EpicKor on YouTube
Five- to eight-minute stories built from Korean-language sources. Each one has a written guide on epickor.com with the numbers, prices and links. Subscribe on YouTube
8 min
A Korean wedding can start at noon, have its guests eating lunch by half past, and hand the same spot to a different couple an hour or so later. The cash envelope, the ledger at the desk, the 30-minute ceremony and where the money goes — from Korean survey, consumer-agency and census numbers.
6 min
One apple in a Seoul market can cost about four dollars. That is not a tourist price.
6 min
The biggest Korean film of 2010 was called Ahjussi — in English, just "Mister" — and its star, Won Bin, was thirty-two. Its female counterpart, ajumma, ranked as a more hated way to be addressed than ahjussi in a 2022 survey of 1,652 young Korean part-timers.
6 min
In March 2016 a Myanmar national collected about 1.15 million dollars from Korea's lotto.
7 min
Soju was 35% alcohol in 1924. Today's best-selling bottle is 15.7%, and it costs more than it used to.
6 min
Korea publishes its prices. Implants, exchange fees, hotel rooms — the numbers are public, they are just not in English, and that gap is where tourist prices live.
5 min
In Korea the scissors come to your table. Not in the kitchen — in front of you, over your dinner.
7 min
Seoul has exactly two cafés for every convenience store. Korea has more coffee shops than the United States has Starbucks.