How K-pop Stars Are Leading Vital Mental Health Conversations

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Coincidentally, it’s also Mental Health Awareness Month. And while the latter designation draws attention to the benefits of taking care of our overall well being, mental health care traditionally has been overlooked by Asians – a mindset that experts say has trickled down to Asian Americans.

‘Vincenzo’ and adoption myth entrenched in Korean society

“Having been raised using Korean in her family, a Korean American journalist said that she still struggled to speak Korean fluently, and this experience led her to question why Korean entertainment writers and consumers failed to question improbable stories, such as that of ‘Vincenzo,” Lee Kyung-eun — the director of Human Rights Beyond Borders — wrote in her OpEd piece. The journalist she is talking about … is me.

“Squid Game” Is a Social Allegory Informed by Korean History

“Squid Game” is not this year’s “Parasite,” so much as it is a satire in the vein of “A Modest Proposal.” Just as Jonathan Swift pointed out the abject brutality of telling the poor to satiate their hunger by eating healthy, plump babies, Hwang depicts the cruelty of lording a huge sum of money – literally – over desperate people’s heads, knowing that most will die as they lived: penniless.