Recent Blog Posts
BIFF 2026 Tickets: Booking Dates, Prices, and Venues
icket sales for the 31st Busan International Film Festival open in two rounds this week: ceremonies and special programs on Thursday, September 17 at 2 pm, and all general screenings on Monday, September 21 at 2 pm. The festival itself runs October 6 to 15 at the Busan Cinema Center and seven other venues in Centum City and Nampo-dong. Anyone who booked last year still has to create a new account before buying.
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Busan Tourists Name Trash Bins and Toilets Top Complaint
Busan's first face-to-face survey of foreign tourists found that the most common complaint was not language or transport but the absence of public trash cans and the state of public toilets. The city announced the results on September 2 and says it will start installing bins at major tourist sites as soon as its third supplementary budget clears the city council, a small fix for a problem long-term residents have been raising for years.
Chuseok Cash Payments: Which Foreign Residents Qualify
Dozens of city and county governments across Korea are paying residents between 100,000 and 500,000 won each before Chuseok, and Gimhae, next door to Busan, begins accepting applications on September 17. The payments are local, not national, and the rules on which foreign residents qualify are narrow: permanent residents, marriage migrants, and in some cases recognized refugees are in, and nearly everyone else on a work or study visa is out. Busan itself is not paying.
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The Easier Way to Pronounce Diphthongs (ㅢ, ㅘ, ㅝ, ㅟ, ㅙ, ㅚ, ㅞ) | Korean FAQ
Korean has 7 diphthongs and they are ㅢ, ㅘ, ㅝ, ㅟ, ㅙ, ㅚ, ㅞ. All of these can be practiced and mastered in an easier way. In this video I simplify how to pronounce each of them, as well as talk about some of their common quirks.
Korea's First Overseas Kpop Sensation
A Korean trio filled Las Vegas showrooms and appeared on American national television more than sixty years before BTS or Blackpink existed. The Kim Sisters (김시스터즈), formed in 1953, are widely credited as the first Korean act to build real, sustained success overseas, years before anyone used the term K-pop.
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Korea's New Privacy Law Adds 10% Revenue Fines for Breaches
South Korea's revised Personal Information Protection Act (개인정보보호법) took effect September 11, introducing punitive fines of up to 10 percent of a company's total revenue for serious data breaches, a sharp jump from the previous 3 percent ceiling. The change follows a string of large-scale breaches across telecom, platform, and financial companies over the past two years.
Why Are Korean Cafes So Different than Other Countries | Into Korean
Cafe culture has completely changed over the past two decades. When I first went to Korea 20+ years ago, cafes weren’t the default way of meeting someone like they are now. In my newest episode of “Into Korean” I share what changed, talk about Korean cafe culture with a cafe owner in Seoul, as well as how to order from a cafe like a native speaker.
Korea's 2026 Autumn Foliage Forecast - Please Standby
An early private forecast for Korea's 2026 autumn foliage season predicts a later start than usual, with color reaching Seoraksan around September 27 to 30. Korea's official government forecast has not been published yet and typically follows later in September, but the early read gives a useful planning window for anyone timing a trip around it.
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Korea Offers Up to 100,000 Island Travel Subsidies
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety opened applications on September 8 for its second round of island travel subsidies, offering up to 100,000 won toward the cost of an overnight trip to one of Korea's ferry-only islands. The window covers travel between October 1 and November 4, timed to run alongside the 2026 Yeosu World Islands Expo (2026여수세계섬박람회), which opened September 5.
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Korea's Foreign Student Count Hits 300K As Focus Switches to 'Genuine Talent'
South Korea's foreign student population passed 300,000 a year ahead of schedule, and the Ministry of Education used the milestone to announce a shift in policy away from simply recruiting more students. The ministry unveiled its new International Student Talent Cultivation Strategy (외국인유학생 인재양성 혁신전략) on September 8, moving the policy's center of gravity from expanding enrollment numbers toward improving education quality and screening for genuine talent.
Korea's Fall Fashion Mixes Gore-Tex With Chrome and Folklore
Seoul Fashion Week's September trade show sessions wrapped up on September 4, and for the first time included an official Berlin Fashion Week showroom on Korean soil. Twelve Berlin-based labels presented collections at a Gangnam showroom over two days, built around sustainability, traditional craft, and material innovation, a small but telling sign of how tightly Seoul's fashion calendar now connects to the rest of the world's.
Busan Hosts Asia's Largest Smart City Expo, Sept. 9-11
The World Smart City Expo returns to Busan for its 10th anniversary edition, running September 9 to 11 at BEXCO. Now co-hosted by Busan for the second year running, the event bills itself as Asia's largest smart city gathering, bringing together governments, cities, and companies to trade policy ideas and technology.
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Busan's New Remote-Work Pilot Lets Local Talent Stay Put
Busan confirmed the results of its first "stay-and-work" remote employment pilot on August 27, after presenting outcomes from a results-sharing event held six days earlier at BEXCO. The Busan Stay-and-Work Remote Employment Support Project (부산 정주형 원격근무 지원사업) connects professionals already living in Busan with project work from companies based in the Seoul metropolitan area or overseas, letting them build a career without relocating.
Busan Biennale 2026: Three Venues, A Shuttered High School, & No Quiet Room
The 2026 Busan Biennale opened August 29 under the title "Dissident Chorus" (불협하는 합창), running 65 days across three venues on two islands. The edition brings together 46 artists and collectives from 22 countries, working mostly in sound, performance, and installation rather than the static visual work past editions leaned on.
Improve Your Korean Pronunciation with Shadowing
Shadowing is where you listen to a native Korean speaker say something and you try repeating it exactly as you heard it – with the same intonation, tone, speed, volume, and everything. But that’s easier said than done. Here are some tips for how to more effectively do shadowing to improve your Korean speaking.
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Korea's Shrinking Army and the Possibility of Drafting Women
South Korea's supply of 20-year-old men, the group its military depends on to fill the ranks, is running out faster than planners expected. The pool stood at 334,000 in 2020 and is projected to fall to roughly 138,000 by 2040, and the shortfall, already visible in this year's enlistment numbers, is driving a set of proposals ranging from hiring retirees to drafting women.