Culture

The Party of 48: The World Cup Comes to Everyone

The biggest World Cup ever staged kicked off this week across three countries: forty-eight teams, one hundred and four matches, and a continent discovering what it feels like to host the...

The Year the Oscars Got Angry

A political action thriller about resistance and state power swept the Academy Awards — six trophies, including Best Picture — in a ceremony that felt less like a gala than a statement. The...

Ramadan in Two Cities

I am not Muslim, but Ramadan has structured a dozen years of my life — the rhythm of a fasting city is something you absorb whether you fast or not. In a season when the region holds its...

Koreans in Georgia, Part 6: The Things We Carry

Every immigrant family has a shelf of things that made the journey — a rice cooker, a photograph, a jar of pepper paste with a story. For the final part of my series, I asked the Koreans of...

The Chapel in the Clubhouse

Every major league stadium in America hosts a church service on game day. Chaplains roam locker rooms; Bible studies meet between batting practice and first pitch. The quiet religious...

The Last Winter

Georgia winters are brief, gray, and easy to miss entirely if you spend them waiting for something else. This year, for reasons I can feel but barely explain, I have been trying to pay...

The Halftime Show Is the Main Event

In one week, Bad Bunny won the first Spanish-language Album of the Year in Grammy history and then commanded the Super Bowl halftime stage. The football, a Seahawks blowout, was almost...

The Gulf's Great Education Experiment

Within an hour of my home in Abu Dhabi stand outposts of universities from New York, Paris, and beyond — world-class campuses conjured out of oil wealth and ambition in a single generation....

Under the Lights: Football, Faith, and Friday Nights in Texas

In my corner of Texas, the two biggest gatherings of the week happen on Friday night and Sunday morning, and they are more alike than either would admit. In my first piece for The Argosy, I...

Learning in Translation: What Twelve Years in Abu Dhabi Taught Me About Education

I am Korean. I have spent twelve years in Abu Dhabi, in classrooms with thirty nationalities, three school systems, and no majority. In my first piece for The Argosy, I want to explain what...

Koreans in Georgia, Part 5: Saturday School and the Grammar of Belonging

Every Saturday morning, in a borrowed church classroom outside Atlanta, American-born children of Korean immigrants practice writing a language their parents dream in. For the fifth part of...

The Death of the Monoculture: Why Nothing Is Everywhere Anymore

There was a time when everyone watched the same finale, hummed the same song, and argued about the same movie. That shared cultural weather is gone — replaced by a million private climates....

Why Are the Peanuts Wet? An Ode to the South’s Best Roadside Snack

To the uninitiated, they are a mystery. To Southerners, they are a beloved tradition. A deep dive into the history and culture of boiled peanuts, the official state snack of South Carolina...

Koreans in Georgia, Part 4: From the DMZ to the Deep South

For this part of my series, I had the honor of speaking with an elderly Korean War veteran who immigrated to Georgia decades ago. His story is a powerful testament to a generation that...

Three Chords and the Truth: Trying to Understand America's Country Music

As a Korean teenager who grew up on K-Pop, country music felt like it was from another planet. But living in Georgia, I've learned that to understand the South, you have to understand the...

Koreans in Georgia, Part 3: A Church with Two Languages, One Community

For the third part of my series, I visited a Korean-American church in suburban Atlanta that is facing a profound generational challenge: how to serve both the immigrant parents and their...

Monuments and Memory: Grappling With History in a Small Southern Town

In the center of many Southern towns, there are statues dedicated to the Confederacy. As a newcomer, I wanted to understand the complex and often painful conversation that surrounds these...

The Puzzles and Patterns of a Southern Accent

As a math and puzzle lover, one of the most fascinating challenges of living in Georgia has been trying to decode the unique sounds and slang of the Southern American English dialect.

Koreans in Georgia, Part 2: The New Southern Fusion

The next stop in my series is a restaurant in suburban Atlanta where a young Korean-American chef is creating a new kind of Southern cuisine, one that tells a delicious story of immigration...

Koreans in Georgia, Part 1: Between Two Worlds in a Small Southern Town

For my new series, I wanted to explore the lives of Koreans who, like my family, have built a home in the Deep South. I started with a family who runs a small dry-cleaning business,...

Learning to Slow Down: A Korean Perspective on 'Southern Time'

In Korea, we live by the 'ppalli-ppalli' culture of 'hurry, hurry.' In the American South, I'm learning to navigate a completely different concept of time, one that values relationships over...

A Feast on Newspaper: The Communal Joy of a Lowcountry Boil

This summer, I was invited to my first Lowcountry boil. I discovered a messy, delicious, and joyful Southern tradition that is less about the food and more about the community you share it...

Sunday Morning in Georgia: The Intersection of Faith, Food, and Community

In the American South, the church is often much more than a place of worship. It's the central hub for community life, a role I've come to understand through a unique Korean-American lens.

Finding Seoul in the South: A Culinary Tour of Buford Highway

Just outside Atlanta, a stretch of unassuming highway has become one of the most diverse and delicious food destinations in America. For a Korean living in Georgia, it feels a little bit...

Pimento Cheese and Polite Applause: A Korean Teenager's Guide to the Masters

I went to the world's most famous golf tournament, the Masters in Augusta, Georgia. I discovered a place that is less a sporting event and more a beautifully strange, unchanging world of its...

The Sweet Onion That Won't Make You Cry: A Trip to Vidalia

In Georgia, the peach might be on the license plate, but the Vidalia onion has a special place in people's hearts. I went to the Vidalia Onion Festival to understand the story behind this...

The Power of 'Ma'am': Decoding the Unwritten Rules of Southern Hospitality

Coming from Korea, with its own complex system of honorifics, I was fascinated by the unique and powerful role that words like 'ma'am' and 'sir' play in the daily life of the American South.

Spanish Moss and Ghost Stories: A Weekend Exploring Historic Savannah

Only an hour's drive from Statesboro, Savannah feels like stepping into a different century. My trip with my host family to one of America's most beautiful, and most haunted, cities.

A Delicious Georgia Mystery: Who Really Invented Brunswick Stew?

Both Georgia and Virginia claim to be the birthplace of the iconic Southern dish, Brunswick Stew. I decided to investigate the clues behind one of America's most delicious historical...

Scattered, Smothered, and Covered: Unlocking the Code of the Waffle House

It's a 24/7 beacon of yellow and black, a place with its own secret language. My journey into understanding the most iconic restaurant in the South: the Waffle House.

More Than a Game: My First Friday Night Lights in Statesboro

In Korea, school is for studying. At Bulloch Academy, I'm learning that on Friday nights, the entire town's classroom is the football stadium.