In April, I reclaimed my Korean citizenship after losing it as a child.
I wrote about the experience, and what being Korean means to me, for the
@washingtonpost
:
personal news: I’m now a breaking news reporter at the Washington Post in Seoul! I’m thrilled to be joining the Post and, as an adoptee, to be back in Korea 🇰🇷
The Washington Post names
@hj257
@bybryanpietsch
@RachelPannett
breaking-news reporters for its Seoul news hub. Launching this summer, along with a base in London, the hub in Seoul will be staffed by a team covering live news for a worldwide audience.
South Korea, which just started widespread vaccinations this summer, has surpassed the United States for the portion of its population that has received at least one dose
Some personal news: I'm moving to DC!
After 2+ years in Seoul -- establishing our hub here, (re)acquainting myself with Korea and learning so much from fabulous colleagues and friends -- I'm looking forward to joining our team in the newsroom.
Last night at a restaurant in Itaewon after celebrating my birthday, my friends and I were accosted by a Korean man who yelled anti-LGBT slurs at us and tried to start a physical confrontation. We eventually got rid of him but the episode lasted for about 20 minutes... (thread)
I spoke with Asian students at ASU who say they're facing jokes, stares and isolation on campus after the coronavirus was confirmed there.
Latest for
@businessinsider
:
I spoke with an epidemiologist to find out the risk levels of everyday activities.
Takeaways:
- Bars "should not be allowed to reopen"
- Outdoor dining is actually low risk if tables are distanced
- Having friend/family gatherings is really risky
NEWS: Korea's KDCA just told me that a process for foreigners to register their foreign vaccinations will be finalized "within this week" and that those people will then be able to get a booster here.
More details to be announced Thursday.
.
@USEmbassySeoul
with 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇨🇦🇳🇿🇮🇳 embassies has asked 🇰🇷 gov for urgent recognition of foreign nationals fully vaccinated overseas. They should have same access rights to public facilities as those Korean nationals fully vaccinated overseas.
Mark Herring, the attorney general, requested records going back as far as a decade after two officers were involved in a traffic stop during which a Black U.S. Army lieutenant was pepper-sprayed.
latest
@nytimes
personal news: today is my last day at the
@nytimes
, so wanted to say thanks to the countless editors and reporters who made my past year here such a great one. covering the good, the bad and the weird for the NYT has been such a privilege.
Some *personal news* to share:
After a few stints in DC while taking classes full-time online, I'll be graduating from
@Cronkite_ASU
&
@WPCareySchool
next week...
...and in January I'll be starting as a business news fellow at
@businessinsider
in New York!
“You can see red coming up the mountain” near the lake, she said. “It just looks like the end of the world.”
Helicopters Rescue About 200 Trapped in California Wildfire (latest for
@nytimes
with
@Christina_M18
@aimee_ortiz
)
phrases that i wrote in the nytimes today:
- "rubber-chicken bongs"
- "he gyrates on Satan’s lap"
- "offered their blood for a new line of shoes"
- "an apology cuts to a lap dance scene"
The restaurant owner tried to get him to leave but to no avail.
We would have called the cops -- except for the lack of an anti-discrimination law, which is currently stalled here.
Once a niche movement, the nomadic lifestyle is going mainstream. For longtime vanlifers, that means fewer parking spaces and more trash, but the potential for positive changes.
latest for
@nytimes
For members of the world’s largest diaspora of adoptees, returning to the country of their birth was a rite of passage — until the coronavirus pandemic changed everything. Some found a way to make the trip anyway.
my latest for
@nytimes
some personal news: I moved to Denver to work remotely here through the end of the year.
I'll be doing a lot of hiking and biking (once the fires stop) but if you have any takeout favorites or socially-distanced things to do here let me know!
A shipment of 3M masks was bound for Germany, but diverted to the US.
A German official called the move "an act of modern piracy."
(via
@businessinsider
)
When I started journalism school my only goal was to get a story in the print edition of my hometown newspaper, the
@StarTribune
.
They ran my Squid Game story, per a photo from my mother, so it looks like I’ve finally accomplished that goal!
Today marks one year since I moved to Korea (and almost one year since the launch of the
@washingtonpost
Seoul hub)!
It was rough at first, but I’m so happy to have made the jump — and to have become a 한국 사람 🇰🇷
(Pics: Namsan, July 2021 ⏩ traveling this week)
He called us f*ggots and n****rs and told us we were disappointing our parents, etc.
He put his hands on my male and female friends, and threatened to punch us.
Luckily, he was outnumbered so I didn't feel as physically vulnerable as I would have alone...
Expats in Korea who were vaccinated abroad and have their vax registered with local health center and in the COOV app are exempt from quarantine just as those vaccinated in Korea are, a KDCA worker just told me on the phone. Woo!!
The allegations against Yoo Ah-in, who has earned fans around the world not only for his acting but also his outspoken nature on societal issues, have revealed a divide between South Korea and much of the West in how drug use, addiction and mental health are viewed.
My latest:
Yoo Ah-in, who stars in globally popular films and Netflix series, faces drug abuse allegations as South Korea grapples with the realities of "idol" culture.
Many mornings in Seoul, I wake up bracing for news alerts about all the bad things that happened in the US while I was sleeping.
Today was one of the worst — because after Buffalo, California and the other recent mass shootings, I wasn’t shocked. Just tragically disappointed
At the March on Washington,
@TheRevAl
:
"Mr. Trump, look right down the block from the White House — we’ve come to Washington by the thousands. We’ll never let America forget what you’ve done.”
On a trip this spring, I fled an Airbnb because the host was verbally abusive. I checked out per customer support’s advice, but was left to pay the full bill because Airbnb said I should have canceled the booking; support said they were taking care of it. Maybe fix BS like this?
In *personal news* I’m moving to DC next month for my internship in
@Reuters
’ Washington bureau! I’m super excited for this opportunity and to be back in DC 🤩
South Korea is among the highest-ranked countries in Asia for press freedom, according to
@RSF_inter
. Ranks one spot below the US; only behind Taiwan in Asia.
News orgs like WaPo & NYT set up bases here in part bc of that freedom. Now this:
Now in English. It's deeply disturbing how the Yoon Suk-yeol presidency is seeking to restrict media freedom in South Korea, citing "national interest".
The only interest at stake here is his.
Itaewon is a special place for many people, namely foreigners and Seoul's LGBT community.
The tragic deaths of 156 people have left Itaewon grappling with the enormity of loss on its streets, but also with how to move forward.
from me and
@hj257
"No one is too important to disregard guidance to self-quarantine pending test results."
Rand Paul's colleagues are calling him out for reportedly going to the gym after being tested for the coronavirus
@businessinsider
This chart is really startling: Cases in Louisiana are higher than at any point in the pandemic.
Higher than the winter surge.
The difference? Now you can walk in anywhere and get a vaccine. Truly troubling to see
took a break from the news yesterday to volunteer on a little farm outside of Seoul 🧑🏻🌾
(was quaint but also very warm and fragrant in the green onion greenhouse lol)
Super grateful to be awarded the 2019
@ProPublica
Diversity Scholarship! I’ll be representing
@Cronkite_ASU
in New Orleans at the
@nlgja
conference in August. Excited to meet some fellow
#LGBT
journos!
am coming to terms with the fact that summer in Seoul is just constantly staying indoors because of 1) monsoon rains 2) intense humidity 3) intense heat 4) poor air quality or 5) a combination of those things
I was the student who reported this man. He chased me down a hallway and demanded I give him my personal information because of a misunderstanding about an equipment policy. He tracked down my professor whose class I was in at the time of the incident —
went to a skin clinic in Gangnam today and saw this posted on the door: “all foreign nationalities” will be denied entry due to covid-19 risk…
Korean xenophobia strikes again!
(needless to say even though I’m no longer a “foreigner” I did not go in)
For
@washingtonpost
, I'm looking to speak with Itaewon residents, business owners or frequent patrons of dining, nightlife or other businesses in the area.
What does Itaewon mean to Seoul? How will the tragedy impact Itaewon?
Reach out by DM or bryan.pietsch
@washpost
.com
saw a movie for the first time in korea and my observations were
1) wow the AC isn't blasting like in the US
2) wow i'm not afraid of getting shot like in the US
For Pride this year,
@gracesoyeonmoon
and I spoke to 6 members of Seoul's queer community, from an activist to a drag queen to a gay-bar owner, to show what it's like for LGBTQ people in a society largely opposed to them.
a year ago i woke up in salt lake city after leaving new york with no idea what the next year would be like...
and today at a grocery store in windsor, CO i got my first dose of the vaccine. surreal.
The newest public park in Florence, Oregon? Exploding Whale Memorial Park — it commemorates the 1970 explosion that rained chunks of rotting whale flesh on curious bystanders, and even crushed a nearby parked car.
Healthcare workers battling the coronavirus would have their public and private student loans forgiven under a new bill from
@RepMaloney
.
New for
@businessinsider
:
A group of black businessmen is speaking out after a white VC in a Minneapolis gym threatened to call the police on them:
"In this day and age when you're black, he knew exactly what that meant," Abdi Hassan told me.
Latest for
@businessinsider
:
When you don’t speak Korean and the Korean shoe salesman doesn’t speak English, so you converse in Spanish while shopping for boots at a department store in Seoul
so ASU’s president just sent a university-wide email that’s just an audio file and it’s a statement about the university’s coronavirus plan
excuse me but sending an audio file with no context is very dystopian and a lil freaky
my secret American expat craving is Arby's... it's OK to say you miss Chick-fil-A and Chipotle (which I do also) but the reaction I get from people when I say I miss Arby's is pure revulsion
end the Arby's stigma !!
after such a weird year it’s still kinda incomprehensible to me that i lived in four different places during 2020
but in lieu of a thread of my stories, here are the four lives i lived this year
can we come up with a one-word term for 'the economic fallout from the coronavirus' like 'coronacession' or something... so we can stop saying 'the economic fallout from the coronavirus' ?? asking for a friend
i understand restrictions are lifted but it still feels so weird seeing people on instagram out at restaurants clinking wine glasses with each other... it feels like we’re living in two separate worlds
The story behind Mount Rushmore: whose faces were almost put there, its creator's ties with the KKK and why some are calling for the monument to be closed.
new for
@nytimes
with
@JaceyFortin
the scene outside Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon this morning. Police swept the alley for evidence. Litter everywhere. Seems that some of the clothing and other belongings I had seen last night on the street were picked up