Chuseok 2026 is on Friday, September 25. Get to know the essentials for food, family, and fun. What is Chuseok? Chuseok (추석), also called Hangawi, is one of the most important holidays in Korea, on par with the lunar New Year. It’s often described as the Korean version of Thanksgiving, a time to celebrate the…
BTS closed out their North American tour on September 6th at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, right where ARIRANG started. The historic concert brought the band full circle, back to their album’s birthplace. For BTS, Los Angeles has become a rite of passage responsible for some of their deepest developments as artists. From their first…
Nearly a decade after “Pachinko” established Min Jin Lee as one of the essential chroniclers of the Korean diaspora, she returns with a panoramic family saga about the generation shaped by the 1997 Asian financial crisis and its aftermath. What kind of people are we becoming? That question quietly runs beneath every page of…
Min Jin Lee did not set out to become a spokesperson for the Korean diaspora. She set out to write good novels. But since “Pachinko” became a runaway bestseller in 2017 and was later adapted into an Apple TV+ series, Lee has become much more than a novelist. She has become one of the most…
Five months after becoming a box office phenomenon in South Korea, The King’s Warden is finally available to stream in the United States on VIKI, and it is well worth the wait. Credited with bringing audiences back to movie theaters in record numbers, the film became Korea’s highest-grossing film of all time. It also won…
While my husband and I were eating a delicious bowl of naengmyun in Porto, Portugal yesterday, the Korean soccer player Hwang In-beom was finishing his meal at the table next to us at a lovely little restaurant called Wooa. He had just arrived in the city after signing a three-year contract with FC Porto, and…
Erling Haaland is the highest-paid footballer in the Premier League, earning a reported £27.3 million a year ($36.5 million) at Manchester City, more than six million higher than the next name on the list. This summer he became the breakout viral star of the 2026 World Cup, spawning AI parody clips, waves of meme edits,…
The current USD-to-Korean won exchange rate is better than ever. As of now, 1 U.S. dollar equals ₩1,474, and it reached a high of ₩1,558 per USD in the summer of 2026. Over the past 10 years, the exchange rate has been as low as ₩1,054 per USD so you are now saving 25%-30% on top of Korea’s already low prices. As stylish and sophisticated as any destination, and with…
Here are some recent headlines featuring Koreans that are worth a read. If an article listed below is behind a paywall, try signing up with your local library for free access to many of the major news publications. [Korea JoongAng Daily] Seoul retains title as world’s best city for students in latest QS…
“If adults are afraid of children, the world is doomed.” The line belongs to Na Hwa-jin, a former special-forces captain turned education inspector played by Kim Mu-yeol in Netflix’s Teach You a Lesson. By the second episode, it has become a mantra that echoes throughout the series. Korea’s real-life education system in recent years has…