Hello, and welcome to Korea Culture Now.
My name is James. I was born in Korea, I live in Korea, and I write this site from a small district in Incheon called Michuhol-gu — about an hour west of Seoul, and a place almost no guidebook mentions.
That last part matters more than it might sound.
Why This Site Exists
A few years ago I started reading English-language articles about Korean culture out of curiosity. What I found surprised me. Some were excellent. Many were written by people who had clearly never set foot here — recycled summaries of other recycled summaries, confidently wrong about things any Korean would correct in a second.
One example: you will still find English articles claiming Korea “abolished Korean age” by law in 2023. That is not what happened. The law standardized how age is counted in legal and administrative documents. In everyday conversation, the traditional counting system is alive and well — I used it this morning. I wrote a full article about it, because the misunderstanding is so widespread.
Korea Culture Now exists to close that gap. Not to be the loudest site about Korea, but the one that gets the details right.
Who I Am
I am not a travel company, a marketing agency, or a team of writers. I am one person.
I drive a school shuttle in the mornings. In the afternoons I write, take photographs of my neighborhood, and produce video content. I have no formal background in journalism — what I have is a lifetime of living here, and a habit of checking sources before I publish.
When I write about why Koreans remove their shoes indoors, I am describing my own entryway. When I write about apartment life, I am describing how the people around me actually live. When I photograph a subway station or an alley market, I walked there myself. Where I use images I did not take, they are properly licensed and credited.
I also correct myself. If you find an error on this site, please tell me — I would rather be accurate than look authoritative.
What You’ll Find Here
Everything on this site falls into four sections:
- K-Culture — Etiquette, social customs, and the unwritten rules of daily life. Why two hands matter when you hand something over, what actually happens at a Korean dinner table, and how half the country ended up living in apartment towers. This is the heart of the site.
- Korean Food — Not just recipes, but the logic behind the meal. Why a simple lunch arrives with six small dishes, what separates one stew from another, and what Koreans actually eat on an ordinary Tuesday.
- Hidden Korea — Places I have been to personally. Neighborhood markets, subway lines worth riding, and corners of Incheon that never make it into travel guides. Many photographs here are my own, and the rest are licensed and credited.
- Korean Books — Literature and folk tales, including the parts English retellings tend to leave out. Heungbu and Nolbu, for instance, does not end where most English summaries say it ends.
How I Write
Three rules I hold myself to:
- Every article has to add something. If a topic is already well covered in English, I only publish if I can contribute something the existing articles miss or get wrong.
- Numbers and claims get checked. Statistics come from named sources. When something is contested or has changed recently, I say so rather than picking the version that sounds cleaner.
- No pretending. I write about what I know. Korea is a large country and I have not seen all of it — when I am writing about somewhere I have not been, I tell you.
Get in Touch
Questions, corrections, suggestions, or a request for a topic you cannot find good information on — all welcome. You can reach me through the contact page.
Thank you for reading.
— James, Incheon