Review of 2018 in Korea
Here’s a quick look back over the last 12 months. It’s been a year of sporting successes, diplomacy with North Korea, online petitions, and a growing #Me Too movement!
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JANUARY: Anyone for tennis?
In sport, Chung Hyeon became the first Korean tennis player ever to reach a Grand Slam semi-final beating former No 1 Novak Djokovic during the Australian Open.
His nickname is The Professor thanks to his unusual white-framed glasses, and his success created a dramatic rise in interest in tennis in Korea. Sports shops were inundated with orders for clothes and questions about tennis classes. White-framed glasses became popular too!
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FEBRUARY: The Olympics
Another sport that made it into the spotlight early this year was curling when the Korean women’s curling team (known as the ‘garlic girls’ as their hometown is in a region famous for garlic) made it to the final at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. And after they won silver at the Olympics, a curling craze began in Korea!
There were lots of opportunities to celebrate Korean culture at the Olympics with the Olympics logo made up of hangul and Kpop featuring in the opening and closing ceremonies. It was also one of many opportunities to build bridges with North Korea as the country was also invited to join the Games.
There was some controversy too and a national outcry when the ladies speed skating team were accused of bullying and not working as a team.
A couple of days later when one of the skaters, Kim Bo-reum, won silver in another race she knelt on the ice and gave a tearful bow to the crowd. It was sad to watch. She could barely speak in the interview afterwards. She’s so young. I felt bad for her.
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MARCH: President Moon’s Online Petition Platform
pic: Korean Herald (yonhap) speed skater Kim Bo-reum bows to the crowd
When President Moon moved in to the Blue House in May 2017 in a bid to hear the voice of the people his government started an online channel where citizens could file petitions. If a petition gets more than 200,000 signatures within a month then a a video is posted online with a reply.
Up to 1,000 petitions are filed each day! Some petitions are more serious than others and can range from complaints about noisy neighbours to demands for death sentences for celebrities, including singer Suzy and Lee Hong-gi.
The most signatures on a petition ( with 1,192,049 signatures) involved a man who stabbed another man to death in an Internet cafe and then claimed mental health issues to be taken into consideration at the trial.
By March, one of the speed skaters involved in Olympics had to be hospitalized with stress after over 600,000 signatures were added to a petition to remove the skaters from the Korean Skating Union and BAN them from taking part in any future games with claims that they embarrassed their country. The skaters were later cleared of any wrongdoing.
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APRIL: Inter-Korea Summit
pic: Blue House
A major event of the year was the Inter-Korean summit held in April.
The summit meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae In and the North Korean leader Kim Jung Un was a historic moment as it was the first time for North Korean leader Kim Jung Un to step over the border at Panmunjom. Meticulous planning went into the meeting including carefully choosing individually pieces of furniture and artwork. I wrote about the hangul art work that was featured at the summit here.
Various events have been held throughout the year to improve relations between South Korea and North Korea and later in the year, Ssireum, Korean traditional wrestling, was accepted onto the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list. This was the first time that a joint bid had been made by the two Koreas. Kimchi is also on the list but with separate entries as there were separate bids from the two countries.
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MAY: Do I need a mask?
pic: Amazon
Fine dust from China and domestic air pollutants means Korea now has the worst air quality of all the OECD countries. And more people are worried about air pollution in Korea than nuclear attack from North Korea. There are more and more warnings not to go outside so school children have had to resort to virtual indoor sports games.
The pollution has created some retail opportunities though. Black masks have become fashion statements (and are available on Amazon!) And the market for air purifiers is growing becoming a mainstream item with sales expected to reach up to 3 million units. The new Samsung Air Dresser is like an electric wardrobe that removes dust and smells from your clothes…
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JUNE: Expanding reality TV genres
Some new and experimental reality TV shows came out this season such as Dunia: Into a New World where celebrities are transported to a virtual land and Where on Earth? where celebrities have to complete tasks in unusual locations. (I haven’t watched any of these yet though)
Netflix has been gaining momentum in Korea and Busted! is the first Netflix original Korean variety show, a crime-solving show with star-studded cast. I watched the beginning of the first show. Not sure what I think yet.
Big-budget drama Mr Sunshine was released in July starring Lee Byung-hun has also been trending on Netflix.
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JULY: Work-life Balance
워라밸
Quality of life has become a big issue and with it a newly coined word ‘worabael‘ – a portmanteau of the English expression WOrk-LIfe BALance!
This year the Moon administration introduced two new policies – an increase in minimum wage and a decrease in number of maximum working hours.
To try to improve life for all and to boost the economy, the minimum wage was raised by 16 percent to 7,530 won ($7.05). But the decision to raise it so drastically (it’s to go up again next year) has been controversial In July the government also reduced maximum working hours to 52 hours (down from 68) hoping to boost consumption and economic growth.
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AUGUST: City Wild Life
Every summer cicadas fill the trees of Seoul, but this year the sound was SO LOUD! And it’s official: Seoul cicadas are getting louder!
Studies have shown that due to the Urban Heat Island effect, the number of cicadas in urban areas is increasing and so they are getting louder – because there are more of them. They like hanging out in the city especially in areas with huge apartment complexes where temperatures are rising due to the dense population!
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SEPTEMBER: BTS & Kpop & Military Service
South Korea’s men’s football team took gold at the Asian Games which means that the players will not have to do military service.
This led to talks on whether members of successful boy bands (like BTS) should be exempt from doing military service too. (after all if you win a classical music competition you are eligible for exemption, but you get nothing for pop!) During all this, over 3,000 Koreans signed a Blue House online petition calling for the disbandment of BTS on the grounds that the band members are ‘haughty’!
But generally the band’s popularity seems only to be growing – especially internationally – and in September BTS appeared on popular BBC show Graham Norton after two sold out shows at the O2 arena. (BTS were the first K-pop group to make it into the UK Top 40 singles chart). They’ve also been on the Late Late show with James Corden. But later in November a show was cancelled in Japan when one of the members wore a shirt depicting the atomic bombing of Japan and independence slogans in Korean.
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OCTOBER: ‘WATER-RAGE’ Chaebol Behaving Badly
The Chaebol conglomerates were in the news again this year for bad behaviour.
Who can forget nut-gate a few years ago when the heiress of Korean Air (Hanjin Group) threw a wobbler on a plane over the unsatisfactory presentation of her macadamia nuts?
This year the kerfuffle began in April when her sister appeared in the news for ‘water-rage’ throwing a cup of water at an employee. Then in June the mum was investigated and arrested for assault when a video emerged of her physically assaulting employees with a scene that looks like it came straight from a Korean drama.
There was a public outcry with a petition for Korean Air to take the word “Korean’ out of the company name! The issue developed into a customs probe though after allegations that the family smuggled luxury goods (including SWANS!) into the country.
The company was investigated and by October Korean prosecutors indicted her father Hanjin Group and Korean Air Lines Co. Chairman Cho Yang-ho for charges including embezzlement. Charges against water-rage daughter were dropped though.
Meanwhile, in politics Lee Myung-bak became the 4th former president to be convicted of bribery and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He claims innocence blaming revenge after the election of the liberal Moon administration. Former President Park Geun-hye is already serving a 33-year sentence for corruption.
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NOVEMBER: #Me Too
popular feminist novel Kim Ji Young Born 1982
The year has seen a growing #Me Too movement in Korea. In August, in the most high profile case, Ahn Hee-jung, who had had hopes of running for president, was found NOT guilty of raping his female aide causing angry protests at the justice system.
In September well-known theatre director Lee Yoon-taek was sentenced to six years in prison for the sexual abuse of nine women. There have been demonstrations about other women’s issues this year too including the issue of spy-cams in public toilets. This problem appears in the popular novel Kim Ji Young born 1982. (which has now become a million seller and will be made into a film next year).
By November, perhaps spurred on by the #ME TOO movement, some women’s groups are making the news for refusing to wear make-up and rebelling against ideals of beauty in Korea.
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DECEMBER: End of Year Award Ceremonies
The KBS entertainment awards were held in December and comedian Lee Young-ja who appears in one of my favourite TV shows Hello Counsellor became the first female comedian to win the grand prize since the annual ceremony began in 2002. Apparently, she didn’t tell her mother to watch the show because she didn’t think she’d win. Oh.
Earlier in October, Marry Me Now (KBS March-Sep 2018) was the biggest winner at the 2018 Korea Drama Awards. See the full list of winners here.
Korea Popular Music Awards (KPMA) saw Wanna One win artist of the year.
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For more 2018 year reviews see the Korean Joongang Daily’s year review here and a look back at Korean cinema trends here.