The formal surrender of Imperial Japan in September 1945 brought not only an end to six years of world war but also led to the division of Korea into American and Soviet zones of control; a Japanese colony since 1910, the Korean peninsula would be administered by two separate regimes until such time that the nation achieved unified self-governance.

As Cold War antagonism grew, however, the efforts of a Soviet-US Joint Commission to forge a federated bureaucratic framework flopped; policy differences between the occupying powers had polarized politics on either side of the 38th parallel.

Unsurprisingly, when the UN General Assembly agreed to oversee the election of Korea’s national assembly, the Soviet Union refused to cooperate; fair elections, Soviet officials argued, could not be guaranteed. A general election was held in the south on May 10th, 1948; the “Republic of Korea” (ROK) assumed control of Seoul in August. Within less than a month, the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (DPRK) had come to power in the north.

And whilst the seemingly madcap exploits of North Korea’s dictators have, over the past half-century, elicited censure from human rights’ experts and chuckles from moviegoers, might the recent history of South Korea not also harbour a few shocking phenomena?

15. Saying Anything “Good” About North Korea is Forbidden

In January 2015, South Korean-born American citizen Shin Eun-mi was deported from her native country for having shared fond memories of a few trips to the north during a series of lectures delivered in late 2014; speaking in Seoul, Shin had praised the taste of North Korean beer and the cleanliness of northern rivers. She also disclosed that many North Korean defectors living in South Korea had expressed to her their wish to return home.

Following a month-long investigation into her “pro-North Korean” comments, ROK prosecutors accused Shin of violating the National Security Act, a 1948 law designed to prevent communist ideas from disrupting state stability. Attempting to get her 5-year travel ban lifted, Shin claims that the Act’s prohibition against “praising, encouraging, or propagandizing” on behalf of North Korea is far too broad: “If anyone says something good about North Korea even though the statement is true, he or she can get into big trouble in South Korea.”

14. One Multiple-Choice Test can Determine your Entire Future

First instituted by the ROK Supreme Council for National Reconstruction in 1962, the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT, or Suneung) is a standardized admission test that, once scored, decides which students will be eligible to enrol in South Korea’s top three universities; attending one of these schools has traditionally guaranteed graduates lifelong employment as either prominent pencil pushers in large business conglomerates or high-level bureaucrats. Poor CSAT results mean that a student will have to attend a less prestigious school, or no school at all, and thus have little choice but to join a less lucrative firm; and, because Korean culture discourages employees from switching companies, ticking off a few wrong answers on test day could completely curtail one’s career prospects. As one 25-year-old South Korean revealed to The Atlantic in 2016, “[m]ost teachers emphasize that if [students] failed Suneung, the rest of [their] lives would be failure, because the test is the first (and last) step to [students’] successful lives.”

13. Seoul is Home to the World’s Largest Megachurch

Established in 1958, the Yoido Full Gospel Church is reputed to be one of the world’s largest Christian megachurches; with a congregation approaching 800,000 followers, this pentecostal assembly’s principal church in central Seoul is said to attract nearly 200,000 weekly worshippers. Sunday services run all day long, from 7:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. In the main sanctuary, sizeable video screens simultaneously translate parts of the service into Chinese, Japanese, and English, while a full orchestra accompanies the crooning of 120 white-clad choristers.

And while only four people attended the Church’s first service, founder Yong-gi Cho’s “prosperity gospel” apparently appealed to those who, as Cho describes, “had no place to go, no job, no income.” On February 20th, 2014, Cho was convicted of tax evasion for having misrepresented the Church’s purchase of shares from Cho’s son at more than three times their market value. The following Sunday, Cho told parishioners what he’d learned: “An individual shouldn’t possess anything.”

12. Adulterers were Punished with Prison

In February 2015, five of nine ROK Constitutional Court justices ruled that a 62-year-old statute punishing unfaithful spouses with up to two years’ imprisonment was unconstitutional; recognizing that the law had often been misused to blackmail married women, the majority opinion stated that, “[people’s] free will and love […] [alone should] decide whether to maintain a marriage.” Family law expert Kim Jung-Beom claims that as other laws now guarantee spouses an equitable distribution of property in the event of divorce, criminalizing an immoral act has, “lost [its] relevance.” Working outside of the home, wives need no longer gain leverage in divorce proceedings by promising to drop charges laid against a cheating spouse.

Market analysts attributed a subsequent rise in stock prices of leading South Korean condom and birth control pill manufacturers to media coverage of the ruling, positing that investors expected infidelity rates to increase. Research conducted by online survey provider Macromill Embrain some six months later confirmed that extramarital affairs had indeed grown more common, especially among women.

11. Some Grandmothers Sell Their Bodies to Retirees

Knuckling under the demands of an increasingly competitive job market, young South Koreans have begun to abandon their Confucian filial obligations and so left many seniors, especially divorced and widowed women, struggling to survive; a report released by the Korea Labour Institute in March 2015 revealed that the poverty rate among elderly South Koreans was the highest of any Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nation. 60- and 70-year-olds who earn little more than $5 USD a day selling energy drinks, so-called “Bacchus Ladies,” have thus sometimes resorted to prostitution. Soliciting in places where elderly men regularly gather to talk politics and play board games, younger “Ladies” can earn upwards of $1,840 USD every month. In a 2015 interview with BBC News, researcher Dr Lee Ho-Sun recounts how one Bacchus woman described her plight: “[She] said to me, ‘I’m hungry, I don’t need respect, I don’t need honour, I just want three meals a day.’”

10. A Small Seaside Town “Welcomes You to Penisland!”

Located in the town of Sinnam on the peninsula’s east coast, Haesindang Park (a.k.a. “Penis Park”) boasts some 50 erect penis statues of varying sizes and styles, at least one reaching up to three meters in height; many of the park’s benches also look decidedly phallic. Following a visit to the park, Australian photographer John Crux admitted to Metro.co.uk that “watching old Korean people hugging penis statues and acting like children [is] quite entertaining.”

This curious collections’ raison d’etre, however, is no laughing matter. As the tragic legend of “Aebawi and Haesindang” recounts, a young wife was once left by her husband on a rock in the sea; he promised to return once he had finished his work onshore. Unfortunately, the weather soured and the woman died. No longer able to catch fish, villagers soon began to fashion wooden carvings in order to placate the woman’s troubled spirit and thereby restore residents’ livelihoods. The fish returned. The faux genitalia had apparently proven most satisfactory.

9. On the Island of Jeju, “Sea Women” are the Breadwinners

Using little more than old-fashioned scuba masks, flippers, and weights, women on the South Korean island province of Jeju spend their days free-diving into frigid, 40-foot deep waters to harvest conch, abalone, and octopus from the seafloor; selling their catch at market, haenyeo (literally “sea women”) generate a majority of household income and, as late as the early 1960s, 60% of Jeju’s fisheries revenue. Haenyeo Museum curator Kang Kwon-yong contends that as men went to sea to fish and fight wars, professional diving became increasingly female-dominated; one 18th-century document records how officials would flog women who failed to pay stiff taxes in dried abalone, a highly valued commodity. However, as tourism and new farming techniques have expanded islanders’ job opportunities, fewer women are willing to, as one old haenyeo ballad recounts, “[toil] in the netherworld” so that their families might “live in this one.”

8. For South Koreans, “Beauty is Much More than Skin Deep”

According to a 2014 report from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, South Korea boasts the highest rate of cosmetic surgeries per capita, a country where nearly 20 such procedures are performed per 1,000 people; in 2009, market-research firm Trend Monitor disclosed that, in Seoul, as many as one in 5 women had undergone the plastic surgeon’s knife. The world’s eighth-largest cosmetics market, South Korea exported some $3.4 billion USD worth of skincare and beauty products in 2016, 8.2% of the global total. Domestic cosmetic brands are also, as The Economist quips, “getting under men’s skin”: young South Korean women commonly gift macho male sweethearts with camouflage face-paint kits and moisturizers while the young men complete their mandatory military service. Estimating that 70% of ROK recruits now use cosmetics, local manufacturer AmorePacific even markets a line of post-training cooling masks.

7. Sightseeing in Seoul? Slide Down to “Poo Heaven” for $5 USD

Delighting both young and old since February 2016, “Poopoo Land” invites visitors to undertake a 30-minute journey through what the Lonely Planet describes as a “simulated digestive system”: after ascending a set of flatulating steps, one can examine the fourth floor’s “intestine experiment” and unearth “Restroom Secrets” on the third floor. Thrill seekers can also explore the attraction’s dung-themed obstacle course. Following their final descent into “Poo Heaven” as (ahem!) bodily waste, guests can purchase poop-inspired candies and cosmetic sponges from the “Poopoo Land” gift shop. To be fully “excreted” down the length of the attraction’s steep slide, however, one must be at least 130 centimeters tall; children under four years of age are permitted.

6. “Sit and Think” in Mr. Toilet’s House

A 24½-foot-tall toilet bowl, the Suwon residence of World Toilet Association founder and former mayor Sim Jae-duck easily dwarfs the squatting bronze figures of the surrounding “Restroom Cultural Park.” Named Haewoojae, or a “place to relieve one’s concerns [(SUUURE!)],” the 4,520-square-foot structure is clad in smooth, white-painted steel; and, should one find themselves needing to answer nature’s call, electronic sensors in the home’s showpiece bathroom are programmed to automatically play soothing music. Addressing delegates at a Toilet Assembly in Bali, Sim observed that, “a place of relaxation and purging, the toilet is a place for introspection.”

Born in his grandmother’s outhouse, Sim was nicknamed “Mr. Toilet” and gained notoriety for his tireless efforts to beautify South Korea’s public restrooms. City officials converted Haewoojae into a museum following Mr. Toilet’s death in 2009. As park employee Lee Yeun-sook explained to the BBC‘s Seoul correspondent Lucy Williamson in 2012, “the toilet is not just a toilet; it can be a cultural space.”

5. South Korean Children’s Cartoon Character Dongchimee “Loves Dung Very Much”

Very different from the other Dalki fruit-themed franchise characters, Dongchimee wears excrement on his head and likes to “dung chip” by poking other characters in the butt (i.e., Korean for “cold marinated radish,” the word Dongchimee sounds somewhat akin to the Korean expression for “poop stick”). He collects and experiments with dung, befriends flying laxatives, and teaches children how feces can be used to nourish the soil. Dongchimee also spends most of his time at home creating artwork using feces. At Seoul’s Olympic Park Gate Dalki Cafe, children can slide down a Dongchimee-themed slide, … and no, it’s not a poop shoot!

4. The ROK Flag might Make you Contemplate “Dialectical Monism”

Known as the Taegugki, the ROK flag integrates symbols from two Eastern philosophies on a background colour reminiscent of traditional Korean clothing. Interlocking “celestial” red and “terrestrial” blue spirals, or Taegeuk, represent the balance between competing forces that combine to create the Taoist universe. Red yang energy is associated with light, clarity, and activity, while blue yin energy is related to darkness and passivity. “Dialectical monism” proposes that the world is a unified whole that expresses itself via the complementary polarities of yin and yang. Four Buddhist trigrams surround the Taegeuk and represent the classical elements of heaven, fire, water, and earth, each naturally cycling among the various states in pursuit of perfection. This trigram movement is designed to remind one of how to live in balance.

3. Nearly Half the Population are Surnamed Either Kim, Lee, or Park

While a rise in foreign marriages and immigration has led to the emergence of more foreign-origin Korean names, only three surnames account for 44.6% of the country’s 50 million residents. Until Wang Geon, founder of the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392 CE), began granting surnames to loyal subjects and government officials, last names were largely reserved for royalty. Successful merchants also acquired elite surnames through the purchase of genealogical books (jokbo). As the gwageo civil-service exam required all test-takers to register a last name, jokbo forgery had become common practice by the late 18th century. Provincial nobles often adopted the names of ancient Korean royalty, including Lee and Kim. Places of origin were added to more popular names so as to differentiate between clans.

2. Innocent Defendants may be Ordered to “Re-Enact” Their Crimes

If you’re charged with a crime in South Korea, be prepared to get camera-ready: handcuffed defendants are often compelled to participate in humiliating, ritualistic re-stagings of horrific crimes. The news media are invited to record the event and public notice is given so that spectators can watch, scream, and hurl insults. Korean Bar Association Executive Director Seo Suk-ho states that when “public sentiment stands above the law,” such performances violate civil liberties and provide specious evidence.

When, in 1972, the Chuncheon police chief’s 9-year-old daughter was found raped and strangled in a nearby field, comic book store manager Jeong Won-seob was wrongly convicted of the crime and spent 15 years in prison; recalling his own “reenactment” in 2010, Jeong said that the experience was, “beyond torture: it kills a person two or three times.”

1. Lonesome South Koreans Pay to Watch Strangers Dine Solo

In the Internet phenomenon called Meokbang, a portmanteau of the verb meokda (“to eat”) and bangsong (“on air”), solo hosts satisfy viewers’ appetites by feasting on traditional Korean fare; paying for this privilege, audience members chat with diners in real-time online. In 2014, Afreeca TV Meokbang performer Park Seo-yeon, a.k.a. “The Diva,” averaged a monthly income of $9,400 USD.

Seoul-based Lee Chang-hyun flaunts, crunches, and slurps his food in front of some 10,000 nightly viewers. And while his good looks, dancing, and light-hearted commentary have paid dividends, Lee told the BBC in 2015 that he, “[doesn’t] consider it a job,” stating that he, “give[s] [the viewers] counselling about problems they might have so we have a real relationship.” In a country whose one-person household growth rate is the highest of any OECD nation, Meokbang’s appeal is obvious.

Sources: news.sky.com, npr.org, economist.com, theatlantic.com, theguardian.com