Is this the Korean century? From K-pop hits to kimchi, beauty products to cinema, South Korean culture has conquered the world. But the picture at home is more complicated.
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K-pop - Short for Korean pop. Pop music originating from South Korea.
Hiatus - A pause or temporary gap.
Genre - Category of art, music or writing.
Oscar - The popular name for the Academy Awards, referring to the gold-plated statuette of a medieval knight given to winners.
Nobel prize - One of a set of prizes, laid out in the will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, given each year to people who "have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
Tumultuous - Difficult and constantly changing.
Feminist - Someone who calls for women's rights and equality of the sexes.
Martial law - The temporary suspension of civil law and its replacement with direct military control of society and its institutions.
Impeached - In the USA, formally accusing a public official of misconduct whilst in office. Three presidents - Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump - have been impeached by the House of Representatives. In all three cases, the Senate voted not to remove them.
Cold War - A period of diplomatic conflict between blocs led by the USA and the USSR that lasted from 1947 until 1991, when the USSR collapsed.
North Korea - A country formed in 1945 when Japanese-occupied Korea was split between a Communist government in the north and a capitalist one in the south. Today it is extremely reclusive, and hostile to the West.
