Show Notes
Send us Fan Mail We’re trying something new. This is our first Fun Size episode—a shorter format where we tackle current topics that spark debate in Korea. This time, we’re looking at the controversy surrounding the sign at Gwanghwamun. Should it be written in Hangul or Hanja? It sounds like a simple design choice, but it opens up deeper questions about history, identity, and how Korea presents itself today. We break down the history of Korean writing systems, why Chinese characters were used...
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What if a ghost is a recording instead of a soul? Shawn explains stone tape theory, the boy who plays around a nearly 400-year-old zelkova tree at Gyeonghuigung Palace, and the night in 2018 when twelve people on his ghost walk smelled something burning that had no source.
King Jeongjo is dead, his reforms are on life support, and the woman holding the throne is making moves that will shape Korean politics for the next century. This episode covers the regency of Queen Dowager Jeongsun, the brief window of slave emancipation and anti-discrimination reform, and the rise of the Andong Kim clan — the family that turned “marrying into the monarchy” into a full-contact governing strategy.
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A brand-new free museum just opened under Insadong in Seoul, built on six years of archaeological excavation exposing the city as it looked right before the Japanese invasion of the 1590s burned it to the ground. Joe walked through it, found a genuinely compelling story buried inside video interviews with the archaeologists, and came back frustrated that the museum itself never bothers to tell you any of it.