at the US-Korea Policy Project. I will publish a full article based on my interview later. UPDATE: Read the interview here.
But first, a summary: South Korea faces one of the biggest threats of any country in the world. Few countries are divided with a nuclear-armed adversary intent on conquest staring down and threatening annihilation. While North Korea is the most immediate threat, Russia and China are also nuclear-armed, and South Korea’s relations with them are declining. The current unstable balance between South and North, with the ROK having an advantage in conventional weapons and the DPRK having nukes, makes the peninsula much more dangerous than if the ROK were armed with nukes, too.
A nuclear-armed Korea would be able to engage with the United States on an equal playing field, but it could remain an ally of the U.S. It would not be in a subservient relationship, as it sometimes feels now. But it could help the U.S. constrain China.
So I have a draft of a longer article I am working on that quotes Dr. Cheong. Look forward to it!
In addition, I attended a Doosan baseball game and examined how Korean and the U.S. culture and national psychology share much in common.
Drinking A 30 Ounce Cass Draft at a Korean Baseball Game
Coming from South Korea to the United States to celebrate the Fourth of July with my family in Colorado allowed me to reflect on American and Korean culture. Korean people have much in common with Americans.
Koreans and Americans share a sense of rebelliousness. Americans tarred and feathered the haughty British monarchists and tax collectors. Koreans lobbed bombs at the Japanese colonialists who occupied their country from 1905-45. (See my article at the US-Korea Policy Project: "Korea's Veneration of Assassins as National Heroes.") Koreans today fill the streets with protests, raising candles, fighting for (and against) social change.
In terms of pop culture, the themes and imagery of K-dramas and K-pop videos share much with Hollywood style--much more so than Japanese pop culture, for example--making them well-received on both sides of the Pacific. I'm reaching and oversimplifying at this point, but even Korean people's love for drinking and partying reflects some similarities with the American ethos.
Korean culture and national psychology might be most similar to American than any other Asian country and many non-Asian countries. In fact, I might even venture to say that Koreans do some American things better and "more American" than America.
Read full article: Drinking A 30 Ounce Cass Draft at a Korean Baseball Game
That article is from my new blog Five O’Clock on Substack.
Here, we share stories of the people and places that inspire drinks, music, and good times. Every culture has its own unique drinks. Every celebration and fun activity deserves a drink. With every drink comes an activity.
Multiple contributors who love travel and sharing a drink tell the stories of what they drank and where. We tell the stories of the people who brewed the new beer flavors and who opened a chill cafe or a crazy underground realm.
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Also a drinking experience in Korea I blogged for Five O’Clock:
Drinking with a Sadistic Witch at a BDSM Bar in Seoul
Before the Covid pandemic started, a "sadistic witch" by the name of Mistress Taemin opened a bar in the basement of a building in Hannam and hung her collection of whips and chains on the wall. She calls it Spark, and it is one of the most interesting SM* bars in Seoul's small but close-knit community. (*In Korea, BDSM--bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism--is usually referred to only by its two final initials.)
"I opened it to create a space," she said in an interview with the PPARK SHOW. "I was interested in SM because I am a sadist. I can have a drink and talk with people who are interested."
Read full article: curious? come downstairs and find out what's inside Spark