Professor Moon Seungsook is a political and cultural sociologist, scholar of gender studies, and East Asianist specializing in South Korea. She grew up in Seoul, Korea and lived and worked in Boston and Cambridge, MA before moving to Vassar College. Her research evolved from feminist critiques of nationalism, militarism, democratization, and citizenship to globalization and transnationalism shaping militarism and civic agency, production and consumption of food and masculinities. She is a recipient of notable awards, including a Fulbright Scholars Award (2004-05), an inaugural endowed-chair visiting professorship at Harvard University (2014-15), and the Laboratory Program for Korean Studies Research Grant from the Academy of Korean Studies (2018-23). Her latest book is Civic Activism in South Korea: The Intertwining of Democracy and Neoliberalism (2024).

Civic Activism in South Korea: https://www.amazon.com/Civic-Activism-South-Korea-Neoliberalism/dp/023121149X

Discussion Outline

0:00 Introduction

7:00 The real life effects of neoliberalization

15:40 Life in pre-democratic South Korea

21:00 Neoliberalism and democracy in South Korea

32:53 Citizens' Organizations in South Korea

42:05 Neoliberalization and religion

51:35 The profound irony of individualism

55:05 Multiculturalism in South Korea

1:02:45 Recommendations

Korea Deconstructed by David Tizzard

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▶ Music: Fighting by Disorientalz

The Space Out Competition in Seoul, South Korea, is a unique and quirky event that challenges participants to do... nothing. The goal of the competition is to simply sit still, remain calm, and "space out" for 90 minutes without any distractions. In a society like South Korea's, where work culture can be intense and people often feel pressured to be constantly productive, the Space Out Competition offers a refreshing contrast. It emphasizes the importance of mental health and the need to slow down, even if just for a little while.

This year's winner was Soa Kwon, a television presenter, announcer, and celebrity in the English-speaking media world of South Korea. Her success brought her even more fame, appearing on television with Yoo Jae-suk and Jo Se-ho as well as CNN. Soa says she could somewhat foresee this success and puts a lot of it down to her habit of writing down her goals and then manifesting them.

Find Soa online:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soa.kwon/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tv-tn8cr

In this episode, we are joined by regular co-host Yunseo Jeon and also Hyemin Kim

Yunseo: https://www.instagram.com/y_jeon_s/

Hyemin: https://www.instagram.com/hminimii/

Discussion Outline

0:00 The Queen of Spacing Out

10:25 Manifesting Your Future

20:25 Beauty and Gender in Media

29:35 Celebrity Tea

33:05 Weird Animal Noise Section (lmao)

43:50 German or Korean?

50:05 Evaluating Korean Society

1:04:20 Looking at Hallyu

1:12:55 Becoming a 'Dragon'

1:20:45 Recommendations

Korea Deconstructed by David Tizzard

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▶ Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/kr/podcast/korea-deconstructed/id1587269128

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▶ Music: Fighting X 3 by Disorientalz

Is Korea racist? Is Korea homophobic? How do media representations affect people's lives here? We brought two Korean people and two foreigners together to discuss life here in South Korea, exploring the topics of beauty, dating, race, sexuality, social media, and more. Aaliyah, Thomas and I had just spent 6 hours a day together for the last 4 weeks at the Hanyang University Summer program studying Korean culture. We've missed Yunseo for the last 6 episodes but she is back with us now. She's also meeting Thomas and Aaliyah for the first time. Hongmin, relatively fresh from finishing his military service for the country, joined us to talk about his own experiences. Discussion Outline 0:00 Korea and TikTok

7:40 Beauty and Appearance

24:50 Gaydar in Korea

32:00 Dating Apps and Clubbing

45:55 PDA in Korea

53:00 Cultural Appropriation

1:03:47 Pronouns and Language

1:09:12 Being Gay in the Korean Military

1:13:20 Media Representation and a Better Society

1:27:40 Korea Before and After

1:31:10 BL Dramas

Korea Deconstructed by David Tizzard

▶ Get in touch: [email protected]

▶ Yunseo Jeon: y_jeon_s

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▶ Music: Savage Penguin by David Tizzard (Radical Gary)

Andrew Salmon, MBE, is the Seoul-based Asia editor of Washington Times, where he specializes in regional security, geopolitics and macro. He is the author of five books, including the award-winning Korean War combat histories, "To the Last Round" and "Scorched Earth, Black Snow." Those works have won awards from the ROK and UK governments, and have been translated into both Korean and Chinese.

Andrew's Books

To The Last Round: https://www.amazon.com/Last-Round-British-Stand-Imjin/dp/1845135334

Scorched Earth, Black Snow: https://www.amazon.com/Scorched-Earth-Black-Snow-Australia/dp/1845136195

The Washington Times: https://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/andrew-salmon/

Discussion Outline

0:00 Introduction

2:25 The Psychological Effects of War on Individuals

15:00 The Forgotten War

19:30 Soldiers' First Impressions of Korea

26:40 Difficult Questions

30:45 The North Korean Offensive

38:10 General Douglas MacArthur

47:20 The Chinese Dragon Awakes

1:00:00 An Ideological War?

1:10:00 Prisoners of War

1:14:55 Derek Kinne: Churchill's Bulldog

1:20:50 The End of the War

1:28:00 Current Military Capabilities

1:36:25 China in the 21st Century

1:44:20 Vladimir Putin

1:49:35 Lessons on War and Human Nature

1:57:35 Recommendations

Korea Deconstructed

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Music: Stranger Danger - Francis Preve Pictures:

A selection of photos and videos have been used in the YouTube version for educational purposes. If any of them are yours and you would like to be credited in the notes here, please let me know.

David Kim is many things but is perhaps best known for his Korean content on Youtube. He has been a huge part of three popular programs over the last seven years: DKDKTV, Ramyun and Chill, and, now, Korean Pizza Club. His content has reached millions and is driven by his positive and generous outlook on life, something even more evident when meeting him in person.

We spoke about how hallyu has changed, whether K-pop is still cool, Korean dating culture, and life here in Seoul. We even got political at the end, exploring the challenges of democracy and communism and what hope young people have for the future.

Check out David's work online

Korean Pizza Club: https://www.youtube.com/@UCVqkbppiAXuI4Kp3AQmauTw

DKDKTV: https://www.youtube.com/c/dkdktv

Biroso: https://biroso.net/

We are also joined by Seoul Women's University student Soyoon Kim

Insta: @celinesoyoon

Discussion Outline

0:00 Introduction

10:24 Positivity in the Korean Space

15:42 Culture and Korea

27:47 Is Hallyu Still Popular?

37:20 Streaming Culture and Manipulation

46:48 Dating Culture

52:04 Being Cancelled

1:03:00 Misperceptions of Korea

1:14:20 Education and Competition in Korea

1:23:00 Korean democracy

1:35:20 Recommendations

Korea Deconstructed by David Tizzard

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▶ Music: Still Something So Beautiful by David Tizzard (Radical Gary)

Park Nohae emerged as a powerful literary voice in South Korea during the tumultuous 1980s, though at the time few knew who he actually was. He was the faceless poet. The voice of the many. Working various manual labor jobs which exposed him to the harsh realities faced by the working class, he became a champion of labor rights and social justice. His collection of poems "노동의 새벽( Dawn of Labor)" published in 1984 sold over a million copies. However, his call for change and a new sky over the South Korean people brought him into conflict with the military dictatorship. He was arrested and sentenced to life in prison, though many called for the death penalty. Eventually, after seven long years, much of which was solitary confinement, he was released.

Today he still writes poetry and takes photos, sharing his wisdom and insights with a new generation. You can also visit his photo exhibitions in Seoul, with images captured in Iraq and Palestine. However, Park shuns the limelight, rarely giving interviews and not wanting fame or publicity.

This conversation with Cheehyung Harrison Kim celebrates the first English publication of Dawn of Labor, a book which he worked on with Brother Anthony (An Sonjae). Harrison is an associate professor of Korean history at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. We are also joined by Seoul Women's University student Kim Jiwon.

Dawn of Labor: https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/dawn-of-labor/

Park Nohae (twitter): https://x.com/parknohae

Park Nohae (insta): https://www.instagram.com/park_nohae/

Park's latest book (Korean): https://gift.kakao.com/product/9251669?input_channel_id=2630

Nanum Munhwa: https://www.nanum.com/site/

Discussion Outline

0:00 Introduction

7:30 The context:

1980s Korea

20:27 Politics and leftist ideas

28:15 Gender and feminism in Park's work

48:55 Dawn of Labor

53:40 Love by Park Nohae

58:55 How Much? by Park Nohae

1:07:50 Mother by Park Nohae

1:18:15 Arrest and imprisonment

1:24:10 The artwork of Oh Yoon

1:27:10 The color blue

1:31:25 Park Nohae and the world

1:37:50 Reading and translating Park Nohae

2:00:15 Recommendations

Korea Deconstructed by David Tizzard

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▶ Music: Still Something So Beautiful by David Tizzard (Radical Gary)

사랑받지 못하는 공화국 (2024) was written by Professor Bryan Myers, a professor of international studies at Dongseo University in Busan. Anyone familiar with North Korean studies will be keenly aware of Myers and his work as he has written some excellent books on that subject, including The Cleanest Race and North Korea's Juche Myth. His latest book reveals two firsts: It's his first written in Korean and it's his first that deals with South Korean politics. Myers has said that "the book's original thrust is the argument that the right neglected / still neglects the work of state-building, but most young people, being centrist or progressive, are just not interested in that issue." We'll try and see if he achieved that or not.

The book: https://product.kyobobook.co.kr/detail/S000212218893

Myers' Blog: https://sthelepress.com/

In this conversation we are joined by Jacco Zwetsloot, host of the NK News Podcast, Park Kyunghoon (Charlie) for the third time, and Ko Eunbi from Seoul Women's University.

NK News podcast: https://www.nknews.org/category/north-korea-news-podcast/latest

Jacco's Twitter: https://twitter.com/JaccoZed

Discussion Outline

0:00 Introductions

3:10 Do Koreans know when their republic began?

12:15 Is South Korea a republic or a nation?

29:30 The sinking of the ROKS Cheonan

35:15 Who are North Korea?

44:45 Korea as Anti-Japanese

1:05:35 Park Chung-hee as a benevolent dictator?

1:18:10 The American hegemony of Korean Studies

1:21:23 Reading Korean history written by a foreigner

1:30:05 Personal narratives

1:35:35 Does the SK left love North Korea?

1:43:05 Closing thoughts

1:57:15 Tattoos

Korea Deconstructed by David Tizzard

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Park Chan-wook is a master of movie making. And he's seemingly getting better with age. Leaving the sex and violence of previous hits such as Oldboy, JSA, and The Handmaiden behind him, Decision to Leave / 헤어질 결심 (2022) explores the relationship between a Korean man and a Chinese woman, completely incompatible, seemingly madly in love, and destined to destroy each other. These two roles are played expertly by Tang Wei and Park Hae-il.

"The moment you said you loved me, your love ended. And the moment your love ended, my love began."

The movie is a piece of art: a poem. It encourages you to watch it multiple times, with each viewing providing greater insight into the layers constructed: through sound, language, visuals, and mis-en-scene.

I sat down with two Korean women, Jimin and Yunsuh, and a Chinese woman, Jessie, to explore this movie from a variety of perspectives: art, beauty, gender, love, and morality. Each of them provided views and insights I would never have found myself. And yet, it still feels like there is so much that went unsaid.

Discussion Outline

0:00 First Impressions

13:40 Park Chan-wook and Gender

18:46 Park Chan-wook's Style

25:45 Is Decision to Leave Romantic?

34:58 Asian Vibes: The Mountains and the Sea

43:06 Tang Wei

1:08:25 Poetry, Yeokbek, and McGuffins

1:19:30 The Ending of the Movie

1:38:50 Haejoon: The Male Lead

1:59:52 Park Chan Wook and the Oscars

2:08:00 A movie, a Book, a Song

Korea Deconstructed by David Tizzard

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▶ Music: Rail Gun by Disorientalz

Bernardo Kastrup is the executive director of Essentia Foundation. His work has been leading the modern renaissance of metaphysical idealism, the notion that reality is essentially mental. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy and another Ph.D. in computer engineering. As a scientist, Bernardo has worked for CERN and Philips Research Laboratories. Bernardo's 11th book, coming in 2024, is 'Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell: A straightforward summary of the 21st-century's only plausible metaphysics.'

This is me listening to Bernardo and asking him questions so as to better understand the world as mind. To do this, we explored what it means to be human. Bernardo explained the work of Nietzsche, Frankl, Schopenhauer, and Jung to me as well as how a bourgeoise has sought to wrest control of our culture away from the church and ultimately leave us stranded, meaningless, and seeking solutions elsewhere.

Bernardo taught me that we should not seek answers or solutions. These will never appear to us and we simply don't have the capability to understand what is going on. Instead, like the apple blossom in his garden, we should just be. We should listen to the noumena, the will inside us. We can describe it as duty, as calling, as fate, or as many other things. But ultimately, we are a violin and we should allow ourselves to be played by nature rather than seeking to force ourselves on the world. We should seek service instead of personal happiness. These ideas will stay with me for a while.

At the end, I asked him to recommend a movie, a book, and a song. The movie he suggested was The Double Life of Véronique (1991) by Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski. The song was Song to the Siren by Cocteau Twins vocalist Elizabeth Fraser. The book was Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation.

Bernardo's Website: https://www.bernardokastrup.com/

The Essentia Foundation: https://www.youtube.com/@UCHKZdDf09_8vVHm102fu0sg

Bernardo's upcoming book: https://www.amazon.com/Analytic-Idealism-Nutshell-straightforward-metaphysics/dp/1803416696

Discussion Outline:

0:00 The importance of service

7:40 The bourgeoisie capture of culture

12:33 Immanent meaning

25:35 Spiritual but not religious

31:00 Carl Jung and our two stages of life

41:58 Introspection as the royal path to knowledge

48:15 Schopenhauer and the will inside us

54:52 Synchronicity 1:05:03 Religion and science

1:16:58 The world as mind

1:26:10 A book, a movie, and a song

1:31:10 The apple blossom

Korea Deconstructed by David Tizzard

▶ Get in touch: [email protected]

▶ Yunseo Jeon: https://www.instagram.com/y_jeon_s/

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▶ Music: Rail Gun by Disorientalz

William S. Gilbert is doing PhD research on Korean Taoism's syncretic qualities at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea. He completed his Master's in Korean Philosophy at Sungkyunkwan University in 2024 and was a graduate research assistant for the Korean Academic Expansion Project.

This is a conversation about Taoism, "Eastern" religions and ways of thought, life, death, god, and the poetry of the Korean scholar Yi Gyu-bo (李奎報).

Discussion Outline

0:00 What is Taoism (도교)?

9:10 What is the Yin Yang (음양)?

22:09 What is Wu-wei (무의)?

32:50 Zen Buddhism (선불교) and Taoism

43:05 The Tao Te Ching (도덕경)

53:20 The Zhuangzi (정자)

1:03:11 Is there such thing as Asian thought?

1:15:52 Does Taoism feature in modern life?

1:29:40 Yi Gyu-bo (이규보)'s poem "In Sickness"

1:45:14 The "Creator" in Taoist thought

2:08:40 Closing thoughts

Will's Website: https://sites.google.com/view/williamgilbert/home

Korea Deconstructed by David Tizzard

▶ Get in touch: [email protected]

▶ Yunseo Jeon: https://www.instagram.com/y_jeon_s/

▶ Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=62047873

▶ Watch us on Youtube: /davidtizzard

▶ Find us on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/koreadeconstructed

▶ Listen on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/kr/podcast/korea-deconstructed/id1587269128

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▶ Music: Savage Penguin by Radical Gary (David Tizzard)