Max Kim
@maxsoeunkim
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Seoul correspondent @latimes | LA타임스 서울 특파원. Ex-freelance for @techreview , @NewYorker , @theatlantic , @guardian , @restofworld | max.kim @latimes .com
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Korean Americans are moving back (or for the first time) to South Korea in greater numbers than ever. For my latest
@latimes
, I wrote about why they're ditching the U.S. — and the disorienting new racial and class dynamics that are waiting for them:
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The human rights catastrophe that is South Korea’s use of migrant workers to fill labor shortages: a🧵
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Some personal news: after 8+ years of freelancing, I've joined the
@latimes
as the new Seoul correspondent. I'll be writing mostly enterprise + some breaking news. Send tips via DM or (at) .
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This is South Korea’s workers comp system in a nutshell — years on years of waiting only for the agency to make the most conservative ruling possible, oftentimes with all sorts of subterfuge on the part of the companies in question.
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A lot of these workers are probably quietly dying from their illnesses, either in Korea or back home, with their deaths overlooked by the statistics.
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Last year, I met a Bangladeshi migrant worker named Ajit, who had recently been diagnosed with a rare lung disease called ILD, which can be caused by exposure to industrial pollutants like metal particulates or asbestos.
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A well-known case from 2007: workers at Samsung’s semiconductor/display factories developed rare cancers after being exposed to chemicals. Samsung refused to reveal what some of those chemicals were, citing “trade secrets.
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I wrote about his case here:
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Beyond the population factor, this is why these jobs are suffering labor shortages: every South Korean knows that if you happen to get some workplace disease with even the slightest room for dispute, you are likely screwed.
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Ajit worked at a farming equipment factory — the sort of workplace currently suffering labor shortages partly due to the plummeting birth rate. South Korea is now filling these jobs with a record number of migrant workers from poorer countries
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But his claim was just denied — after 2 years and 3 months — with the agency saying it was possible he got sick from inhaling dust back home in Bangladesh + smoking.
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Workers comp was initially denied and it took lawsuits and 10+ years of activism by victims and families to win settlements.
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Cases like Ajit’s are going to increase exponentially in the future. And there are likely already scores more than haven’t come to light because many migrant workers won’t even bother applying for workers comp or will be cajoled into settling.
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Ajit applied for workers comp from the government in Jan. 2022, based on the fact that his lung biopsy showed the same pollutants as those found at his job.
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For my first story for
@latimes
, I wrote about jjokbangs, illegal cramped single-person occupancies in South Korea that have come to fill the public housing gap.
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The 60+ vote is as depressing as it is unsurprising, but the assumption is (perhaps correctly) they're fixed quantities.
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BTS concert in Busan had 1300 police and 2700 volunteers, fire officials and other support personnel for around 50k attendees. Halloween in Itaewon had just 137 police for 130k attendees, and only 32 of them were tasked with crowd control. Unbelievable.
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This is such a low-effort fart of an observation that I shouldn't, but I'll bite.
In reality, birthrates are low in part because young people *can't* afford such apartments. 1/x
Busan, South Korea. endless rows of tower blocks in real life shook me. was told they’re part of the reason young people don’t get married and have children.
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On this day in S.Korea in 1980, the Chun Doo-hwan junta sent the military to crush pro-democracy protests in Gwangju, gunning down entire crowds. Many of the soldiers behind the massacre are still alive today. I wrote about one's journey of confession:
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Netflix has been on a tear with Korean shows in the last few years, so I wrote about why and how they've been able to buy so much high-performing content for so cheap:
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South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol has been on the warpath against the media since taking office, which I wrote about in my latest:
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Exactly what everyone feared would happen when Yoon was elected. Hard to think of a more corrupt and rotten institution in South Korea than the prosecution service
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Wrote about Parasite actor Lee Sun-kyun’s recent suicide, and the voyeuristic celebrity culture and nationwide drug paranoia at the heart of it all
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Genuinely don't understand why some people look at another country and assume there is some rosetta stone that will decode every habit or behavior in said society and that they just so happened to discover it, thousands of miles away, after reading a couple papers/news articles
South Korea leads the world for
- spending on luxury goods
- male spending on cosmetics
- plastic surgery
- private tuition
- sadly also suicides
I believe these facts are all related:
Status competition
How might that change?
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Ahead of the MLB season kicking off in Seoul, I looked at how Shohei Ohtani amassed a small but mighty fandom in South Korea, a country where Japanese athletes have often struggled to find love. Featuring South Korea's biggest Ohtani superfan:
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Buddhist monks in South Korea, inspired by a famous reality TV show, are trying to get millennials to have more babies by hosting matchmaking temple stays.
Reporting from the frontlines of the most recent one:
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For
@latimes
, I wrote about how falling birthrates have led to the expansion of S. Korea's migrant labor program, in which migrants are dying in industrial accidents at disproportionately high rates and death from workplace disease can easily get buried
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In Seoul, it costs an average household 15 years of income — while not spending a penny — to afford a house. I wrote about what that means for young people:
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Jeon Soo-mi, a lawyer who formerly worked with a defector-run human rights org recently testified that the org used grant money from the NED to visit "room salons" and counterfeited dollar bills to send to NK in balloons. 1/x
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Earlier this month, I went to northeastern Thailand to meet the mother of Nutthawaree Munkan, one of the 25 Thai hostages taken by Hamas in October. She was finally released earlier today.
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I wrote about how the idea of gaming addiction is being contested in South Korea, esports center of the world
In South Korea, StarCraft wasn’t just a hit—it was an awakening.
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A few years ago, I met a man who had been one of the special forces soldiers deployed to suppress the 1980 pro-democracy demonstrations in Gwangju, one of the most horrific events in modern South Korea history. I wrote about his story here:
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@nhannahjones
i love how someone whose stock in trade in talking about institutions of power/oppression whatever just can't reconcile these two ideas. sadly this is the upper limit of many American libs
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@NewYorker
@sukisworld
What a strange, contratrian take that completely misreads the situation almost as much as it transparently regurgitates opportunistic and disingenuous right wing crabbing. The impeachment petition compares Moon to Xi Jinping, which alone is a laughable notion.
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While South Korea is pissing off Thai tourists by tightening border controls they say is meant to curb illegal immigration, it is vastly expanding its controversial migrant worker program, which I recently wrote about here:
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Spent some time with Yo Munkan, one of the Thai hostages in Gaza released last month. She had no rage or bitterness — just heartache. With photos from
@laurendecicca
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For
@thebafflermag
, I wrote about why South Korean president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s prosecutorial background should all give us pause
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My latest on South Korea's covid19 containment efforts, for
@NewYorker
In Seoul, local governments have been at the front line of coronavirus containment efforts: testing, monitoring, and tracking patients and disclosing critical information to the public.
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My latest : a piece on South Korea's Patriot Act equivalent, and an ongoing spy trial.
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That said, you are allowed to simply not like how they look. No need to invent someone who supposedly told you high-rises are the reason the birthrate is low.
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High rises with built-in conveniences are in high demand. A lot of people in their 20s, 30s prefer them to "villas" (term for low-rise apartments) or even regular houses.
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@CatKillough
@josungkim
The idea to connect the coronavirus, the Sewol sinking, and peace w N Korea is what I imagine a bad journalism AI might produce.
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For
@restofworld
, I wrote about how Coupang set out to become the "Amazon of South Korea" and largely succeeded, but only by reproducing the same crushing labor conditions
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@BBCLBicker
London is one of the most cctv dense cities in the world so genuinely confused how a well executed covid tracing program seems in any way worse than that
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I think it's true that cities in South Korea did lose something aesthetically and in terms of architectural diversity in the process of developing in this way. And in the end, housing remains unaffordable, which is also unfortunate.
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But that has less to do with high-rises specifically than they do with the fact that these kinds of buildings suffer from the same problem as the suburbs of the U.S. — just pods of people jammed into single-use residential areas, which creates a flat, samey look.
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not all defector activism is a racket but it's important to take these factors into account when discussing defectors/their activism. this stylized view of defectors as being motivated only by some pure love of freedom and democracy is not only false, it's condescending. 8/x
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My latest, on the messy business of balloon activism against North Korea:
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Suicide is obviously a very complicated issue but the starting point should be looking at South Korea's underfunded/underutilized mental health services, low suicide prevention budget etc not theories about "status competition"
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44 years ago today, the Chun Doo-hwan military junta sent army commandos to suppress democracy protests in the city of Gwangju, killing and maiming scores of civilians.
Last year, I met one of the ex-soldiers, who had emerged after decades of guilt:
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Western media is infatuated with this idea of a NK defector bravely fighting the regime that once oppressed them, but important to remember the biggest "value" defectors have when they leave NK is their defector/perceived victim status. 6/x
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Can't help but think it's made a lot worse by the sheer amount of toxic right wing commentary 60+ people are consuming on YouTube, which they prefer over traditional news sources
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Why they are so unaffordable is another issue I won't get into here, but things would probably be even worse if cities implemented strict zoning laws that prohibited such high-density housing. Like San Francisco.
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This leads to book deals, human rights awards, speaking engagements, scholarships, donations for "human rights projects" etc. There is a whole economy that trades in stories and identities of suffering, much of it propped up by naive Westerners. 7/x
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@NewYorker
@sukisworld
Never mind the fact that there's a choice bit of weasel wording as well: "Moon blamed the outbreak in South Korea on members of Shincheonji Church of Jesus," which seems to imply the blame is undeserved. A little bit of research would tell you otherwise.
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Wrote about the good and bad of South Korea's food waste recycling system and how some of its core strategies might be adapted for U.S. cities
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Earlier this year, South Korea's reported a fertility rate of 0.78 — the lowest in the world. For my latest story, I wrote about what a population crisis actually looks like
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The org in question is the Democracy Network Against the NK Gulag, a former NED grantee now known as NK Watch. Notable alum is Park Sang-hak, a controversial "human rights activist" known for sending balloons into NK, who I profiled for NKNews. 2/x
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In my latest — why the South Korean actors union wants Netflix to pay residuals; AI actor anxieties; and Netflix's dodgy contract practices for local voice actors
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@NewYorker
@sukisworld
Worst piece of journalism I've read in recent memory. Reeks of that weird brand of mediocre provocateurism that has become the go-to pose for writers/journalists who can't actually explain things well.
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A short sketch of scenes in Seoul
For a city of 10 million that is always illuminated and in motion, it is a rare occasion that activity in Seoul grinds to a near-complete halt as it has this month under a voluntary lockdown.
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My story for
@restofworld
on the dehumanization of algorithmic labor -- ecommerce's wonder drug -- was featured on
@Longreads
this week!
"By 2015, Coupang had built something that surpassed even Amazon: a long, unbroken supply chain, whereby products moved seamlessly from warehouse to driver to customer, with 99% of orders delivered within 24 hours, all year..."
@maxsoeunkim
@restofworld
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Years ago, Park was kicked out of the Network for misappropriating funds and NED funding was then cut off.
@NED
told me this had nothing to do with any kind of misconduct but Jeon testified that the NED had angrily called her about the room salons. Clearly, the NED lied. 3/x
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For
@latimes
, I wrote about Korea's obsession with instant noodles and how the viral "fire noodle challenge" in 2014 lifted a once-iconic ramen company out of obscurity
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@AskAKorean
Everything about this article -- the trite political analysis, the deadened veneer of objectivity, the cliches like 'how will NE Asia heal its ancient wounds' -- is straight out of the Real Smort Asia Expert's playbook.
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"VR technology is still too young (or, at least, too undeveloped) for it to have developed an independent grammar as an art form." Fascinating piece about some of the possibilities for VR as a new medium, one that suggests looking beyond the hyperrealism
Would you want to reunite with a deceased loved one in virtual reality?
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In reality, Korea has had plenty of violent civil unrest of its own. Protestors in the 1980 Gwangju Uprising raided armories outside the city to arm themselves w/ rifles to fight back against soldiers deployed by dictator Chun Doo-hwan. Pics:
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South Korea used to be the poster child of nuclear power -- until it wasn't. My latest for
@techreview
's May print issue, available online here:
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@AskAKorean
Third look: checking out a few "expats in korea" facebook groups and quickly reverting back
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@CarrieCnh12
I don't think anyone should be disqualified from talking about this for being non-Korean — in fact, I'd love to see more smart non-Korean scholarship on this — but the inevitable endpoint of stuff like "there's a traditional saying..." is just the same hacky cultural essentialism
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@AskAKorean
I have my own concerns about the free speech element, but to pretend that sending objects attached to balloons/drones across the border w the explicitly stated aim of inducing regime change is the same kind of speech as a protest is just being obtuse
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"Status competition" is also just not a useful framework because you can apply it to any human activity anywhere, including posting on Twitter or pretty much buying anything
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Park Sang-hak has been claiming to be sending thousands of dollars in $1 bills in his balloons, a claim I've long found suspicious. His leaflets often land in SK, but rarely is the cash ever found. Ex-partners all say they were never allowed to count or touch the $. 5/x
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For
@restofworld
I wrote about how South Korean restaurants' increasing dependence on delivery apps has created a punishing sort of star ratings gamesmanship — and what that says about the increasingly omnipresent platform economy
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I wrote about worker deaths at South Korean ecommerce company Coupang and what increasingly short delivery times at companies like Coupang and Amazon mean for its workers
@techreview
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@AskAKorean
this op ed was clearly the result of the author uncritically following a misplaced impulse of "public pile-on against anything = injustice" then proceeding to not do any research to see whether that was true.
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Here's the listing in question — for "The Last Ticket" starring Josh Hutcherson. Seems to be the first Hollywood movie to be shot entirely in South Korea?
About this. I found out Hollywood studios are doing casting calls for Korean actors fluent in perfect English for filming in Korea. One of them stars Josh Hutcherson.
They're doing exactly what I've been saying; going to countries where casts and crews aren't in American unions.
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Jeon also says that she was raped during one of these room salon outings by a friend of the org, and has spoken about the horribly misogynistic culture at these places. I've heard similar things elsewhere as well from female defector activists. 4/x
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Two years ago, in what was essentially a political accident, Thailand created the most unregulated recreational weed market in the world. The government is now trying to undo the hot mess, which I wrote about in my latest:
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In light of Softbank-backed Coupang filing for an IPO on the NYSE, here's a story I wrote last year about how their rise as the Amazon of South Korea came at the cost of creating almost the same exact labor problems
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@AskAKorean
Lots of journos girding up their loins to get themselves some airtime from coronavirus. So many bad takes.
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@AskAKorean
If only the politics of an entire nation were a simple as a color-by-numbers understanding of poll result after poll result. This entire made up controversy and all the smooth brained takes coming out of it are honestly deflating
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Majority of new South Korean covid19 cases in June are in Seoul/capital area. This is very very bad and exactly the scenario epidemiologists were most concerned about even back in March.
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Last March, Coupang raised $4.6 billion in its Nasdaq IPO while its workers died. One of them, 27-year-old Jang Deok-joon, was discovered by his parents after suffering a heart attack in his bathroom in what was later officially ruled death-by-overwork.
It is no coincidence that much of the criticism of Coupang mirrored reports of working conditions at Amazon. The company even pledged to become the “Amazon of Korea.” In doing so, it ran into the exact same problems with labor.
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Gutted to wake up to see that 100+ of my colleagues at
@latimes
have been laid off. Losing so much talent is going to be devastating for the paper. What a bleak time to be in journalism.
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It’s true that Lee can come across as a bit red-blooded/macho, which he is actually surprisingly self-aware about, like in this Dotface interview where he admits he still carries a “paternalistic” Gyeongsang-dude aura.
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@juwonreports
Curious about this too but seems like 20s women showed up for Lee Jae-myung in an especially big way?
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@davidvolodzko
I didn't know animosity toward an unrepentant former colonizer was "racism." Maybe we could call it "Oriental Reverse Racism?" That should really drive the point home.
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My latest for The Atlantic
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@NathaninSeoul
He once bragged that his female congregants were so devoted to him that if he told them to take off their "panties", they would do so
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