Operators of a mobile application on which brothels share the personal information of their customers, including phone numbers, were arrested by police, officials said Friday. They are accused of violating of the law on personal information protection and the law on punishment of prostitution. According to the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police, some 6,400 sex work establishments shared information about sex buyers, including some 4.6 million phone numbers, their past records of visiting other

Social Affairs June 23, 2023

The historic city of Gyeongju may soon lose one of its most iconic street snacks, the 10-won waffle, as the South Korea’s central bank takes issue with its design resembling a real coin. The Bank of Korea on Thursday said it will put the brakes on the sale of the waffles designed after national coins that have become popular street snacks in some tourist destinations. The central bank has recently urged a warning to local producers of the coin-shaped snack to stop applying the design of go

Social Affairs June 22, 2023

In a rare ruling, a local court has acknowledged the possibility of a vehicle defect in a 2020 car accident that killed a pedestrian, acquitting the driver of criminal charges. The Daejeon District Court on Tuesday found not guilty the 56-year-old driver who accidentally hit and killed a 60-year-old security guard on a university campus in Seoul on Dec. 29, 2020. Black box footage shows that the driver’s car, a local brand, exited an underground parking lot and made a right turn at a spe

Social Affairs June 21, 2023

  A passport was once something reserved for a privileged few in South Korea until the government began allowing all citizens to travel freely overseas on Jan. 1, 1989. To prevent an outflow of foreign currency that would weaken the Korean currency against the dollar, as well as to minimize Koreans’ contact with communists, international travel was only permitted for certain groups of people who had special reasons for it. These included company officials or businesspeople who need to

Hashtag Korea June 21, 2023

A pop-up exhibition dubbed “Cafe de Busan” was launched in Paris ahead of the General Assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions, to support Busan's bid to host the 2030 World Expo, according to the Busan Metropolitan Government on Tuesday. South Korea is vying with Rome, Italy; Odesa, Ukraine; and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to host the Expo in its southeastern city of Busan. The two-day assembly, which began Tuesday with 179 BIE member countries attending, involves intense

Social Affairs June 20, 2023

The global Korean language boom has passed the point where Korean government-dispatched teachers and state-run language promotion agencies can meet local teaching demands. It is now time for Korea’s edu-tech players, trained to serve a particularly discerning and demanding clientele at home, to play a role, said Visang Education’s global education unit chief. “Demand for Korean language learning has exploded in many countries amid the worldwide popularity of Korean content. O

Hello Hangeul June 20, 2023

Along with the increasing number of self-service stores, related crimes, including theft and vandalism, have become rampant in recent years with the majority of cases involving teenagers, a report showed Monday. According to a report titled “A Study on Crimes at Unmanned Stores and Countermeasures,” published by the Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice, a total of 1,640 shoplifting incidents took place in Seoul from September 2020 to January 2022, which indicates that 96 cases

Social Affairs June 19, 2023

The search continues for a purported alligator in an otherwise idyllic village in the southern city of Yeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, after five people reported sightings of the reptile in a slow-moving stream that encircles the rural town. Despite having found no trace of a reptile, the city is not letting its guard down as of Friday, with four officials dispatched to monitor the vicinity of the purported sighting. It also plans to conduct a drone search of the area, officials said. &ldquo

Social Affairs June 16, 2023

A star math lecturer’s diagnosis on South Korea’s persistently falling birth attributing part of the blame to Instagram overflowing with “flex posts” went viral Thursday. In a video clip, uploaded to his YouTube channel, apparently from a lecture, Chung Seung-je shares his thought on the issue, starting with a question, “Koreans had more babies in the past when they were much poorer. Things have gotten a lot better now, but why do people have fewer babies?” &l

Social Affairs June 15, 2023

Pawn shops have been seen as relics of the past, from a time when instant cash loans were not so readily available with just a few clicks. But though many perished, a new breed of shops has emerged, catering to clients who possess expensive gadgets or luxury goods but are temporarily cash-strapped. Lee Yong-seok’s shop in Seoul's bustling Hongdae specializes in loans secured against tech gadgets. In contrast to the traditional image of pawn shops with iron bars and stringent secur

Hashtag Korea June 13, 2023

Residue of methamphetamine, a common illegal substance, also known as “philopon” in South Korea, was detected in 34 sewage plants nationwide every year for the past three years, according to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. Since 2020, the ministry has conducted the sewage test each year, whereby researchers collect samples of untreated sewage and analyze the concentration of drug residues to quantify drug use within a community. According to the latest report released by the

Social Affairs June 9, 2023

South Korea's capital city, Seoul, was named the world’s ninth most expensive city for expatriates in terms of living expenses, an international survey showed. According to a global consulting firm ECA International in March this year, the cost of living in Seoul was the ninth-highest, up one notch from a year earlier. Tokyo was next, down five notches on-year. The survey compared the costs of living in 207 cities with high numbers of foreign national residents across 120 countrie

Social Affairs June 8, 2023

Seoul Metro, the public corporation that operates the subway system in Seoul, is putting the names of 30 subway stations up for sale. The upcoming auction will involve 18 subway stations, the naming contracts of which have expired, along with 12 additional stations in downtown and commercial hub areas. They include Gangnam Station on Line 2, one of the busiest stations, as well as Seongsu and Sinsa Stations, in hip Seongsu-dong and Sinsa-dong, respectively. The new names will be displayed in bra

Social Affairs June 8, 2023

Police booked a male college student in his 20s who exposed his genitals to elementary school children who then chased him last week in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province, according to news reports on Monday. In video footage taken on May 31 and shown on the cable news channel YTN, the flasher -- wearing a mask, black t-shirt and grey sweatpants -- ran away as soon as he pulled his pants down in front of four elementary school students to display his genitals. The children immediately chas

Social Affairs June 5, 2023

Three out of 10 Korean students attending four-year universities across the nation have witnessed their peers falling victim to bullying, a report said Sunday. The National Youth Policy Institute published a report titled "Research on Bullying Among University Students and a Study on Preventive Measures for Improvement," which included the results of an online survey of 467 undergraduates from four-year colleges nationwide. Among the respondents, 135 students, or 28.9 percent, said t

Social Affairs June 4, 2023