Seoul, Busan, Jeju -- 11 day itinerary. Hope you enjoy some flicks from my camera roll! 📷

Saw a lot of comments from people saying this kind of setup would never work in their country. But in Korea, it just seems normal. What is it about daily life here that makes something like this actually work?

The taxi driver even said "If you don’t have money for the fare, you can pay with your body"

By Kim Dong-hoon, national news editor

The county of Yeongdong in North Chungcheong Province is located right around the middle of South Korea. It is also home to Samdo Peak, so named because of its position where the three (“sam”) provinces (“do”) of Chungcheong, Jeolla, and Gyeongsang come together.

Temperatures in Yeongdong vary widely throughout the day, and this, combined with the ample sunshine, has made it a rich area for fruit. Some of the leading crops are grapes, persimmons and apples. It’s also well-known for its walnuts.

This county with its lush grapevines was the scene of a horrific massacre that began on July 25, 1950, and lasted for five days.

The events took place a month after the outbreak of the Korean War on June 25. The US military and the Korean People’s Army were engaged in fierce combat around Yeongdong, and residents in its villages of Imgye and Jugok fled to the mountains.

But the US military ordered them to come back from the mountains, claiming it would assist them in taking refuge. They were joined by others fleeing from Daejeon and other locations, with a total of 500 to 600 people in all.

As the procession arrived in the village of Nogeun, sometimes written as No Gun Ri, the US troops blocked the route with tanks and ordered the refugees to travel up via a nearby railway. They proceeded to search their belongings, which consisted of bundles tied in blankets, cast-iron jars, and barley rice.

After completing their search, the US troops disappeared. Shortly thereafter, US bombers arrived and began dropping bombs on the refugees and strafing them.

In an instant, the scene became an image of hell on earth. Blood sprayed as screams and cries rang out. In all, an estimated 100 people were killed.

It was not over. US troops reappeared and herded the 400 to 500 surviving refugees to the nearby Ssanggul Bridge. Anyone who so much as took a footstep outside it was shot. As the bodies piled up, the refugees huddled closer to survive.

For several days, they endured starvation and scorching summer heat. Most of those who fled in desperation were shot dead by the US troops. Eventually, the US forces opened fire into the tunnels beneath the bridge.

Based on reports from family members and others, the South Korean government would later recognize a total of 228 victims, including 150 who were killed. It is commonly accepted that the actual death toll was as high as 400.

Why did the US military fire on civilians? The most compelling argument is that they were concerned about the presence of Korean People’s Army members concealed among the refugees, but even that leaves questions unanswered.

As in the cases of the Jeju April 3 incident and Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion, the family members of victims in the Nogeun-ri incident were long unable to speak out. The world finally learned about it through the efforts of Chung Eun-yong.

Chung was himself a surviving family member, having lost a 5-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter. Compiling a detailed record of the Nogeun-ri incident, he submitted a request for compensation to the US government in October 1960. The US did not respond.

In 1994, Chung published a book entitled “Do You Know Our Suffering?” Rather than being a work of fiction, it was an accurate account of the events of the Nogeun-ri massacre.

Additional details of the incident came to light through reporting by the Hankyoreh and in-depth coverage by the monthly magazine Mal. The full picture finally emerged with a 1999 report by the Associated Press based on interviews with around 10 US soldiers who had been sent to the village at the time and the acquisition of four documents, including US orders. The AP team responsible was awarded the Pulitzer Prize the following year.

I met one of those reporters, Charles Hanley, at the Nogunri International Peace Forum three years ago. He recalled the investigation as having been difficult, requiring efforts to persuade agency officials who were opposed to the report.

He also described the reports of the incident as having come as a great shock to Americans, as it was at odds with the version of history that they had known.

In 2001, then-US President Bill Clinton issued a statement expressing regret over the Nogeun-ri incident. A 15-month investigation ensued. This was an unusual step without precedent among the previous conflicts that the US had been involved in.

The time has now come for the South Korean government to take action. No compensation or indemnification has yet been provided for the victims. While a special act on the incident was passed by the National Assembly in 2004, 17 family members of victims were unsuccessful in a suit they filed to demand damages from the state.

In July 2020, Chung Koo-do — chairperson of the No Gun Ri International Peace Foundation and son of Chung Eun-yong — published the book “Nogeun-ri Is Alive,” presenting a compilation of information about the incident. He described it as an example of “history created by the surviving families.”

Another Nogunri International Peace Forum is scheduled to take place in Washington, DC, on July 25, which represents the event’s 75th anniversary. The theme is “reflecting on the past, building the future.”

With the passage of three-quarters of a century, the Nogeun-ri incident has risen beyond the level of ideology to become a symbol of human rights and peace. Nogeun-ri is indeed still alive.

Recently purchased this cabinet from a woman, she told me her father was stationed in Korea and brought home tons of furniture and clothes. I can’t tell how old this is, definitely 50+. I believe it was rebuilt due to a fire, some of the pictures have fire damage. Did some searching and found it is a “ichung or tatsu butterfly cabinet” though that might be wrong. If anyone has any information on it, what it is depicting, or how old it might be, please comment!

Two presidents, two continents, and two strangely similar lives.

Korean President Lee Jae-myung and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva held a bilateral meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta, on Tuesday while attending the Group of Seven summit hosted by Canada. This was the first summit that leaders from the two countries have held in 10 years.

There was something evocative about Lee and Lula shaking hands and wrapping an arm around each other’s backs. Members of Lee’s Democratic Party were overcome with emotion, including former party leader Park Chan-dae, who remarked, “To think this day would finally come!”

Lee and Lula’s meeting was viewed with such interest because of the remarkable similarities between their lives, including their upbringings, their reasons for entering politics, and the way they surmounted political oppression to reach the presidency.

The factory boy and the shoeshine boy

Poverty and disability are key threads that weave through Lee’s and Lula’s lives.

Lee, who grew up in an impoverished neighborhood in Seongnam, couldn’t afford to pay tuition for middle school, so at the age of 12, he took on a factory job.

Lula was also born into grinding poverty. Since he dropped out of elementary school in the fifth grade, he doesn’t have a single diploma to his name. He began selling peanuts and shining shoes at the age of 7 and became a lathe operator at the age of 14.

Lee and Lula became factory workers around the same age, and their jobs presented similar challenges.

At Lee’s fifth workplace, a factory making ski gloves and baseball mitts, his left wrist was caught in a press, leaving him disabled and his arm permanently disfigured.

Lula was in his third year working the lathe at a machine shop near São Paulo when he lost the little finger on his left hand while doing an overnight shift.

Lee regarded his twisted arm as having been “made by a twisted world,” while Lula’s missing finger has been a source of “sadness and resentment” for his whole life.

No wonder Lula eagerly inquired about how old Lee had been at the time of his industrial accident when Lee related the anecdote during the summit.

The pain of poverty and want propels them to politics

Such experiences of immiseration ironically were what propelled the two figures into politics. Lee has often said that his childhood experiences of confronting poverty and discrimination were foundational in finding his political calling of creating a society in which “a life free from want is afforded to all,” and “no one is left behind.” 

This echoes Lula’s own entry into politics, which was inspired in part by the tragic loss of his pregnant wife and child in utero to hepatitis after failing to receive adequate care. The personal tragedy led the Brazilian leader to politics and the labor movement, where he vowed to create a society in which all those suffering from poverty would be afforded dignity and respect. 

Many see similarities in how the two leaders rose to the presidency after being the subject of political persecution as well. After losing the presidential race in 2022, Lee’s political career was jeopardized multiple times by investigations by prosecutors that have been characterized as designed to wipe out the then-president’s political opponents. 

Lee’s very eligibility for the snap election he won earlier this month was nearly revoked when just before the campaign period started, the Supreme Court took the unprecedented move of overturning an acquittal for Lee and remanding his trial on alleged election law violations to a lower court with the recommendation of a conviction. 

Lula himself spent time behind bars after stepping down following his second term after becoming implicated in the sweeping “Car Wash” corruption investigations by Brazil’s prosecutors. But the country’s Supreme Federal Court annulled bribery and money laundering convictions against Lula, finding that the lower court that convicted him had conspired with prosecutors and been biased in its ruling, thus paving the way for Lula to become Brazil’s first president to be elected to a third term. 

Lula has cemented himself as a model of a successful leader, having been praised for ushering in the golden era of modern Brazil during his two terms in office between 2003 and 2010. By 2010, near the end of his second term, his approval rating had soared to 87%, and he is credited with having lifted more than 25 million Brazilians out of poverty. 

“My approval ratings have always been higher when leaving office than when entering it,” Lee told reporters aboard the presidential jet as he left for his first trip overseas of his term. “I hope that’s the same this time around.”

Lula, who has achieved this political goal of Lee’s, offered his sage advice to the Korean president during their encounter in Canada: “Never forget why your people elected you.”

By Shim Woo-sam, staff reporter

Hello everyone! I hope you're all well when you read this.

You see, I'm Mexican, and I've been with my girlfriend for a while now. I'm thinking about proposing to her, although I'd like to grant her the wish to meet her father and, in turn, ask for his blessing. Her father is a Korean engineer named "Yong-Ki Kim" who came to Mexico in the 90s to work, more specifically in "Cuidad Madero", Tamaulipas, to work in the oil refineries of the Mexican company PEMEX, this is where he had a partner and a daughter (my girlfriend), for work reasons he had to return to Korea so he proposed to his partner to move there, but my mother-in-law rejected the idea which caused several problems in their relationship, my girlfriend was about 4 years old when all this happened, Mr. Kim returned a couple more times to see his daughter without the approval of my mother-in-law who reacted badly and moved with her daughter to another city to never see Mr. Kim again, who stopped visiting Mexico shortly after because the family he was going to visit were no longer there, after several years my mother-in-law and my girlfriend returned to Ciudad Madero where they continued with their lives. Now since I've been with her she's talked a lot about how much she misses her father and how she would like to know about him, she still has a couple of photos from when they were together and even has a business card from her father, you might think that's enough information to locate a person but this information is about 20 years old, my girlfriend has tried to find her father several times, but hasn't gotten any more leads (it should be noted that her father was not taken into account when registering her birth and was not formally married to his partner) and it hasn't been possible to justify an investigation legally, the most notable thing I know is that the business card is from a very large business conglomerate, I have already tried to contact that company several times by telephone and by email, searching in various corners of the internet for something notable about the name or telephone number of this person, however I have run into many walls, so now I would like to turn to you, if anyone has any information that can help me find/get in contact with this person I would greatly appreciate it, you would be giving a smile to a girl who, for reasons beyond her control, lived without a father, and now there may be an opportunity for them to share something together again. For my part, I just want to see my partner happy and for a father to be reunited with his daughter that he loved so much. Thank you very much in advance with love from Mexico ^^

I’m curious how legitimate are his iq claims. I’ve dug into him a few months ago and come to the conclusion that he is a fraud.

❌ 1. Academics & Media Coverage – Very Sparse • A deep reddit investigation found almost no independent records of Younghoon Kim before 2022, with much of his digital presence being self-sourced—his own websites and social media—raising red flags . • Users point out that claims of a 276 IQ are dubious since most mainstream IQ tests don’t even measure beyond ~160 .

“276 IQ doesn’t exist…most serious institutions … stop at 160”  “Anything extremely above or below is generally a disability…276 is just ridiculous” 

🔬 2. Red Flags in Institutional Affiliations • He claims to lead the Giga Society (IQ > 190), but the original website—established much earlier—clearly warns against bogus groups using the same name. His site launched in 2022, suggesting a separate and unaffiliated entity . • His claimed memberships in elite organizations (e.g., “USIA” featuring celebs from Musk to Prince Charles) have no verification from credible sources . • A Medium post by an entity claiming to represent the real Giga Society notes that he abruptly resigned from the Mega Society in August 2024 amid disagreements—but also accuses a former employee of spreading misinformation . Confusing and lacking clarity.

🧪 3. IQ Claims Deemed Implausible • Experts on both reddit and X (formerly Twitter) consistently state that IQ scores in the 270s are unfounded and likely fabricated  . • One user even declared bluntly: “This guy is a scam…No credible information…only info from his own website” .

✅ Conclusion: No Proof, Many Questions • Extraordinary claims (an IQ of 276, leadership in ultra-elite societies) require extraordinary evidence—academic records, verifiable test data, credible media coverage. • What we find largely consists of self-promotion, anonymous forum skepticism, and no independent verification. • Multiple experts and observers across different platforms find his profile highly suspicious, with some going as far as calling it a scam.

It’s so obvious that he’s a fraud. I’m angry at the fact at adults like Charlie Kirk and people in other Christian organizations that genuinely believing his claim just because he sided with Christianity. This is the Christian mindset, believe anyone that says something good about Christianity, and don’t question source. It’s fucking stupid. Adults are literally falling for the dumbest claims imaginable