Korea JoongAng Daily - Daily News from Korea

Kim Seung-hyun

The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo.

Political newcomers running in next month's election would do well to watch JTBC's "We Are All Trying Here." Its Korean title, often abbreviated by the first syllable of each word, mojamussa, literally means "Everyone Is Fighting Their Own Worthlessness." They are probably too busy preparing for the election to watch a weekend drama now. In that case, they should watch it later, whether they win or lose. As the Korean title suggests, the drama may serve as an important guidebook for the political life ahead, in which they will inevitably find themselves fighting their own sense of worthlessness.

"We Are All Trying Here" has nothing to do with politics. It tells the story of eight former members of a university film club who go on to work in the film industry and find themselves caught up in a series of petty, pathetic struggles. The protagonist is Hwang Dong-man, played by Koo Kyo-hwan, a man who has written 14 screenplays over 20 years but has yet to make his debut as a film director.

The reason I apply a story about the film industry to the election scene is that the narrative awaiting political novices is likely to resemble Hwang Dong-man's insecurity and pettiness. For an attention seeker who feels as if he might die without public notice, how painful must it be to live a life in which nothing goes his way? Hwang vents his jealousy over being pushed aside and his anxiety over not being recognized by looking down on those around him. He is a character who chooses to be an outcast and behaves like an adolescent boy at 40.

There is something oddly similar in the reckless ambitions of novice politicians and the frustration that will grow in direct proportion to them. How persuasive can it be to speak of the happiness of the people and the role of the state with such meager assets — assets that are unlikely to be recognized anytime soon? Failure looks closer than box office success, defeat closer than election victory. And yet it is hard to despise a kind of foolish innocence.

For such reckless challengers, mojamussa can serve as a consoling incantation. The values they embraced at the beginning may not be wrong, but they are bound to look like mere bravado. They entered politics saying they would turn the irrational and abnormal into the rational and normal, only to find themselves branded as abnormal instead. How can such obvious values be so hard to uphold? If they understand that everyone is fighting their own worthlessness, perhaps that alone will offer some comfort. After all, who sets out from the beginning wanting to rewrite a screenplay with the break-even point already in mind?

Worthlessness comes, without exception, even to those who win elections and succeed in making films. They end up bowing before hard-core supporters and kneeling before film producers. The so-called Daughters of Reform and Yoon Again supporters become their masters. In the process, the distance between politicians and voters only grows wider. They become ruling party lawmakers who privately believe a special counsel to cancel the president's indictment is wrong but cannot say so out loud, or opposition lawmakers who cannot bring themselves to call martial law a delusion. A film director downing soju after a disastrous box office report almost seems tragic by comparison.

At such moments, they must repeat mojamussa to themselves again. They must ask whether they are willing to protect the values they began with, even if that means becoming an outcast for a while. Can they show the same resolve as an awakened Hwang Dong-man and say they will "draw up a shining truth from the depths of worthlessness"? Among the thousands of candidates who will lose in the June 3 election, there are surely future political leaders. What matters as much as victory is the will to keep fighting when one's own worthlessness comes crashing in.

Failure is common in both elections and filmmaking. ...

Lim Yeong-hwan

The author is a professor at the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design at Hongik University

Social media is overflowing with architectural highlights everyone is supposed to see at least once. Newly opened museums, signature works by world-renowned architects and even small spaces hidden at the end of an alley in some city are endlessly shared. Before we ever arrive, we learn where to take photos, what time of day offers the most beautiful light and which framing will look most striking on a screen. We live in an age in which architecture is consumed first through images before it is experienced as actual space.

In my younger years, one of the main goals of architectural travel was to see as many buildings as possible in a single day. I planned my routes through each city in advance to minimize travel time, and once I arrived at a building, I moved faster than anyone else. I tried to capture everything on camera — the building's exterior, its interior spaces, even the joints of window frames and the details of hinges. After spending the whole day moving through a city, I would return to my lodgings with hundreds of photographs.

At the time, I believed that was the way an architect ought to travel: to see good architecture in person, analyze it and record as much of it as possible. An architect's journey is often called a "field survey" in Korean — dapsa, literally meaning to step onto a site and investigate it. True to that meaning, an architectural field trip is close to an act of analysis and documentation.

But at some point, my memories of the spaces I had so diligently recorded began to fade. Even though I had countless photographs and materials, what came to mind were only the shapes of the buildings and the names of the architects. A journey I had taken to understand architecture was gradually turning into an act of collecting it.

Louis Kahn and the rediscovery of travel

My field trips became journeys again more than a decade ago, during a summer trip following the architecture of Louis Kahn (1901-1974). Kahn was one of the leading figures of 20th century American architecture, an architect who explored the essence of architecture through light, silence and the order of space.

Until then, the goal of my travels had been to see as many buildings as possible. But that year, for the first time, I set out on a journey that followed "the time of one architect." Traveling from Philadelphia to Trenton and New Haven, and then on to the Exeter Library in New Hampshire, I began to look at architecture in a different way.

What changed most of all was time. I sat for a long while on the lawn in front of Erdman Hall, a dormitory at Bryn Mawr College, watching people pass by. At the Phillips Exeter Academy Library, a landmark of modern library architecture, I spent half a day among its actual users. I enjoyed sitting at a library desk, organizing my travel schedule and idly watching the light move through the windows.

One afternoon, lying on a bench at the small Trenton Bath House near Trenton, New Jersey, and looking up at the sky, a thought suddenly occurred to me. I had flown from the other side of the world to see this piece of architecture, but for the children in this neighborhood, it was simply an ordinary place to swim and shower on a Sunday afternoon. What was, to me, a kind of pilgrimage site — a work by Louis Kahn — was, for someone else, merely the backdrop against which an ordinary day passed.

As I slowed down, moments I would once have passed by began to appear differently. The same was true of the house of Luis Barragán (1902-1988), which I experienced in Mexico City. Barragán, one of Mexico's most important modern architects, built the house in 1948 and lived there as a bachelor until his death. At a time when modern architecture focused on the logic of function and form, Barragán created a distinctive spatial experience that evoked emotion and memory through vivid color, light and sha...

This article is by Lee Jae-lim and read by an artificial voice.

[NEWS ANALYSIS]

Samsung Electronics is moving up the construction schedule for the final chip manufacturing plant at its sprawling complex in Pyeongtaek as it seeks to capitalize on the unprecedented high demand for high-end semiconductors that shows no signs of letting up.

Samsung C&T has increased its investment nearly fivefold from the prior contract to 2.89 trillion won ($1.94 billlion) to develop the complex's Zone 2 site and P5 fab, according to a regulatory filing on March 25. Samsung's construction arm has been the shell construction contractor for prior facilities built at the Pyeongtaek campus in Gyeonggi. Zone 2 consists of the remaining two factories at the complex.

The news was followed by a report by the Korea Economic Daily earlier this month that Samsung will break ground on its sixth fab in Pyeongtaek, known as P5-2 or P6, in July, six months ahead of the original schedule in early 2027, due to a persisting memory supply crunch as Big Tech races to build AI data centers.

"Their own demand analysis appears to have convinced them that a gradual capacity expansion would leave them dangerously behind," said an analyst who requested anonymity. "The thinking seems to be that the widely anticipated AI demand chasm may not materialize after all."

A Samsung Electronics spokesperson declined to comment on the specific timeline but said the sixth fab "is expected to operate in tandem with P5, functioning effectively as a single integrated fab."

P5 and P6 are expected to form a multifab complex focusing not only on high bandwidth memory but also dynamic random-access memory, NAND flash and foundry lines. The combined production capacity of the two fabs is expected to reach 600,000 wafers per month, nearly on par with Samsung's current entire DRAM production capacity of 650,000 wafers per month.

The push comes as the semiconductor supply shortage is expected to last even longer than the previous domestic market consensus of 2027, prompting the chipmaker to accelerate the buildout of its production facilities to keep pace with booming demand.

Pyeongtaek is currently Samsung's largest semiconductor production site. Fabs P1 to P3 are active, while parts of P4 and P5 are under construction — and ground is now expected to be broken for P6 as well.

Construction of P4 and P5 was halted at the initial stage due to the semiconductor downturn before resuming in November of last year, with the company pledging to invest 450 trillion won through 2029, with the majority earmarked for expanding domestic chip capacity.

If ground for P6 breaks in July as planned, production is expected to begin in 2029, a year earlier than originally planned. Production at P5 is also anticipated to begin in March 2028.

Several brokerage reports have recently forecast that the imbalance between chip supply and demand may persist beyond 2027 as the AI market is still nascent and is poised to expand aggressively into new domains, including humanoid robotics and autonomous driving.

Roh Geun-chang, head of Hyundai Motor Securities' research center, expects the shortage to last into 2028, citing chip equipment bottlenecks for TSMC, the chip "big three" of Samsung, SK hynix and Micron, as well as Chinese semiconductor firms for difficulty in expanding capacity as planned.

"AI demand shows no signs of slowing down and is expected to grow in three waves: AI data centers, AI in telecom networks and physical AI," Roh wrote. "Should the crossover between these three waves proceed smoothly, even if an AI chasm does occur, its impact may be limited."

Analysts also point to multiple large-scale AI projects in the United States as another driver of strong, lasting AI demand. Alongside OpenAI's Stargate, other major AI computing initiatives such as Anthropic's Fluidstack and xAI's Colossus has emerged.

"The physical AI market centered on humanoid robots — which will serve as a core pillar of the AI 3.0...

This article is by Shin Ha-nee and read by an artificial voice.

Chuei Li Yu and Kang Woo-jin, the two popular contestants from Mnet's audition program "Boys II Planet" (2025), are marking a fresh start as Flare U, a rare K-pop duo, hoping to create a synergy that can brighten someone's day.

"We aim to become a team where the two of us come together to create a single light," said Kang during the duo's debut showcase held in central Seoul on Wednesday, ahead of the release of its debut EP, "Youth Error," at 6 p.m. that day.

"Our goal is to become a team that continues to resonate with many people," he added.

Chuei, a 22-year-old from Taiwan, finished the "Boys II Planet" program in 10th place, narrowly missing the eight-member roster for the resulting group Alpha Drive One, which debuted in January. Kang, an 18-year-old Korean contestant, finished in 16th place.

Managed under FNC Entertainment, Flare U announced its debut in April, eight months after the show concluded in September last year.

As duos remain a rarity in K-pop, an industry largely defined by multimember groups, there is inevitably pressure for the two members to fill the stage on their own. But Chuei and Kang said that is also what makes the team special.

"There are not that many duos in K-pop, but I think that can be a strength for us," said Chuei. "Because there are only two of us, we can lean into and show our own style in unique ways, while also complementing each other to complete a full picture."

Both Chuei and Kang cited the sibling duo AKMU as their role models.

"AKMU always seems to enjoy performing, and the two of them sing songs that carry their own stories," Kang said. "I've always wanted to follow such attitudes."

Flare U's debut EP, "Youth Error," consists of six tracks: the lead single, "Way 2 U," and B-sides, "Hyper," "Don't Cry," "Miracle," "Woo-Hoo" and "Playground."

The lead track, "Way 2 U," leans into hyper pop, marked by its glitchy sounds and upbeat rhythm. The song is a cute exploration of young love, its music video set on a campus with Chuei and Kang depicting two college boys navigating the excitement of first love.

Both Chuei and Kang pursued solo promotions following the show's conclusion. Chuei held his solo fan meet-and-greet events in Korea, Taiwan, Macau, Thailand and Japan from December to April, while Kang held his in January in Seoul.

Even before the official debut, the group already performed at KCON Japan 2026, held in Chiba from Friday to Sunday.

"It was such an honor to perform on such a big stage as KCON Japan before our official debut," Kang said. "We practiced really hard, but one thing I learned is that no matter how hard you prepare, there are always things you feel like you could have done better after the stage. Next time, I want to prepare even harder and do better."

Flare U said it hopes to become a team that can make someone's day and send out energy.

"I want us to be known as a 'vitamin vending machine,'" said Chuei with a smile. "People take vitamins as an essential part of their lives. We want to become that kind of team — someone people can turn to whenever they want or need energy."

This article is by Kim Min-young and read by an artificial voice.

POCHEON, Gyeonggi — A bright orange robot hand and two workers were packaging ice cream into brown tubs in Pocheon, Gyeonggi, as a cluster of reporters looked down at a sterile and quiet assembly line on Tuesday morning. The robot, made by Hanwha Robotics, was filling 10-liter (2.6-gallon) ice cream tubs at a rate the human operators alongside it could not have matched.

The scene was the centerpiece of Benson's first media tour of its production center, marking one year since the premium ice cream brand launched in May 2025. Operated by Hanwha Galleria subsidiary Better Scoop Creamery, CEO Yoon Jin-ho said the Pocheon facility vertically integrates raw milk processing and collaborative automation, a production method instrumental in delivering quality ice cream with a better aftertaste efficiently.

"The standard for so-called premium ice cream in Korea today is tier three," Yoon said at the briefing. By Benson's classification, tier three uses powdered milk reconstituted with water, butter rather than cream and artificial emulsifiers and stabilizers. Tier one, where Benson positions itself, uses raw milk, domestic cream and minimal additives. "Our goal is to shift the entire Korean premium ice cream market up by two tiers."

The factory tour gave reporters a walk-through of the production line. The facility takes in raw milk at a dedicated tank in the rear, runs it through high-temperature short-time pasteurization, blends it in a Liquiverter mixing tank under high-speed agitation and then ages the mix for 24 to 36 hours, longer than the typical regular ice cream production cycle, to ensure the high fat content disperses evenly.

Automation runs through the rest of the process. The facility uses one collaborative robot supplied by Hanwha Robotics, as well as two other industrial robots to handle filling, packaging and palletizing.

The collaborative robot fills 10-liter tubs at a rate of 600 to 700 units per day, which production center director Nam Koong-bong said is the first Korean application of robotics in filling ice cream tubs.

"The facility operates with roughly 50 to 60 percent of the headcount that a comparable Korean ice cream factory would require, and that floor space is also approximately 10 to 20 percent smaller than it would be without automation," said Nam.

Benson opened its first store, Benson Creamery Seoul, in Apgujeong Rodeo in May 2025. The company plans to have 21 stores by early July, 30 stores by the end of 2026 and 100 stores by 2027.

"Between 50 and 100 stores is where we expect operating margins to become meaningful," said Chae Chan-young, the business planning team lead.

At the tasting that followed the factory tour, research and development team lead Cho Hyun-chul walked reporters through three flavors: Cozy Maple Vanilla Bean, Dark Night Brownie and a new sorbet, Acai Cassis. Cho also conducted a side-by-side weight test against an anonymous leading domestic competitor, showing that a 4-liter container of Benson Cozy Maple Vanilla Bean weighed roughly twice as much as an equivalent volume of the competitor's product. "The same volume, but one is half air," Cho said.

Asked about expansion to convenience stores or large discount retailers, Yoon said Benson is keeping such channels "open in principle" but is not pursuing them in the near term because of the pricing pressure and discount cycles those channels impose. The brand will operate exclusively through directly run stores through 2026, with delivery available through Coupang Eats and Baemin. Mobile gifting and online retail integration are planned.

The CEO wrapped up the tour by framing the Benson bet in the context of Korea's coffee market transformation.

"Twenty or 30 years ago, people in Korea drank powdered instant coffee with creamer at local coffee shops," said Yoon. "Now they expect fresh-roasted beans and real milk from Starbucks. The same shift is going to happen in i...

This article is by Kang Kwang-woo and read by an artificial voice.

SK hynix's decision last year to carve out a slice of operating profit for its workers is becoming a template across Korean industries. Unions at Samsung Electronics, Samsung Biologics, LG U+ and Kakao are now pushing for their own cuts, ranging from 10 to 30 percent — a trend management experts warn could weaken the companies' long-term competitiveness.

Samsung Electronics' labor union and management sat down for a second post-mediation session at the Government Sejong Complex on Tuesday morning, but the two parties failed to reach an agreement.

The union's most significant demand is a fixed allocation of 15 percent of operating profit from the company's Device Solutions division, which oversees its semiconductor business, as a performance bonus pool.

Samsung Biologics' union, which recently launched a full-scale strike, is asking for 20 percent. The LG U+ union is pushing for 30 percent. The Kakao union has proposed a 10 percent option as one of several formulas it would accept.

The trend traces back to SK hynix, which last year became the first major Korean company to agree, at its union's request, to set aside 10 percent of operating profit as a bonus fund. Similar demands have since spread beyond the semiconductor sector into information and communications technology (ICT) and other industries.

Operating profit is an unusual benchmark for collectively bargained bonuses. Several countries already require companies to share profits with workers — France has run a mandatory profit-sharing scheme since 1967, using a statutory formula tied to net profit above an equity threshold, and Mexico orders companies to hand over 10 percent of profits to employees — but neither system involves a union-bargained share of operating profit.

U.S. Big Tech firms have long shared profits with workers, but they typically do so through stock rather than cash, and base individual payouts on personal performance reviews. Major Korean companies have historically used a mix of metrics, including overall company results and individual and team evaluations, to set differentiated bonuses.

"There used to be a shared understanding that reinvesting surplus profits in the future, or paying bonuses despite losses to keep morale up, were both management calls," an ICT industry source said.

"Perceptions around bonuses have shifted significantly since the SK hynix case. With the idea of lifetime employment fading, I think there's a growing sense among workers that they should get as much as they can while they're there."

Tying bonuses solely to operating profit, rather than a composite metric, has one clear advantage: Anyone can predict the size of their payout. But the approach also puts future investment at risk. Companies may cut research and development or marketing spending, or push expenses artificially into later periods, weakening their long-term competitiveness. The system can also force payouts when profits rise on the back of a favorable market cycle rather than actual performance.

"Once unions start reaching into the operating-profit cake, the fight over who gets the rest spreads to shareholders and subcontractors," Lim Chae-un, an emeritus professor of business administration at Sogang University, said.

Companies also need to be more transparent about how they calculate bonuses, some analysts argue.

"Compensation for employees should be decided by management, and compensation for executives by the board. For unions to override that and demand bonuses based solely on operating profit is excessive," Rhee Nam-uh, the chairman of the Korean Corporate Governance Forum, said. "But employers also need to disclose the bonus criteria they've kept opaque if they want to reduce union pushback."

Prof. Lim warned that the unions' moves on operating profit could open a Pandora's box of distribution.

"Eventually you end up with calls to share corporate profits with the broader public, too."...

This article is by Cho Jung-woo and read by an artificial voice.

Just 13 hours. That is the total mandatory education period required to get a driver's license in Korea.

Three hours of safety lessons for the written exam, four hours of closed-circuit functional test training and six hours of actual road driving. For aspiring drivers in Korea, the path to the steering wheel is often paved with promises of extreme speed, deeply embedded in the country's ppali ppali (quickly, quickly) culture.

A quick search online reveals a plethora of game plans ranging from "How to get your license in three days" to driving schools aggressively promoting shortcut classes designed to breeze through the three-level examination process.

"I got my license about a month after I registered at a driving school," said a university student who passed her test two years ago. While her timeline sounds fast by global standards, it would be considered relatively standard, or even slow, by her peers in Korea.

The goal for many is not to become a proficient motorist but to become legally eligible to drive as quickly as possible.

However, this efficiency comes at the cost of safety. With high accident rates and many license holders unable to drive without additional private lessons, the system often produces drivers who have the legal right to drive but lack the confidence and experience to safely take to the road.

The cost of speed

In Korea, anyone over the age of 18 is eligible to test for a standard driver's license. The legal threshold creates a seasonal rite where every winter, students who have just finished the College Scholastic Ability Test, or suneung, crowd driving schools to secure their permits before the university semester begins.

The system is also open to foreigners, who can either exchange a license from their home country or start the process from scratch. Since 2019, Korea has restricted license issuance to registered foreigners residing in the country for at least three months. The mandate was a response to a surge in "license tourism," primarily by Chinese nationals who took advantage of Korea's quick testing to obtain a permit they could use back home. Currently, Korea maintains reciprocity agreements with some 130 countries, allowing for the mutual recognition of driving credentials.

In 2015, more than 8,200 short-term visitors acquired Korean licenses. Last year, 31,203 foreign nationals tested for and acquired a license from scratch, accounting for roughly 4.3 percent of all new drivers, according to Korea Road Traffic Authority (KoRoad) data obtained by the Korea JoongAng Daily. To accommodate this demographic, the written exam — taken over 73,000 times by foreigners last year — is offered in English, Chinese and Vietnamese.

The current laxity of the testing system is inextricably linked to a period of drastic deregulation. In 2011, under the Lee Myung-bak administration, the government simplified exams to reduce the financial burden and time commitment on residents.

A Seoul resident surnamed Woo obtained his license during this window.

"I got my license when the exam was at its easiest," he recalled. During that era, the "T-course" and "S-course" — notoriously difficult maneuvers involving perpendicular and curved driving — were scrapped. Woo was not even required to demonstrate parking.

That skill was seen as a necessary hurdle for navigating the streets of Seoul, a city defined by relentless rush-hour congestion, steep parking ramps and a culture of aggressive lane-changing.

Over a decade later, Woo is part of a growing demographic of jangnong, or "closet license" holders — those who possess a driver's permit but have not sat behind a wheel since their exam. Now, out of necessity, he is paying for private lessons just to learn the basics.

"I'm having a hard time practicing how to park," he said.

While the government "toughened" the exams in 2016 by revamping the closed-course functional test, experts argue the correction wa...

Joo Jung-wan

The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo

The government announced that it would impose heavy capital gains taxes on owners of multiple homes and gave them a grace period of several months. Not long after that grace period ended, local elections were held. The ruling party won in a landslide. Once the elections were over, the government began raising real estate taxes in earnest. It pressured owners of multiple homes to sell quickly, saying it would impose heavy holding taxes — property taxes and comprehensive real estate taxes — on them. But the government's high-intensity regulations produced massive side effects in the market, and housing prices only continued to rise.

This may sound like a preview of the current real estate market and what may lie ahead. In fact, it is a summary of a failed experience that left deep scars on Korean society. More precisely, it is what happened around the June 2018 local elections under the Moon Jae-in administration. Since that was already eight years ago, many people may no longer remember the details clearly.

Let us look back at the situation more closely. In August 2017, the Moon administration announced heavier capital gains taxes on owners of multiple homes, with a grace period until the end of March 2018. At a media briefing at the time, then-Land Minister Kim Hyun-mee declared, "The government will not tolerate homes being reduced from places to live into tools of speculation." Once the grace period ended, owners of multiple homes began withholding properties from the market in earnest, and the real estate market grew unstable again.

Perhaps the Moon administration wanted to immediately play the card of raising holding taxes. But local elections were scheduled for June that year. The government was not reckless enough to commit the self-inflicted mistake of raising taxes just ahead of an election.

Once the elections were over, the time for real estate tax hikes arrived. In July that year, the Ministry of Economy and Finance — the predecessor to today's Ministry of Finance and Economy and the Planning and Budget Office — announced a tax revision bill. It included an increase in the comprehensive real estate tax under the name of "normalizing the real estate tax system." It was exactly what many real estate experts had predicted before the elections. And that was not the end of it. In September, the government announced a second round of comprehensive real estate tax hikes. The market situation had become so serious that the government had to play the tax hike card twice in just two months. As everyone remembers, the Moon administration ultimately failed to stop housing prices from soaring.

The current real estate market bears a striking resemblance to the situation eight years ago. The word "déjà vu" does not feel out of place at all. The government, of course, insists that "this time is different." That is not entirely wrong. But it does not mean the current situation is any better. Above all, there is an enormous difference between then and now in housing supply. At least on the supply side, conditions are moving in a far worse direction.

Let us compare the housing statistics regularly released by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. In the first quarter of 2018, the number of housing construction permits in Seoul stood at 13,559 units. Even then, there were concerns because the figure had fallen 37 percent from a year earlier. In the first quarter of this year, the number of permits in Seoul was 5,632 units — just 41 percent of the level eight years ago. Supply across the greater Seoul area, including Gyeonggi and Incheon, has also fallen sharply. In the first quarter of this year, the number of permits in the capital region stood at 27,471 units, less than half of the 60,914 recorded eight years ago.

Seoul does face the limitation of having little land available for new housing. In Gyeonggi and Incheon, by contrast, it is relatively ea...

Choi Hoon

The author is a professor at Hallym University

May feels especially fresh this year, perhaps because it began with the gift of a holiday. During this stretch, my children played to their hearts' content. But their phones and computers were always in their hands. Was this really the kind of play they needed?

The Dutch philosopher Johan Huizinga described human beings as Homo ludens — "man the player." Through play, people form relationships, learn rules, cultivate imagination and create culture. How dreadful would life be if we did nothing but work, without ever playing?

And yet, despite the importance of play, I have never properly learned how to do it. I was repeatedly taught how to use time efficiently to study and work, but no one ever taught me how to play. So how should we play?

In psychology, good play is often explained through the lens of self-determination theory. The theory holds that people grow in the healthiest and happiest ways when three needs are met: a sense that they are making their own choices, or autonomy; a belief that they can accomplish something, or competence; and a feeling of connection with others, or relatedness.

The same applies to play. Even with the same game, one played joyfully with friends while devising strategies together can foster relatedness and competence. But a game that begins simply because there is nothing else to do, then drags on until dawn under the pull of dopamine, becomes not play but labor. The same is true of exercise. A workout joyfully pursued toward a goal one has chosen for oneself can be good play. But exercise done for a social media photo, or driven by self-loathing, is nothing more than self-punishment.

In that sense, what we do for play may matter less than how we play.

Human beings have always drawn life's energy from play. Perhaps what students need now is not more instruction on how to study or work, but a chance to discover the feeling of "good play" — the kind that lets them enjoy themselves without guilt, become absorbed in the moment and feel fully alive.

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.

Ahn Hai-ri

The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo

"What was bound to come has finally arrived. And that makes 2023 all the more regrettable."

That was my reaction to the idea of a "citizen dividend" floated by Kim Yong-beom, presidential chief of staff for policy.

Late Monday night, Kim wrote a Facebook post about the controversy over performance bonuses at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. It was a long-winded piece built on one hypothetical after another, but its core message was simple: "Structural excess profits should be institutionalized socially, and part of corporate gains should be returned to all citizens under the name of a citizen dividend."

Put plainly, he was arguing that the profits — or excess profits — of companies that make large and sustained earnings belong to all citizens and should therefore be returned to them. Leaving aside the public resentment and stress triggered by the Samsung Electronics union's threat to strike, I wonder what people think of this view from a senior official in the Lee Jae Myung administration. I do not agree with it. But I fear it could become reality.

I had anticipated something like this when the Samsung Electronics union came forward last month with the excessive demand that 15 percent of operating profit be paid out entirely as performance bonuses, with no cap. Even as the media criticized it as a "gold-spoon union's money party" or the "unchecked greed of a closed cartel of interests," and even as tensions spread into a labor-labor conflict between regular workers in the DS, or semiconductor, division and the DX division, which includes mobile phones and other businesses, the leadership of the cross-company union dominated by DS workers showed no sign of listening. Criticism erupted from both the left and the right.

Emboldened by this mood, the Democratic Party (DP) and the broader progressive camp began pouring out demands that sounded socialist in nature: measures to control export companies so they cannot change rules such as performance bonus systems at will; social distribution; social solidarity funds; union contributions to foundations; and returns to farming and fishing communities. A column by a professor of Korean literature was emblematic. The professor wrote that semiconductor profits "should first go to regular workers, irregular workers and subcontractor workers, and should rightly be returned to society." After watching this monthlong free-for-all of empty rhetoric, I had been thinking a backlash would come soon. Then came Kim's remarks.

Instead of joining the whole country in bashing the union, I would like to direct some criticism at Samsung Electronics' former management, which in effect helped create a union that now makes unreasonable demands with such confidence and refuses to communicate. Wondering how the union came to behave this way, I went through all of Samsung Electronics' and SK hynix's business reports from 2016 to 2025. There were quite a few instances in which management responded poorly — more than can be dismissed as merely a failure to share profits or an opaque compensation system. This was especially true in 2023, the year of the worst semiconductor slump.

The most glaring examples were the excessive severance packages set for registered executives and the huge bonuses that had effectively been guaranteed regardless of performance. Samsung Electronics' DS division posted an operating loss of 14.9 trillion won ($10 billion) that year. SK hynix limited its operating loss to 7.7 trillion won, helped by its relatively strong performance in high bandwidth memory, or HBM. Bonuses fell for employees at both companies, but the decline was steeper at Samsung, causing its average salary to fall below that of SK hynix.

Yet a top executive, who had led Samsung's DS division since 2018 and was responsible for misjudgments such as halting further HBM development and downsizing the dedicated HBM team, retired in 2023 with 1.68 billi...