WOOSUNG DAN SONG

The Summer Enemies  episodes introduce a series of relentless obstacles in the military—each one like a new enemy on the battlefield. The first episode featured invasive plants that grow exponentially, relentlessly and undead, like unstoppable zombies. In many stories or series, there’s a common storytelling pattern where the challenges or threats start off relatively manageable but become progressively more difficult or dangerous as the story continues.  Today’s second episo

I met a zombie in real life.  It is skinny and boney, and has a greenish color. The zombie that I encountered, although it did not bite as usual, is violently aggressive and has plenty of sharp and long thorns that could easily make us injured when we interact with it. The scariest part is that we thought we had annihilated them all with strong chemicals, blades and other strong weapons and returned home, only to find them the next day exactly where we had made them vanish —

(This episode is a continuation of Episode 1: JJAM. For a clearer understanding, it is recommended to read the first episode before proceeding.) When we took out food waste, we always used a handcart, and I remember two types of animals that we saw every time: the first were various species of flies, and the second were groups of cats. Today, I want to talk about the cats—animals that are almost always present in Korean military bases. In the military, we attach the word “jja

A photo of food waste from the military Inside the military, a lot of slang words exist. Today, I am going to introduce one of the most used slang words inside this group, which is “ JJAM, ” which basically stands for food waste. JJAM, however, has more meaning than that. It also refers to a soldier's length of service  or seniority  in the military hierarchy. It’s not about official rank but rather how long someone has served, especially within the same unit or branch. Soldi

For the everyday routine, an hour before soldiers go to sleep, soldiers have to clean their base. Since it's difficult to hire a janitor...