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Sunghee Hwang
For Sunghee Hwang's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Kim, 31, who loaded his family into a homemade wooden boat in May and sailed away from his native North Korea, attends a job fair for North Korean defectors in Seoul while holding a whiteboard that reads "Navigator."
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 6, 2023
North Korean defector plans new life after high-risk escape by sea
Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s, but most go overland.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 9, 2023
U.S. and South Korea condemn North Korean arms transfers to Russia
Antony Blinken's Asian stops follow a whirlwind tour of the Middle East for discussions on the Israel-Hamas war.
A Chinese paramilitary guard stands at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing in September 2017.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 3, 2023
Dire economy prompts mass North Korean embassy closures
The last time the nuclear-armed country dropped diplomatic missions on this scale was in the mid-to-late 1990s.
Zaein, created by artificial intelligence company Pulse9, is one of South Korea's most active virtual humans.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 26, 2023
In South Korea, AI-driven virtual humans go mainstream
Digital humans have been created for some of the country's largest conglomerates, with research indicating the tech could be worth $527 billion by 2030.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol presides over a repatriation ceremony — receiving the remains of South Korean soldiers killed in the Korean War — on Wednesday, the day before the 70th anniversary of the Korean armistice, at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, South Korea.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 26, 2023
Korean War veterans dream of real peace on divided peninsula
70 years on, Korean War veterans say their memories of comrades who died on the battlefields have come back to haunt them as they grow older.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 4, 2023
High-level defection: Why a North Korean diplomatic family chose freedom
Born into an elite North Korean family with ties to the ruling dynasty, Oh Hye Son grew up believing she was "special" — but then she tasted freedom overseas and decided to defect.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 7, 2023
North Korea pledges 'expanded, intensified' military drills
The pledge came at a meeting overseen by leader Kim Jong Un and follows last week"s staging of joint air drills by South Korea and the United States.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 8, 2022
The weakest link? North Korea's crumbling air force
Pyongyang has long condemned joint military exercises by Seoul and Washington, calling them rehearsals for an invasion u2014 but it has appeared especially sensitive to air force drills.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 8, 2022
K-pop, K-drama... K-art. Frieze fair lands in Seoul
Previous Frieze fairs were held in London, Paris and New York, but experts say the South Korean capital was a natural pick for the first Asian edition.

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A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world