The Dark Side of Seoul Podcast

Topics Discussed Insa-dong as one of Joe and Shawn’s first experiences of SeoulHow the neighborhood has changed since the early 2000sTraditional Korean incense and surviving specialty shopsThe hidden ...

17 Aug 2h 12min

Topics Discussed Nami Island’s origins, General Nami and the false tomb, Korea’s domestic tourism boom, Winter Sonata and the early Korean Wave, K-drama tourism, artist Kang Woo-hyon’s transformation ...

10 Aug 29min

Tourist brochures rarely tell the whole story. In this Tourist Season replay, Joe and Shawn revisit one of the podcast's most popular travel episodes, uncovering the wars, massacres, murders, ghost st...

2 Aug 1h 50min

This week kicks off our summer rerun series, digging up the best tourism episodes from the archive while we take a break from new true crime deep dives. First up: 141, Tourists from Hell. Years of run...

21 Jul 1h 26min

Episode Summary A father and his four children were found dead in their home in Ulsan after months of severe financial hardship. While the case was ruled a murder-suicide, the discussion quickly expan...

10 Jul 34min

Dark Side of Seoul Podcast Episode 316 The Weird Science Behind Korean Food Nationalism   Episode Description A 2023 paper published in the Journal of Ethnic Foods argues that Korean cuisine developed...

4 Jul 46min

Send us Fan Mail After the release of his book Supernatural Encounters in South Korea, one of the comments Shawn received surprised him. Several readers expected a book about ghosts to be written by a...

17 Jun 1h 4min

Send us Fan MailSouth Korea just held its 9th nationwide local elections on June 3, 2026, and what should have been a routine referendum on President Lee Jae-myung's first year turned into a genuine m...

9 Jun 1h 2min