The Dark Side of Seoul Podcast

SEAblings vs. K-netz: What a K-pop Concert Revealed About Regional Tensions in Korea A Day6 concert in Kuala Lumpur on January 31, 2026 should have ended as just another night of fandom. Instead, it became a flashpoint. When Korean fansites were seen using DSLR cameras despite venue rules banning them, Southeast Asian fans pushed back.… Read more: SEAblings vs. K-netz: When K-pop Fandom Turned Into a Regional Reckoning

Winter is cemetery season in Korea. With the grass dead, snakes gone, and sightlines open, this is when Korea’s hillside cemeteries quietly reveal their stories. In this episode, Joe and Shawn talk about what they see every year while wandering through Korean burial grounds: traditional mounds and stone guardians, Christian symbols mixed with Confucian motifs,… Read more: Reading the Dead: What Korean Graves Tell Us

South Korea became a super-aged society in 2025. The effects are showing up everywhere, but nowhere more visibly than on the roads. In this episode, Joe and Shawn talk about the sharp rise in accidents involving elderly drivers, including several deadly incidents in Seoul and beyond. They dig into the numbers, the government’s largely ineffective… Read more: Who Should Be Driving in Korea?

Pojangmacha didn’t disappear by accident. In Part 2 of Where Have All the Soju Tents Gone, Joe and Shawn trace how Seoul’s soju tents went from survival spaces to cultural nuisances, then to nostalgic props. From Olympic-era crackdowns and hired enforcers to violent evictions, gentrification, and sanitized “sensibility pocha streets,” this episode looks at how… Read more: Where Have All the Soju Tents Gone? Part 2

There is no Waffle House in Korea. For decades, the pojangmacha was the last line of defense against going home hungry, broke, or blackout drunk. It was cheap, social, messy, and human. And then it slowly disappeared. In Part 1 of Where Have All the Soju Tents Gone, we trace the origins of the pojangmacha… Read more: Where Have All the Soju Tents Gone? Part 1