Writing
Psy and Snoop Dogg’s hangover: 3 inebriated insights from Seoul
SEOUL, South Korea — It’s been a while since horse-galloping YouTube celebrity Psy followed up on his first global hit, “Gangnam Style,” and its less famous successor, “Gentleman.” For a while, it appeared the eccentric Korean rapper would fall into the abyss as a one-hit wonder — all despite the fact that, a little over a week ago, “Gangnam Style” reached two billion views, the most ever for a YouTube video.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Jun 10, 2014
21 reasons you should drop everything and move to Seoul
1. You can watch the sun rise and set from the city’s four peaks You can also gaze upon the coolest, most sprawling neon-lit cityscape you’ll ever see.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Jun 10, 2014
Cambodia’s ‘better factories’ are getting a lot worse
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Three months pregnant at the time, Sam Ath doesn’t remember collapsing two months ago at the crowded, muggy garment factory where she works at the southwestern edge of the Cambodian capital.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Jun 1, 2014
Obama lands in Tokyo for the first US state visit in 18 years
SEOUL, South Korea — Japan is without a doubt America’s most stable and prosperous ally in East Asia. Yet today, President Barack Obama became the first American president since Bill Clinton in April 1996 to visit the country as a state guest.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 23, 2014
South Korea ferry disaster: How everything that could go wrong did go wrong
SEOUL, South Korea — South Koreans were taken aback Monday when President Park Geun-hye decreed that the captain and crew of the Sewol, the 6825-ton sunken ferry, conducted themselves in a way “akin to an act of murder,” fleeing the listing ship without ensuring the safety of the 476 passengers on board.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 22, 2014
Is North Korea readying nuclear test No. 4?
SEOUL, South Korea — Get ready. North Korea’s fourth nuclear test may be upon us. There’s been an uptick in activity at the underground test site at Punggye-ri, in the garrison kingdom’s desolate and remote northeast, Yonhap reports.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 21, 2014
South Koreans blame themselves for ferry tragedy
SEOUL, South Korea ― Wednesday’s ferry sinking off Korea’s west coast is being called one of the country’s worst peacetime disasters in modern times. Although 14 are confirmed dead, close to 300 are still missing in the frigid waters. Hopes are dwindling of finding more survivors.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 17, 2014
The South Korean government wants to impose a curfew on smartphone use
SEOUL, South Korea — The scene on the Seoul subway these days resembles any other modern underground network: throngs of high school students and commuter droids, hunched over, aloof to their surroundings, unable to stop playing with their handheld thingies.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 14, 2014
Japan’s biggest pop star right now is a fetishized hologram
SEOUL, South Korea — Even by the standards of pop stars, Hatsune Miku is eccentric and protean, her mystique elusive. Her eyes are too round and blue to be real. She can be buxom or boyish, and almost painfully sultry — all in a droid-ish, understated way.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 10, 2014
The developed world’s least helpful husbands
SEOUL, South Korea — So, you think your husband is a domestic sloth, failing to pull his weight in household duties? Take comfort from South Korean wives, who have it worse.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Apr 4, 2014