Korea JoongAng Daily - Daily News from Korea

The author is a professor at Kwangwoon University.

People Power Party (PPP) leader Jang Dong-hyeok has launched a hunger strike in what appears, at first glance, to be a sudden move. The timing, however, is telling. His decision came immediately after the party's ethics committee voted to expel former leader Han Dong-hoon, prompting intense speculation inside and outside the party about Jang's true motives.

There are broadly two ways to view a politician's hunger strike. One is cynical. "Once someone lies down and starts fasting, anyone who raises questions about responsibility or calls for resignation becomes the villain." Lee Jun-seok of the Reform Party made this remark in 2019 when watching then–Liberty Korea Party leader Hwang Kyo-ahn's hunger strike. The other view is more charitable. "When someone resorts to extreme measures, it is an attempt to demonstrate sincerity through physical suffering." That, Lee said in 2026, while observing Jang's hunger strike.

In truth, there is little difference between the Liberty Korea Party's conduct after Park Geun-hye's impeachment and the PPP's behavior after Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment. Yet the evaluations swung from one extreme to the other. I prefer to interpret this shift as evidence that Lee Jun-seok's own character has matured over the past seven years.

Is Jang's hunger strike an act of self-preservation in the face of a leadership crisis, or a gesture of self-sacrifice meant to halt the ruling camp's excesses? The truth likely lies somewhere between these poles. In any case, the party's ruling faction has praised the move as a "divine stroke." In one sense, that assessment is fair. As soon as the hunger strike began, senior party figures began visiting the protest site, and Jang's shaky leadership, rattled by the fallout from Han's expulsion, quickly regained a degree of stability.

But surely the target of a hunger strike cannot be the party's own former leader. Was this move also a masterstroke against the Democratic Party (DP)? That seems doubtful. The fact that talk of an "exit strategy" has already surfaced suggests confusion about what to do next.

PPP lawmakers in their second term have reportedly urged floor leader Song Eon-seog to accept a special counsel investigation into Shincheonji, a fringe religious group in Korea. That demand, originally made by the DP, would combine Shincheonji with the Unification Church probe. The party leader is fasting, yet the opposition's agenda is being advanced. Matters have become even more tangled over the special counsel investigation into nomination donations involving Kim Byung-kee and Kang Sun-woo. As the party sought to attack DP corruption, former PPP lawmaker Hong Joon-pyo suddenly stepped in, exposing his party's own nomination practices. Once investigations begin, the party will not emerge unscathed.

Caught between pressure from the DP and Hong, the edge of Jang's confrontation with the ruling camp has dulled. Yet he cannot easily end a hunger strike that began with such solemn resolve. His plea for presidential senior secretary Hong Ik-pyo to visit the protest site was almost painful to watch. Even if Hong were to come, it is unclear what he could offer. Can anyone imagine Jung Chung-rae's Democratic Party making concessions to the People Power Party? Like Hwang Kyo-ahn's hunger strike before it, Jang's protest is likely to end without tangible results.

That does not mean the hunger strike is meaningless. It has clearly helped consolidate conservative support. First- and second-term lawmakers, local government heads, former presidential hopefuls, former leader Hwang Kyo-ahn and even Lee Jun-seok of the Reform Party have voiced support. But the effect is unlikely to last. Jang appears firmly committed to expelling Han Dong-hoon. The energy mobilized through the hunger strike will be used to carry out that decision. Kim Min-soo, a member of the party's supreme council, has already begun laying the groundwork, saying most d...

A court has delivered its first ruling that the emergency martial law declaration on Dec. 3, 2024, and the subsequent chain of events constituted an act of insurrection. On Wednesday, the Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Division 33 sentenced former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to 23 years in prison and ordered his immediate detention. The sentence exceeded the 15-year term sought by the special prosecution led by Cho Eun-seok by eight years, an unusually severe outcome. The court found Han guilty of playing a key role in the insurrection. Although appeals remain, the judgment — that the Dec. 3 martial law attempt amounted to a violent act aimed at subverting the constitutional order and must be punished as insurrection under criminal law — is one that society as a whole must take seriously.

The court characterized the declaration as "an insurrection in the nature of a praetorian coup planned by the supreme authority." It concluded that Han, then the second-highest official in the executive branch, not only failed to stop the move but actively participated in it. That a figure who served more than 50 years in public office, was prime minister twice and once acted as president has now received a heavy sentence for insurrection is a tragedy in Korea's constitutional history that must never be repeated. Han's downfall should not be seen as a personal misfortune but as a lesson to all public officials about their duty to serve the people and uphold the law.

The court also held Han significantly responsible for the deepening political and social divisions that followed martial law. It said the defendant sought to evade responsibility and undermined judicial procedures through falsified documents and perjury, adding that genuine remorse was nowhere to be found.

Next month, a first-instance verdict is expected in the case of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, for whom prosecutors have sought the death penalty. Even at this late stage, Yoon and Han should offer sincere apologies and show repentance for the national and social turmoil caused by the declaration.

Korea endured one of the gravest scenarios imaginable, with constitutional order trampled by insurrection, but preserved the core principles of a democratic republic through the rule of law. Now, judicial judgment of those responsible should be left to the courts while society turns toward a new beginning of reconstruction. Further conflict and division over the Dec. 3 martial law attempt will only obstruct national progress. The opposition must acknowledge the illegitimacy of the martial law declaration and Yoon's legitimacy of impeachment and decisively cross that divide. The ruling camp, for its part, should resist the temptation of political retribution and pursue politics of broad-based integration. This is the moment for cooperation so that hard-won democracy does not once again crash into a wall of division but moves forward toward unity and renewal.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

This article is by Son Min-ho, Baek Jong-hyun and read by an artificial voice.

A "Hu Deok-juk mindset."

That's the catchphrase that took off after the second season of Netflix's "Culinary Class Wars." It can be understood as "the generosity or grace a master shows by yielding."

Viewers were moved by the sight of a 76-year-old working chef with 58 years of experience — someone who didn't hesitate to run errands and tackle the kind of grunt work others might avoid — and a new slang term was born.

The man behind it is chef Hu Deok-juk, a living witness to the history of Chinese cuisine in Korea. For 42 years, he was synonymous with Palsun, the Chinese restaurant at The Shilla Seoul; he is credited with introducing the legendary Chinese dish Buddha Jumps Over the Wall to Korea; and he is now the executive chef of Haobin at the Ambassador Seoul — A Pullman Hotel, which earned a Michelin star two years in a row in 2024 and 2025.

Simply put, among ethnic Chinese chefs in Korea, he is the most successful figure of his generation.

Hu's appearance on the second season of "Culinary Class Wars" came as a complete surprise. Although he has long reigned at the top of Korea's Chinese-restaurant scene for more than half a century, he has been extremely cautious about dealing with the media.

Hu repeatedly emphasized two Chinese idioms during his interview with the JoongAng Ilbo on Monday. The first was uisikdongwon, meaning "medicine and food share the same roots." The medicinal dishes he once cooked for the late Samsung Group founder Lee Byung-chull, and even Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, which is packed with healthy ingredients, are foods born of that philosophy.

Hu stressed that throughout his life, he has never used chemical seasonings — or ingredients artificially colored with additives.

The second was sanggyeonghaae, meaning "respect those above and love those below." He said he teaches, "Don't make your juniors do work you wouldn't want to do yourself." Perhaps that's why the veteran chef, now nearing 80, was seen mincing garlic. Hu's Haobin is fully booked through May.

It felt as if a reclusive master of secret martial arts had descended from the mountains into a world dominated by mukbang, as Korea's genre of streamed food broadcasts are called — so the first question naturally had to be why he came down in the first place.

Q: You stayed away from the media for decades. How did you end up appearing on "Culinary Class Wars" season 2?

A: When I was at Palsun, I often had to stay on standby, so I didn't really have any breathing room. With "Culinary Class Wars" as well, I turned it down for a month before I finally agreed. They asked me to show an example that could serve as a model for younger chefs. I thought it would just be "show my face once on camera," but I ended up going almost to the end.

In the team competition, the oldest chef did what the youngest kitchen staff usually does. "The great Hu Deok-juk" was chopping garlic and salting Korean melons. Why?

In football, everyone wants to score. But not everyone can be a striker. Someone has to be a defender and protect the goal. I said I would do it. In a kitchen, no task is unimportant.

Chef Im Seong-keun used your knife. How did you feel about that?

I thought he must have been in a real hurry if he did that. What mattered was finishing the cooking quickly. He asked to use it, so I told him to go ahead.

At Palsun, you were known as a strict chef, but on the show, you came across like a kind grandfather. How did that happen?

Even now, I'm quite strict in the kitchen. These days, too, I walk around before service to check whether the seasoning containers are in the right place. If I looked different on TV, it's because the chefs I worked with were all heavyweights. I tried to understand their methods.

Is there anyone among the younger chefs who left an impression on you?

Son Jong-won, Jung Ho-young, Sam Kim — they're all good chefs. "Culinary Monster" was misunderstood in some way...

Jim Bulley

The author is a columnist at the JoongAng Sunday and head of content strategy at Korea JoongAng Daily.

In the past year, a curious debate has flared up in the world of English writing: Whether the em dash — that long, unmistakable line — has become a liability in writing.

For generations, the em dash has been a quiet workhorse of English prose. It lets writers interrupt themselves or slip in an explanation without breaking momentum and is more assertive than parentheses and more agile than a comma. The em dash has long made itself indispensable, particularly in journalism. Used well, it makes a writer's thoughts come alive in a sentence.

And that, seemingly, is now the problem.

Across online English-speaking spaces, the em dash has begun to function as a kind of AI "tell" or "red flag." The issue is not that human writers don't use em dashes. They do, and have, as far as I can tell, since the 15th century. The issue is that AI-generated text uses them relentlessly and often unnaturally, and the pattern is very difficult to ignore.

This has led to punctuation-based skepticism. Post something on LinkedIn with an em dash, and it's seen as AI slop. That reflex is even creeping into journalism as well, with some readers now treating the appearance of an em dash as evidence of AI use rather than a stylistic choice.

An unfortunate result of this phenomenon is that writers are starting to self-edit — not for clarity or rhythm as they should be, but for perceived credibility. Style is being sacrificed to pre-empt suspicion, and while this side effect started with em dashes, who knows where it will end. After all, AI is also dangerously fond of short, clipped sentences and the rule of three.

Sacrificing the em dash is a huge loss. It has a long and honorable history in English prose. For decades, reporters and columnists have relied on it to manage a text's pace, stack facts and add nuance without resorting to the stiffness of a semicolon. It keeps complex sentences readable; when used sparingly, the em dash is one of the cleanest ways to guide a reader through a layered idea.

Even the name has its roots in the printing press. In traditional typography, an em dash was roughly the width of a capital "M." The shorter en dash — the width of an "N" — usually connects ranges and relationships, as in pages 12–15 or the Seoul–Busan line. The hyphen is even shorter and binds words rather than thoughts.

As an English journalist and editor, this is the hill upon which I will plant my flag. The em dash is one of the most useful tools in a writer's toolbox, and I refuse to bow to the idea that just because machines have learned to use them badly, we should in some way limit our use of language too. I will remain an unapologetic user and defender of any and all punctuation because writing well has always depended on judgment and intent, not on second-guessing how a sentence may be received by a reader caught up in an AI witch hunt.

The author is an economics professor at Singapore National University.

U.S. President Donald Trump is swinging what many see as the world's strongest fist with little restraint. He has openly discussed actions ranging from the forcible transfer of Venezuela's president using special forces to claims over Greenland and the possibility of renewed airstrikes on Iran. It can feel as though the clock has been turned back to an era of imperial competition. The global economy is gripped by an unusual degree of uncertainty, driven by a leader who often appears unbound by clear principles and treats nearly every issue as a transaction.

Yet Trump seems keenly aware of where power ultimately comes from and how it is sustained. While pledging to raise U.S. defense spending by 50 percent and rearm the military with cutting-edge equipment, he also issued an executive order that effectively bans share buybacks by major defense contractors.

The order argues that defense firms prioritized buybacks and dividends over production capacity, innovation and timely delivery, contributing to shortages of military supplies. When he signed the order on Jan. 7, Trump wrote on Truth Social that billions of dollars had been wasted on "financial gimmicks" and accused defense companies of feeding Wall Street while starving their own factories.

Korea's policy direction today is moving sharply in the opposite direction. The government has been urging companies to treat shareholder returns as their top priority, pushing production capacity, innovation and reliable supply further down the list. It is even preparing legislation that would force companies to retire treasury shares they hold. This push, however, rests on neither a public-interest-based economic rationale nor solid empirical evidence drawn from developments in the global or Korean economy.

Advocates of buybacks and mandatory share retirement focus narrowly on stock prices, largely ignoring broader economic effects. Even then, their attention is fixed on short-term price movements rather than long-term value. Over the medium to long term, stock prices rise when firms mobilize capital to expand production capacity and invest in innovation. There is no inherent reason for corporate value to increase simply because a company uses its cash to buy back and cancel its own shares. Buybacks may boost prices temporarily by increasing market demand and drawing in momentum-driven investors, but the effect is fleeting.

The market reaction to Trump's executive order illustrates this basic principle in reverse. Shares of major U.S. defense contractors fell sharply, in some cases by more than 10 percent, immediately after the order. Investors who believe in financial engineering assumed that without buybacks, prices would drop and rushed to sell. Yet those stocks soon recovered and climbed above their preorder levels. With government defense spending set to rise sharply, stronger demand naturally supports higher valuations over time.

For Korea, which depends heavily on the U.S. security umbrella, national strength lies less in raw military power than in the production and innovation capabilities of its companies. The rise in Korean stock prices last year and this year should be understood in that context. The strong performance of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix reflects decades of sustained investment in innovation and manufacturing capacity since achieving global leadership in memory semiconductors in 1993, a foundation that aligned with the recent boom in AI investment.

The recent surge in the share price of Hyundai Motor Group offers another example. Hyundai's early acquisition of Boston Dynamics and its efforts to integrate advanced robotics with manufacturing capabilities laid the groundwork. That strategy paid off when Hyundai succeeded in forming what has been described as a "physical AI" alliance by combining its manufacturing base with the cognitive technologies of Google DeepMind. This outcome wou...

The author is the president of Taejae University.

A new year has begun, and warnings about AI are growing sharper. Geoffrey Hinton, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on AI, has said that 2026 will mark a decisive turning point when AI fundamentally reshapes the world. The impact AI has had on human society in just three years has already been profound. Hinton argues that AI capabilities are doubling roughly every seven months, an exponential pace that far exceeds Moore's Law, which holds that semiconductor performance doubles every 18 months.

At this year's CES, the humanoid robot Atlas unveiled by Hyundai Motor Group drew widespread attention. Robots capable of performing human functions with remarkable precision are no longer science fiction. Just as AI has transformed society in three short years, it is difficult to predict how physical AI will replace human functions over the next three.

This is a moment that demands a fundamental shift in thinking. We must accept that many of the ways humans lived and worked through the 20th century are changing irrevocably. Unemployment is a serious issue today, but in the 21st century, employment itself may no longer be the universal framework for life. The idea of earning a living through salaried work at a company is barely a century old.

In Korea, the employment rate for graduates of four-year universities stood at 64.6 percent in 2023. The New York Times has mocked universities as factories producing the unemployed. In the United States, the college enrollment rate among high school graduates fell sharply from 68.1 percent in 2010 to 61.8 percent in 2023. As many as 125 U.S. colleges are expected to close in 2025 alone.

The Industrial Revolution ushered in a machine age that replaced human physical labor. In the 20th century, mass production systems were built through the division and specialization of work. In the silent film "Modern Times" (1936), Charlie Chaplin plays a factory worker who does nothing but tighten bolts on a conveyor belt. Humans lived like cogs in a machine, each performing a single function.

Before that era, people farmed, hunted, made clothes and built homes for themselves and their families. Labor was closely connected to life itself. Industrialization and mass production severed that link. People began working in offices and factories on tasks unrelated to their own lives. By specializing in a single function, they earned wages to purchase what they needed.

This is what Karl Marx described as the alienation of labor. In the 20th century, work was often chosen not for its intrinsic value but as a profession. People became teachers, doctors or lawyers not primarily because they loved educating, healing or pursuing justice but based on which occupation offered better prospects. Greater specialization brought higher pay, pushing society into relentless competition for credentials and expertise.

In the 21st century, AI is challenging those very functions. Elon Musk has predicted that even surgeons may eventually be replaced by robots. AI is now approaching a point where it can outperform humans not only in repetitive tasks but also in highly specialized fields such as accounting, law and software programming.

In "Talking to Strangers" (2019), Malcolm Gladwell introduces a study titled "Human Decisions and Machine Predictions" by scholars including Jon Kleinberg of Columbia University. In U.S. courts, judges decide whether to grant bail by weighing factors such as a defendant's appearance, demeanor, family background and employment prospects. Algorithms, by contrast, rely only on objective data such as criminal history and arrest records. Analyzing hundreds of thousands of bail cases, the study found that judges' decisions led to recidivism rates about 50 percent higher than those produced by algorithmic judgments. Bias in data and the black-box nature of algorithms remain serious concerns, but it is also difficult to argue that older or i...

The confirmation hearing for Budget Minister nominee Lee Hye-hoon again failed to open on Tuesday, a day before the deadline to adopt a review report. A standoff that began with the People Power Party's boycott on Jan. 19 has continued, creating the unusual spectacle of the ruling Democratic Party urging a hearing that usually serves as the opposition's stage. President Lee Jae Myung's recent remarks at a dinner with ruling party leaders, noting that the nominee was "brought in with difficulty" and therefore deserved a hearing, appear to have reinforced the push.

The confusion, however, stems mainly from Lee's own failure to provide clear explanations or sufficient documents despite a cascade of allegations. The opposition has reason to question the effectiveness of a hearing under such circumstances. Publicly released recordings of abusive remarks toward subordinates, along with allegations involving misconduct, real estate speculation and preferential treatment, have raised serious doubts about Lee's suitability for high office. Recent polls showing that up to 68 percent of respondents view her as unfit for the post underscore the problem. That is also why critics view calls from the presidential office and the ruling party for a hearing as a tactic to justify proceeding with the appointment.

More troubling is that Lee's controversies have hollowed out the very rationale behind the president's nomination. The decision to tap a figure from the opposing camp was meant to signal political integration, but that message has since vanished amid mounting allegations. Few citizens, if any, would associate integration with claims involving verbal abuse of interns, property speculation or irregular applications for a high-end apartment in Seoul's Gangnam district.

The apartment case alone illustrates how far Lee falls short of public expectations. She is accused of inflating her application score by listing her married son, who lives separately, as a cohabiting family member. The apartment, priced at about 3.6 billion won, is widely known as a "lottery subscription," a term reinforced by the Land Ministry's last year uncovering 41 cases of fraudulent applications at the complex. Authorities reportedly examined even transit card records of household members, raising questions about how the case went undetected. Yet Lee has declined to submit key documents, including application score calculations and records of family moves, citing privacy concerns.

For ordinary citizens who could not even dream of applying for such housing, or for unsuccessful applicants who lost out amid near 100-to-1 competition and potential windfall gains, the nomination hardly evokes unity. Even those caught and punished for fraudulent residency claims would likely turn away.

The decision now returns to the president. Once the reporting deadline passes, he may appoint Lee directly or request a resubmission, opening a 10-day window in which a hearing could still take place. But this is a moment for judgment, not procedural maneuvering. Acknowledging the failure of vetting that has undermined the goal of integration, the president should withdraw the nomination.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

This article is by Yoon Seung-jin and read by an artificial voice.

Korean universities are actively forming partnerships with overseas institutions and local businesses to expand educational opportunities for international students, while also establishing part-time employment prospects.

Gachon University signed an agreement with Vietnam's FPT University on Tuesday to jointly develop education programs and nurture talent in the semiconductor sector.

Under the agreement, students will complete their first and second years at FPT University, where they will study semiconductor fundamentals and the Korean language. They will then transfer to Gachon University for their third and fourth years to receive advanced semiconductor training and earn a bachelor's degree.

The program will include hands-on training and core courses in semiconductor design, processing and simulation.

FPT University will be offering the two-year basic semiconductor and Korean language education starting in the fall semester, and the students who complete two years of basic semiconductor and Korean-language education at FPT University starting this fall semester will begin enrolling at Gachon University from September 2028 for another two years of study. About 300 students are expected to participate.

According to Gachon University, it also plans to offer pathways for graduates who wish to continue on to master's and doctoral programs.

Chungbuk Health and Science University announced that it signed an agreement with the Cheongju branch of Kia Auto Q to cultivate professional talent in automotive maintenance among international students.

Through the partnership, the two sides will jointly design and operate the entire process, from selecting international students to providing education, on-site training and job opportunities.

The university will run customized automotive maintenance programs for international students and bolster practical training programs. Kia Auto Q will provide scholarships, offer internship opportunities at actual repair shops and support job placement after the students complete their training sessions.

Korean universities are also extending such partnerships to create part-time work opportunities.

Daewon University College signed a memorandum of understanding with local restaurants to provide part-time jobs for its international students.

Under the agreement, the university will recommend foreign students to partner restaurants for part-time employment, while participating businesses will offer hands-on experience.

According to the university, both sides plan to actively cooperate by linking education with real-world workplaces so that international students can ease their financial burdens and build successful lives in Korea.

"Through this close cooperation, we hope to provide meaningful opportunities for international students while also helping cultivate high-quality talent," said Kim Young-cheol, the president of Daewon University College.

This article is by Ko Suk-hyun and read by an artificial voice.

As Hyundai Motor Group pushes ahead with humanoid robots designed to work around the clock, promising higher productivity and profits, factory workers worry that automation may soon reach even the most hands-on roles on the assembly line.

The unease is already personal for some workers. One Hyundai Motor production employee said watching footage of Atlas stirred mixed emotions, raising doubts about whether jobs expected to last until retirement will endure.

Robots and automated machines already handle quality inspections and parts transfers inside Hyundai plants, the worker noted. But final assembly — work that requires maneuvering engines into place or fitting transmissions in tight spaces — had long been considered the last stronghold of human labor.

"I thought those processes were something only humans could do, but now it feels like even that can be replaced," the worker said. "I suppose I should say I'm lucky I only have five years left until retirement. Luckily, I'm leaving as things are, but I worry about what lies ahead for the younger workers."

Hyundai Motor Group showcased Atlas earlier this month at CES in the United States, where the robot won a top award in robotics. The announcement fueled investor optimism that humanoid robots could significantly improve industrial productivity, sending Hyundai Motor's share price higher.

Atlas is designed to move more freely than traditional industrial robots, with joints that can rotate in multiple directions. Hyundai says the robot can learn most tasks in less than a day. When its battery runs low, it can navigate to a charging station on its own, swap batteries and return to work — enabling production lines to run continuously.

The company plans to deploy Atlas starting in 2028 at Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America in Georgia, initially assigning it to parts-sorting tasks. By 2030, Hyundai expects to expand its role to assembly and other manufacturing processes.

Hyundai executives argue that the robot will take on "repetitive, heavy and hazardous work, allowing human workers to move into safer, higher-value roles." On the factory floor, however, the promise rings hollow for some employees.

"The labor office has received a growing number of calls from workers asking whether the union should oppose the robot rollout," a union official at a Hyundai Motor Group affiliate said.

Hyundai does not release detailed factory productivity data. But estimates based on vehicle output and employee headcount in regulatory filings suggest that production workers at Korean plants build about 44 vehicles per year, compared to 84 vehicles per worker at Hyundai Motor's U.S. plants. With Atlas scheduled for deployment in the United States first, many workers see its eventual arrival in Korea as unavoidable.

Kim Gui-yeon, an analyst at Daishin Securities, said the financial incentives behind humanoid robots are hard for automakers to ignore.

"Labor costs at Hyundai Motor Group's major listed affiliates average about 130 million won [$88,200] per worker annually, while maintaining a humanoid robot costs around 14 million won a year," Kim said. "Even replacing just 10 percent of production workers with humanoids could improve annual profits by about 1.7 trillion won. Humans work eight hours. Robots can work 18. Even after accounting for capital spending and infrastructure, the gains are clear."

Hyundai Motor's move reflects a broader shift across the global auto industry. Tesla plans to begin using its humanoid robot, Optimus, in factories this year after completing pilot tests. BMW and Mercedes-Benz introduced humanoid robots from Figure AI and Apptronik, respectively, into their production lines in 2024.

The unease extends well beyond automaking. Heavy industries such as shipbuilding and steel — including HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hanwha Ocean and Posco — are accelerating the adoption of physical AI. Logistics companies li...

This article is by Lee Jian and read by an artificial voice.

A mousy intern on the brink of collapse. A helicopter parent in an affluent district. A middle-aged woman whose internalized misogyny poisons the workplace.

Exaggerated yet instantly recognizable, these figures have become some of the most recent viral subjects in Korea, circulating widely through satiric parody clips.

Parody has long been part of Korea's comedy tradition, from television sketch shows to streaming platforms and, more recently, YouTube channels. What has gained particular traction in the past five years, however, are parodies that center not on a specific fictional character or celebrity, but on a social cohort — a loosely defined group bound by class, gender, age, profession or shared anxieties.

For some viewers, these portrayals offer comfort in the realization that they are not alone. For others, it is an ego scratch. Detractors argue that these videos rely on overgeneralization or border on ridicule, leaving viewers feeling exposed or unfairly labeled.

Yet these parodies are rarely intended as critiques of specific individuals. Instead, they function as a broader commentary on the social conditions that produce such types in the first place — the pressures, expectations and contradictions embedded in contemporary Korean society.

This perspective aligns with the thinking of Malcolm Gladwell, pop sociologist and best-selling author, who argued that "behavior is a function of social context." In "The Tipping Point" (2000), Gladwell emphasizes that people are "exquisitely sensitive to context," meaning that how individuals are grouped, the density of those groups and the expectations attached to them often shape behavior more powerfully than individual personality or intent. Seen this way, cohort-based parody reflects not personal failure, but structural pressure — dramatized through humor.

That structural reading also explains why these parodies, while funny, are often uncomfortable to watch. They resonate precisely because they surface anxieties and tensions many recognize but rarely articulate aloud.

Comedy, experts note, can serve as a socially sanctioned outlet for such discomfort.

"Seen through the lens of haehak [humor] theory, laughter allows suppressed emotions to surface in a relatively safe form, temporarily loosening existing hierarchies and authority," women's studies researchers Cha Yu-ri, Kim Hyun-mi and Kim Jee-hee told the Korea JoongAng Daily in an email interview. "These videos function as a conduit, translating unspoken resentment or critique of entrenched power structures into a language that can be collectively shared."

At the same time, they cautioned against assuming that all such laughter leads to change.

"Carnivalesque laughter can function as a pressure valve, briefly releasing discomfort only to be absorbed back into the existing order. When laughter ends at consumption — watching, sharing and moving on — parody risks relieving stress without addressing underlying problems, potentially reinforcing the very structures it appears to critique."

What is more notable, however, is that the clips' popularity signals a public appetite for confronting uncomfortable social realities — and reveals where the Korean public stands on the unresolved issues it, like many other societies, continues to grapple with.

The most recent figure to enter the spotlight is the "middle-aged nammisae," a married woman with internalized misogyny portrayed by comedian Kang Yu-mi in a YouTube video uploaded Jan. 1, which drew 1.9 million views as of Monday.

Other viral parodies paved the way. Among the earliest was the intern reporter skit on "SNL Korea" (2021-), performed by comedian Joo Hyun-young, aired in 2021.

Wide eyes fixed in an effort to project confidence, trembling voice and answers that drift off course before reaching a point — for anyone who has endured the early days of a first job, the portrayal strikes a nerve. The clip has amassed...