Why I Haven’t Touched Cash in Months: How Koreans Actually Pay for Everything
Koreans pay for almost everything by phone — cash is under 16% of in-person spending. A Seoul insider explains Toss, KakaoBank, KakaoPay, Samsung Pay and bill-splitting.
S.H. Kim
Going to the Doctor in Korea (병원·약국)
A few weeks ago my throat started doing that scratchy thing it does every time the office air conditioning wins. It was lunchtime. I walked out of the building, found an ear-nose-throat clinic on the second floor of the building across the street, took a number, sat down, and was back at my desk within … Read more
What a Korean Family of Three Actually Spends in a Month
On the 25th of every month, my credit card statement lands. Last month I caught myself staring at the total, thinking, “Where did all of this even go?” So instead of shrugging it off like usual, I opened my banking app and broke it down, line by line — me, my wife, and our seven-year-old … Read more
What “Ppalli Ppalli” Culture Actually Feels Like (From the Inside)
I ordered something on Coupang (쿠팡, Korea’s biggest online retailer) last night. By this morning, it hadn’t arrived yet — and I caught myself getting annoyed. Why isn’t it here? Then I stopped. About ten years ago, delivery in Korea took three to five days, and nobody thought twice about it. But the version of … Read more
Korea Finally Killed Internet Explorer — But Try Using a Korean Bank on a Mac
One afternoon, a website completely defeated me. I was on my MacBook, trying to do the most boring thing imaginable: log into a Korean bank. The site told me to install a security program first. Fine. I installed it. I refreshed the page. It said the program was not installed. So I installed it again. … Read more
Chimaek: What Korean Fried Chicken and Beer Really Means (From a Korean)
A few weeks ago, the most powerful man in tech pulled on a pair of clear plastic gloves and tore into a piece of fried chicken in Hongdae. A couple of days later, standing on a baseball field in Seoul before throwing out the first pitch, Jensen Huang — the CEO of Nvidia — told … Read more
Korean Soju Culture: How We Really Drink It
There’s a green bottle on the table. Someone grabs it by the neck and gives it a quick flick of the wrist — a little spin that supposedly knocks loose the bits from the old cork-stopper days. There are no bits in soju anymore. It’s just a habit now, a small ritual. Then the first … Read more
Why Young Koreans Can’t Buy a Home (But Won’t Stop Trying)
There’s a Korean word you should know: youngkkeul (영끌). It literally means “scraping together your soul.” It’s not some spiritual thing — it describes what people do to buy a home here. You gather every won you can, borrow every loan you qualify for, and put your soul up as collateral too. The joke stopped … Read more
KakaoTalk: The App That Quietly Runs Korea
It’s 7:32 AM. I unlock my phone and there are 47 unread KakaoTalk messages waiting. Not on Instagram. Not on Slack. KakaoTalk alone. A family chat. Two work department chats. A college group chat that’s been alive for 12 years. A chat with the parents of my daughter’s daycare friends. My in-laws’ family group. Scroll … Read more
Korean Coffee Culture: Why We Drink Iced Americano Even in Winter
It’s lunchtime on a weekday in Gangnam (강남, Seoul’s main business district), and almost everyone walking back toward the office towers has a coffee in hand — a takeout cup they haven’t finished, headed back to their desk. Some are hot, some are sweet blended drinks, but the one you’ll spot most is the iced … Read more