Journalist
Han Jun-gu · Yoo-Na hyun
jungu141298@ajupress.com
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In South Korea, campaigns move indoors SEOUL, May 29 (AJP) -The streets used to shake. Candidate trucks blaring jingles, jackets every color of the rainbow, rallies spilling across every intersection. Growing up, elections were the noisiest thing Korea did. You knew one was coming before you checked the calendar — you could hear it. That was then. Now, with 4,227 seats on the line — governors, mayors, district chiefs, council seats, education offices — and a clutch of by-elections for lawmakers alongside the June 3 local vote, the campaign is louder than ever. You just can't hear it on the street. Seongsu-dong, a neighborhood of converted factories turned coffee shops, on a Thursday morning: a single row of candidate posters lines a brick wall between a specialty roaster and a nail salon. Nobody stops. Two women walk past without a glance. In the old playbook, this wall would have been fought over. The real war is happening in vertical video. Candidates produce Reels and Shorts the way they once printed leaflets — daily, disposable, precisely targeted. Ko Geum-ran runs a YouTube live channel. Lee Jae-jeong drops Shorts. Oh Se-hoon has a channel. Yong Hye-in has a dance challenge. Candidates who once measured success by how many hands they shook now track watch-time and comment sentiment. Young voters don't read the platform documents first. They watch the Shorts. Then they read the comments. A single slip in a debate becomes a clip in four hours. TV Hongka Cola — Hong Joon-pyo's long-running YouTube channel — pioneered the long-form political format that turned a politician's off-script moments into recurring content. The lesson was not lost on rivals. Every candidate now has someone in the room whose only job is to watch for the moment that will live forever as a screencap. This is what politics looks like when it crosses into entertainment. Park Seong-min and Kim Jae-seop — one from the Democratic Party, one from People Power — appeared together on Wavve's reality show Ideology Verification Zone: The Community. A few years ago that would have been unthinkable. Now it's a primary campaign channel. They talked about their daily lives, shared personal anecdotes, and let their guard down in ordinary conversation. For the first time, ordinary viewers could easily encounter the human side of their politicians. Proximity has become the whole strategy. Voters — especially younger ones — aren't just evaluating policy. They're asking: what kind of person is this? Political identity has stopped being an opinion and become a personality trait. Break from your candidate and you risk the group chat. Watching this election from the ground, what strikes me is how closely it resembles a K-pop fandom cycle. Candidate merchandise is collected. Support compilations are uploaded. Opposing fandoms clash in comment sections with the ferocity of stans. The algorithm, not the party machine, decides who goes viral. And yet. Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, a Thursday afternoon. A candidate's team is working a shopping-district corner with the old toolkit — jackets, handheld signs, a small speaker. Three women in their sixties stop and take a flyer. A man in his seventies photographs the banner with his phone. The crowd is almost entirely over fifty. For voters who cannot navigate kiosks or mobile authentication — and in a country where digital literacy drops sharply past seventy — the shift to online campaigning is not democratization. It is exclusion wearing a new brand identity. Banpo, southern Seoul, the morning of May 29. A man in his mid-forties stands outside a convenience store, thumbs working. He is searching for early-voting locations for the June 3 election. He doesn't look up. He finds what he needs. He puts the phone away and walks on. That's the election, right there. Quiet, individual, invisible to everyone around him. More young Koreans talk about politics than they did a decade ago. Whether they understand more is a harder question. What's certain is that the candidate who wins next week will have been decided, in large part, by an algorithm none of the voters can see and none of the candidates fully control. The trucks still drive the streets. The songs still play. But nobody's window is open. 2026-05-29 17:26:44 -
K-pop girl band aespa showcase new album SEOUL, May 28 (AJP) - K-pop girl band aespa showcased a new album at a hotel in southern Seoul on Thursday. Their second full-length album, "LEMONADE," which comes about two years after their first full-length album in May 2024, contains 10 songs including pre-released tracks such as "SHAKIN" and "WDA (Whole Different Animal)" featuring G-Dragon. The album's title track of the same name is an electronic dance tune driven by bold, trendy synth-bass sounds. Other tracks span a wide range of genres including "Switchblade" featuring American rapper Ty Dolla $ign. Upon the album's release, their songs are available on major music-streaming sites as of 1 p.m. 2026-05-28 15:21:05 -
Be aware of hazardous substances in children's products sold online SEOUL, May 28 (AJP) - A slew of children's products purchased online from overseas websites have been found to pose safety concerns, according to a recent inspection. The Seoul Metropolitan Government inspected some 32 children's products including umbrellas, raincoats, clothing, and toys purchased from overseas online platforms such as AliExpress, Temu, and Shein, and found that 10 of them failed to meet safety guidelines set by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources. Many were found to contain hazardous substances including lead, phthalate plasticizers, and nonylphenol, with some exceeding permitted limits by as much as 5.8 times. Safety hazards such as sharp edges and loosely attached umbrella ribs were also identified, prompting the city government to request that the platforms suspend sales of the affected products. The city government plans to conduct another round of inspections next month, along with follow-up measures. 2026-05-28 14:00:03 -
Historic map featuring Dokdo islets to be auctioned next week SEOUL, May 22 (AJP) - Daedongyeojido, a map of the Korean Peninsula, that includes South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo as part of its territory, is slated to go on auction in Seoul next week. According to Seoul Auction in southern Seoul, the hand-colored copy of the map created by famed geographer Kim Jeong-ho will be put up for auction next Thursday, along with about 145 works spanning modern and traditional Korean art, with a combined estimated value of about 10.3 billion won. Divided into 22 foldable sections for portability, the map, known for its detailed depiction of geography, measures roughly 3.9 meters in width and 6.85 meters in length when fully unfolded. "The map has scholarly significance because it includes the islets," said a Seoul Auction staffer, adding that it is historically valuable amid Japan's repeated claims of sovereignty over Dokdo. 2026-05-22 17:45:38 -
Blue zones and EVs: PUBG takes over Seongsu SEOUL, May 22 (AJP) -Seoul’s hip Seongsu district has turned into a real-world battleground — minus the gunfire, but with plenty of blue zones, laser combat and electric vehicles. To mark the eighth anniversary of PUBG Mobile, South Korean game publisher Krafton and Kia launched “Area 8,” an immersive pop-up event stretching across “PUBG Seongsu” and “Kia Unplugged Ground” through May 25. The collaboration transforms parts of Seongsu into a playable extension of the game world, blending PUBG’s survival mechanics with Kia’s EV lineup. At PUBG Seongsu, visitors are greeted by a giant blue-zone air dome modeled after the shrinking combat field familiar to PUBG players. Inside, blue ball pits, obstacle challenges and themed photo zones recreate the tension and chaos of surviving late into a match. Scattered throughout the venue are PUBG props and displays featuring the Kia EV4, turning the electric vehicle into part of the game environment rather than a showroom centerpiece. Nearby at Kia Unplugged Ground, the experience follows the rhythm of a PUBG round itself — landing, looting and combat. Visitors race EV4 RC cars through miniature courses and participate in team laser battles inspired by the game’s firefights, while staff dressed as PUBG’s iconic “Helmet Guy” guide players through missions and activities. The event also turns Seongsu itself into part of the gameplay. A stamp tour linking PUBG Seongsu and Kia Unplugged Ground encourages visitors to move between venues, effectively expanding “Area 8” beyond the walls of the installations and into the neighborhood’s streets and cafes. Rather than presenting cars as static products, Kia’s Kia EV3 and EV4 appear as interactive objects embedded inside PUBG’s universe — part marketing showcase, part urban game map. Staff dressed as PUBG’s iconic “Helmet Guy” character guide visitors through the venues, while Kia EV3 and EV4 models are presented as in-game style objects rather than traditional showroom displays. Visitors can also participate in a stamp tour linking PUBG Seongsu and Kia Unplugged Ground, turning the wider Seongsu area into an extension of the “Area 8” game world. 2026-05-22 16:49:16 -
AWS' annual tech expo in Seoul showcases agentic AI, robotics innovations SEOUL, May 20 (AJP) - The annual tech expo hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) kicked off at COEX in southern Seoul on Wednesday, offering a space to experience the latest agentic artificial intelligence (AI) and physical AI technologies. The two-day AWS Summit Seoul brought together companies from various industries including beauty, media, manufacturing, security and robotics, showcasing their AI solutions, drawing more than 50,000 pre-registrations and about 6,000 on-site attendees. Among the highlights are diverse attractions and hands-on experiences including autonomous delivery robots that transport goods on demand, quadruped robots, gripper robots that autonomously recognize and sort types of waste, and AI-powered skin diagnostics. 2026-05-20 17:40:04 -
Digital hermitage exhibition opens at Seoul's Oil tank culture park SEOUL, May 19 (AJP) - A digital exhibition of Russia's Hermitage Museum, considered one of the world's three greatest museums, is being held at the Oil Tank Culture Park in Sangam, Mapo-gu, Seoul. On Monday, May 18, diplomatic envoys from 31 countries, including Russia, visited the exhibition featuring majestic masterpieces created over centuries. Russian Ambassador to South Korea Georgy Zinoviev emphasized, "What I want to stress is that this project is the first attempt in the history of the Hermitage Museum and the first digital exhibition held overseas." About 30 representative masterpieces selected by the Hermitage have been digitally reborn through cutting-edge technology, marking a significant milestone as the first case combining a world-class museum's curation with digital technology. The exhibition employs ultra-precise scanning technology used in the aerospace industry. The digital works faithfully reproduce the original's materiality and three-dimensionality by precisely implementing brushstrokes, canvas texture, and even color layers. 2026-05-19 18:02:06 -
K-Art: Contemporary art in display at SETEC SEOUL, May 15 (AJP) -The '5th Seoul Art Fair (SAF),' diagnosing the present and envisioning the future of Korean contemporary art, opened at SETEC in Daechi-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The event features 160 gallery and individual exhibition booths with approximately 1,200 artists participating. Beyond a simple exhibition, it presents a new type of art market based on a clear direction of being 'artist-centered.' This year, artists from China, France, Germany, Japan, and other countries have joined to showcase diverse artworks, and a 'K-Art' exhibition promoting the globalization of Korean art is also being held. Visitors can directly communicate with artists, exchange information, and purchase desired works. The fair runs for four days from Thursday, May 14 through Sunday, May 17 at SETEC near Hakdong Station in Daechi-dong, Seoul. 2026-05-16 12:03:08 -
Largest media expo underway in southern Seoul SEOUL, May 14 (AJP) - The Korea International Broadcasting, Media, Audio & Lighting Show (KOBA), which kicked off on Wednesday, runs until Friday. Under the theme of "The AI-Awakened Media Era: Content Connects, Creation Evolves, Convergence Opens," the four-day expo reflects the rapid spread of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technologies in the broadcasting and media industry, such as OpenAI's "Sora," Google's "Veo" and Meta's "Emu Video." About 220 domestic and international companies are participating, setting up about 1,000 booths. Organizers expect more than 40,000 visitors. Major Korean broadcasters and global equipment manufacturers, including Blackmagic Design, Canon, Nikon Imaging Korea, Panasonic and Sony are among the participants. 2026-05-14 16:52:35 -
Clean protest rolls through Seoul as climate activists bicycle to National Assembly SEOUL, May 13 (AJP) - Civic group members staged a bicycle protest on Tuesday urging the National Assembly to promptly revise the Carbon Neutrality Act. The Climate Constitutional Petition Group held a press conference in front of the Constitutional Court in Seoul announcing a 'Climate Bicycle March from the Constitutional Court to the National Assembly' before beginning the march. In August 2024, the Constitutional Court ruled that the Carbon Neutrality Act violated the principle against insufficient protection by failing to include specific carbon reduction plans for 2031~2049, ordering the National Assembly to revise it by February 2026. However, the National Assembly has still not completed the revision despite exceeding the deadline. Civic groups criticized the National Assembly for prioritizing political logic over protecting citizens' basic rights, urging prompt implementation of revisions in line with the Constitutional Court's decision. 2026-05-13 17:16:17