When I first arrived in Korea some two decades ago, the Miracle on the Han River was still an exhausting exercise in Confucian patriarchy. A kind of systemic "No" directed at anything female that dared to deviate from a very narrow, very silent path. Not just in the systemic way academics like to talk about, but in the day-to-day life people experience. I remember standing in Gwanghwamun with Yujin, the summer sun bouncing off Admiral Lee Sun-sin with oppressive clarity, smoking cigarettes. That in itself was a transgressive act for a woman at the time. Holding hands in public with foreigners was also apparently dangerous. She told me, with a flat, terrifyingly pragmatic sort of dread, smoke coming out of her nose: "If anyone looks at us, just keep speaking English. Tell them I’m Japanese." The implication being that a Korea woman smoking in the public square, particularly with a foreigner, was an invitation for some self-appointed guardian of the national morality to berate, threaten, or physically assault. I didn’t want to believe her at first but I caught her tone and quickly u