These days, I am reading American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee. Before starting to read it, I thought the story might be about the hagwons in Korea that teach students for US universities (which is pretty common). However, as I am about 20% into the book, it turns out that the story revolves around the hagwon run by Korean people and teaches Korean students in Orange County, LA, back in the late 1990s, which was a bit of a surprise for me. So I wondered how common/popular hagwons were/still are there actually in the US Korean community.

And I also wonder how it compares to hagwons in Korea. I also went to hagwons throughout my teenage years (in the early 2000s) in Busan, and back then it was normal to hit students for wrong answers or low performance. And during my high school years, I used to study at the hagwon until 12:30 at night. (some of my fellow students even went to a 독서실 (a self-study room) after that and stayed there until like 2-3 am) In the novel, it is depicted as a more liberating, humane and kind of fun place for US Korean kids.

The book is said to be based on in-depth research and in-person interviews, but I wonder how much you can relate to it if you happen to read this book and go/have gone to a hagwon in the US. Thanks for sharing your stories.

In 2023 the Mongolian government made an official contract to buy and deploy over 300 buses with Zyle Daewoo Bus Company (owned by Young An Hat Corporation).

The contract was official and the funds were transferred. (Over 134.5 Billion Tugriks/ 50 Billion Won).

The factory in Vietnam built over 100 buses and sent them through China to Mongolia in October/September 2023.

But then thanks to a local political rivalry, somehow news spread that the buses were allegedly manufactured in 1993 and were in fact restorations pretending to be new. (Mainly due to its dated design).

Here's the real kicker. A local Mongolian transportation company won the government contract and placed the order for the buses on behalf of the government. The CEO of this company was in Korea when this whole event was taking place.

Anyway, the news spread like wildfire. People ate it up like a delicious kimbap.

Soon the Anti Corruption Agency got involved and they arrested 2 representatives of Zyle Daewoo alongside 25 Mongolians (and the CEO) connected with the transaction.

The company had to surrender its assets to cover the loses caused by this downfall (assets which amounted to 75 Billion Tugriks/ 25 Billion Won).

Hearing after hearing after hearing. No one was to blame directly. They were all pointing fingers except for the Koreans. Who were the obvious suspects Why them?

Well because Zyle Daewoo officially apologized for the whole fiasco. They promised to take responsibility and rebuild the buses up to the proper specifications set by the Mongolian government. Their previous builds were shoddy, badly assembled because the Mongolian government forced them to speed up the production to quickly deploy them for transportation before the annual school season began, this was to fight traffic mainly.

But then, at the final criminal court hearing, the worst decision happened.

The CEO received over 6 years in jail (for literally doing what the government told him to/ and no corruption, bribery, embezzling proof was ever found too btw) the rest got a slap on their wrists and the Koreans were let go.

So basically thanks to the incompetence of Zyle Daewoo Bus Company, an innocent man was thrown in jail. Over 600 people lost their jobs. Mongolia's capital city Ulaanbaatar's traffic problem got even worse (the whole reason they were trying to buy buses quickly) and no one else got any reprecussions whatsoever.

The mayor who oversaw this whole contract resigned but then immediately got asigned to a different position within the government because he is a party member. The news tabloids that "exposed" this whole thing are currently being dragged through the mud because they got exposed themselves as being government shill websites paid to spread false narrative on behalf of the government.

And the CEO? Still trying to prove himself innocent with no avail because the lie has been spread too far and wide.

TL;DR: Since 28 August, reselling concert tickets above face value in Korea can bring fines of up to 50 times the ticket price, even if you never used a bot. In its first five weeks, authorities referred 170 resellers to police. But there’s one exemption every fan needs to know about.

You know the feeling.

The ticketing page opens. You click the second it does. The queue tells you tens of thousands of people are ahead of you. Minutes later, everything’s gone.

Then, by evening, the same seats appear online for ten times the price.

For years, that wasn’t bad luck. It was a business.

Meet the scalper

Police say one man in his 30s ran this business for more than seven years.

He used macro programs, bots that click faster than any human, plus accounts in his relatives’ names to get past the one-or-two-tickets-per-person limits. Then he resold. A lot.

• A BTS Seoul concert ticket bought for ₩110,000, resold for ₩3,000,000.
• A Stray Kids ticket bought for ₩165,000, resold for ₩2,000,000.
• A Seventeen fan meeting ticket bought for ₩110,000, resold for ₩1,800,000.

In total, about 8,967 tickets and around ₩2.4 billion in sales, which police estimate included about ₩1.6 billion in profit. He allegedly registered an e-commerce business to make it look legitimate, and bought an apartment and two commercial properties.

When police arrested 16 members of a related ring in April, he stopped, closed his business, and wiped his phones and computers.

Forensics recovered the data anyway. He has since been indicted.

He wasn’t alone. A woman in her 30s allegedly bought about 2,600 K-pop concert tickets the same way. Police caught her during sales for BTS’s Gwanghwamun concert in March 2026, before she could resell nine of them.

Then the law changed

On 28 August 2026, revised versions of Korea’s Public Performance Act and National Sports Promotion Act took effect. This is the part most people miss.

The old fight focused on bots. The new law reaches resale above face value itself, whether or not you used a macro.

The penalties:

• Illegal resellers face fines of up to 50 times the ticket price, depending on volume and value.
• All illegal profits can be confiscated.
• People who report illegal ticket hoarding can get rewards of up to ₩50 million.
• Ticket platforms must verify users’ identities and remove suspicious listings.

And it’s being enforced. Between 28 August and 1 October:

• authorities received over 68,000 complaints, about 2,000 a day
• about 30,000 suspicious posts were blocked
• 170 high-volume resellers were referred to police, covering more than 11,000 tickets

The tricks that didn’t work

Some sellers thought they’d found a loophole: keep the ticket at face value, and charge for something else.

Four of the referred sellers allegedly hid their markups through mandatory purchases of overpriced merchandise or added “service fees”.

Authorities saw straight through it.

The lesson is simple, and courts everywhere tend to apply it: the label doesn’t matter. What matters is what was really paid for the ticket. A ₩1,000,000 “photocard” that only comes with a ticket is a ₩1,000,000 ticket.

So, can you still sell your spare ticket?

This is the part fans should screenshot.

The law explicitly exempts genuine, non-profit transfers between ordinary fans.

• Your friend got sick and you sell her ticket to another fan at face value? That’s the kind of transfer the exemption is built for.
• You list it for double “because demand is high”? You’ve stepped outside the exemption. You’re making a profit, and the law is aimed at exactly that.

The key phrase is non-profit. The moment the transfer becomes a way to make money, the exemption no longer protects you, however small the amount.

These rules apply to events in Korea. If you’re an international fan buying through resale sites for a Seoul show, the seller you’re paying may be the very person this law is targeting.

What this means for fans

• Sell spares at face value, to fans. That’s the safe zone.
• Bundles and fees don’t hide a markup. If you wouldn’t get the ticket without the “extra”, the extra is part of the price.
• Every complaint counts. Fans sent in 68,000 reports in five weeks, and that’s how the 170 resellers were found.

The bots aren’t gone. But for the first time, beating fans to the ticketing page and then charging them ten times the price can cost scalpers more than they made.

Legal analysis of K-pop, told as stories. General legal information, not legal advice.

Sources:

• The Korea Times, 28 Aug 2026: Korea’s new anti-scalping rules
• The Korea Times, 7 Oct 2026: 170 resellers referred to police
• Malay Mail, 18 Sep 2026: scalper indicted over 8,967 tickets
• The Star, 29 Aug 2026: woman referred over 2,600 K-pop tickets

I bought changja and kkaenip kimchi at Lotte Dept Store to take to Japan as gifts and am wondering how safe they’ll be if they’re unrefrigerated for possibly as long as 9 hours travel time.

I know with salted and fermented foods, and fully cooked foods in general, Korea and Japan aren’t as uptight as in the US and if these were for myself I wouldn’t worry too much but as they’ll be gifts, I have some concerns.

If anyone has practical experience with this type of thing, would very much appreciate any advice or info.

Cheers and many thanks in advance.

I got muted there for calling out racism. Had a post earlier talking about racism to them had so many people in the comments thread saying such racist things against other countries. Doesn’t only happen there. In the other similar subreddits you can see it often in posts like which country did you not like, guaranteed always racists in the comments. Hate when it happens to them but when they do it it’s different. Often racist towards East Asians and foreigners. If you find the posts and comments you will get auto-removed in their safe space. Fighting racism with racism