South Korea is mired in contradictions when it comes to abortion. Abortion there is illegal, and has been since 1953 for all cases except rape, incest, or severe genetic disorder—and last year South Korea’s highest court upheld the ban. But for six decades abortions have been common and cheap, costing only about $200.

Three days before fall semester at the University of California–Los Angeles began, a student group fair gave campus organizations recruiting opportunities. Between booths representing Feminists on Campus and UCLA Republicans, representatives of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship—which is half Asian-American—passed out fliers about upcoming events. Meanwhile, Korea Campus Crusade for Christ (KCCC) members huddled in a group praying for God’s guidance in their evangelical mission. 

Within the last decade, awareness of eating disorders has exploded, and pictures of women with spines jutting out like spikes and arms hanging like rails have become common. If Angelina Jolie shows up with veiny arms, tabloids speculate about her weight. The disease fills gossip columns, but the deeper stories remain misunderstood. I’ve gone into five of those stories. 

The Korean pop music industry (K-pop) is booming (see “Pop religion” in the current issue of WORLD). Although the tightly choreographed and heavily produced style is hugely popular in Asia, it has been slow to catch on in the United States.

Nine young women in sleek leather outfits and high-lace boots, porcelain faces winking and glowering, sing in Korean before breaking into an English chorus: “We bring the boys out, yeah. B-bring the boys out.” 

LOS ANGELES—Suh first heard the word God in Korean—ha-na-nim—from his 70-year-old grandmother when he was about 12. It was a word seldom uttered in North Korea, where media portrays American missionaries as evil white devils and Bible possession is punishable by death.

LOS ANGELES—Interstate Highway 405 in Southern California usually fumes with car exhaust and the resigned temper of Angelenos who bake inside their barely inching cars.

But this weekend, a 10-mile stretch of one of the nation’s busiest freeways stood eerily empty as the city closed it off for construction work. While city officials and residents had worried of the closure’s impact on the rest of the city—250,000 motorists drive on the freeway each day—most drivers seemed to heed warnings and either stayed local or took other freeways.