The Passenger: South Korea

Fully-illustrated, The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, art and reportage from around the world. 

IN THIS VOLUME: Hell Joseon by Elisa Shua Dusapin • The View from the North by Lee Hyeonseo • Lessons in Democracy by Jiyoung Choi  • plus: the Samsung Republic and the most militarized border in the world, the real reason why Korean women don’t have children, democracy and K-pop, baseball, esports, and shamanism, and much more… 

From kimchi to TV series, from Oscar-winning films to K-pop, from webtoons to cosmetics, in recent years Korea has captured the global imagination, one viral trend at a time. In this volume, The Passenger sets out in search of the world’s coolest nation. 

Eighty years ago, at the end of a devastating civil war, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world, under constant threat from the Communist regime north of the 38th parallel and completely dependent on the United States for its security and prosperity. Today, it is the world’s tenth-largest economy, a dynamic and innovative country with a per capita GDP similar to that of Western Europe, a lively and participatory democracy that stands up to its larger, more powerful neighbors. And above all, the country is the origin of the hallyu—the Korean wave—which has reached every corner of the world and taken the global entertainment, food, and culture industries by storm. 

This extremely rapid and astonishing transformation has inevitably brought ruptures and contradictions. If the global youth looks to Korea as previous generations looked to Hollywood and New York, young Koreans instead talk about Hell Joseon: a country that is rapidly aging, an economic system dominated by powerful chaebols (family-controlled conglomerates), a fiercely competitive educational system, a generational gap in outlook and behavior and, at the center of it all, the role of women— one of the keys that The Passenger has chosen to try to decipher a complex, fascinating country, central to the dynamics of today’s world, and that is often exoticized and idealized to the same extent.