
Understanding Korea, One Story at a Time Podcast· Staffel 1· Folge 44
🎧 A Voice Memo for When the News Steals Your Breath
Donnerstag, 5. Februar 2026 · 23 min
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Shownotes
Editing this episode, I noticed my voice sounds a little different.
Maybe it is because my sleep has been shaky lately, with panic creeping back in at night. Maybe it is because I recorded earlier than I usually do. Or maybe it is simply because this story asks for a different kind of honesty than my usual episodes.
In today’s episode, I share how political despair in Korea first became physical for me during my PhD years, how I learned to live through panic, and what “healing” has looked like for me. Not as a clean before and after, but as something I still work on, even now. And somewhere inside this story, you may also understand why I stayed away from Korea for eight years, and how my husband became the one who cooks for our family.
If you would like to read along, the original essay version (yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/despair-care-finding-…) of this episode is on Substack. It is the same story, just in written form, with a little more space to pause, reread, and sit with certain lines.
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