Articles by Me

My Financial Times TV columns from 1999-2001 are sort of available on this page.

Culture and Politics:

New York Times Op-Ed: How “Past Lives” Changed My Mind About My Relationship. 8 March, 2024

New York Times Op-Ed: In Paris, I Get Judged on What I Speak, Not How I Look. 8 August, 2023

New York Times Op-Ed: I May Have Started a Rumor About K-Pop, and It May Be Ruining My Life, 3 January 2023

New York Times Book Review:  In this Korean Best-Seller, A Young Woman is Driven to Psychosis. 

Politico EU: America ruined pizza, St. Patrick’s Day, and “House of Cards.” Now they’re going to ruin Eurovision

New York Times Op-Ed: Why I’ve Stopped Telling People I’m Not Chinese, 15 May 2020

CNN: K-pop fans deserve credit for tanking Trump Rally. (June 22, 2020)

Washington Post (behind paywall): Korean pop culture is everywhere. And it’s taken on a life of its own. 22 Feb 2020

CNN: ‘Parasite’s’ win is an awesome test of the one-inch barrier of text 10 Feb 2020

New York Times: The Korean Secret to Happiness and Success 19 Nov 2019

Lenny Letter: Kimchi Temper 6 July 2018 (Note: After Lenny Letter’s dissolution, my byline was removed and all articles were attributed to “Elizalde.” I can only assume this is because they obliterated the author pages?)*

Lenny Letter: I Love Spam Madly, Deeply, Unironically 21 February 2018 (also inaccurately credited to Elizalde)

New York Times Op-Ed: I Grew Up Around Korean Beauty Products. Americans, You’ve Been Had. 8 Dec. 2017

CNN Opinion: The Age of Vampires Has Given Way to the Age of the Zombies. 31 Oct 2017

Quartz: Unfamous Valley: Why it sucks to be not quite famous 21 July 2017

CNN Opinion: The President who got impeached for being embarrassing 12 March 2017

Lenny Letter: The President and the Ghost Whisperer 25 Jan. 2017​ (also inaccurately credited to Elizalde)

Quartz: Please stop saying the Japanese are descended from Koreans 27 April 2017

Quartz: Sid and Nancy and Me (chosen as one of 10 best personal essays on Quartz for 2016) 12 October 2016

Quartz: 23andMe has a problem when it comes to ancestry reports for people of color 26 August 2016

Wall Street Journal Op-ed: K-Pop Music and the Hallyu Hullabaloo 17 June 2016

Quartz: Justin Timberlake is going to ruin Eurovision 13 may 2016

Los Angeles Times Op-ed Resilience in Paris 13 November 2015

Quartz: Conan O’Brien accidentally exposed the culture gap between Koreans and Korean-Americans 16 April 2016 (one of the 10 most-shared articles on Facebook for that date)

Quartz: How Snoopy helped make ‘Peanuts’ the definitive Sunday comic strip 15 August 2015

Quartz: How I made the leap from being Korean to being Jewish​ 25 June 2015

Quartz: Korea’s newest slogan is Seoul stupid 11 November 201​5

Quartz: Charlie Hebdo’s Gross-out Humor is a Tradition Worth Preserving 15 Jan 2015

New York Times Book Review: Suki Kim’s ‘Without You, There Is No Us 14 Dec 2014

Newsweek UK: Korean Cool Is The Ultimate National Marketing Ploy – Newsweek 8 Aug 2014

Quartz: Tiger Mom is Many Things, but She’s No Racist, 26 Jan 2014

Wall St. Journal Op-ed:  I Got Eyelid Surgery, but Not to Look White 13 Oct 2013

Quartz: Formula One, like soccer and the metric system, is OK for everyone except Americans

The Formula One contestant list is a veritable multinational hodgepodge: Germany’s Sebastian Vettel, the young racing prodigy who claimed his third Formula One victory at… (November 28, 2012)

Women senators hit the porcelain ceiling as a bill for more bathrooms circles the drain

Following the Nov. 6 US elections, there are now an unprecedented 20 women in the Senate, up from 17. This has led to what you… November 15, 2012

Eton: Why James Bond’s and David Cameron’s prep school still makes leaders

A future Prime Minister, spy, and one-handed pirate are amongst these boys.

Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington, upon defeating Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, famously said, “The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing…

Consultant, consult thyself: Why Gaddafi’s former spin doctor, the Monitor Group, filed for bankruptcy

The late Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi had engaged the Monitor Group to help solve his image problem.

It’s not very reassuring when a management consulting company can’t even pay its own rent. The Monitor Group, a highly prestigious American consulting firm until… November 11, 2012

Thank goodness it’s Friday, the day no one will ever read about this story, ever

People get fired on Friday more than any other day—perhaps because bosses hope that by Monday, the… November 09, 2012

Why is American Express paying people to play Halo 4?

Microsoft’s Halo 4, being released worldwide on Nov. 6 (Nov. 8 in Japan), is by far the most expensive game in Microsoft history, and has… November 05, 2012

Proof that Starbucks is the new public utility: Panic erupts when it closes, even during a hurricane

Starbucks strategy: New Yorkers made the coffee retailer a last stop in their gathering of rations.

Weather.com wanted New Yorkers to know about three closures as they prepped for the Hurricane Sandy: subways, schools, and Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks. The coffee chain… October 29, 2012

Kim Jong Il’s endearing hipster grandson gives TV interview, says “like” a lot, calls uncle a “dictator.”

Kim Jong-nam, older brother of current North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, was long considered the embarrassing stupid son of the dynasty, and there’s arguably some… October 19, 2012

What is global climate change doing to our favorite wines?

wine harvest germany feat

This article is part of a series on the 2012 wine harvest and how certain vineyards have been coping with the effects of global climate… October 04, 2012

 

France 24 articles here

Boston Globe: We’ll Always Have East Berlin: Germany’s Strange Nostalgia for Life Behind the Wall 8 Sep 2003

New York Times: Teaching Germany to Grin and Bear Cheerleading 30 November 2003

New York Times: Rise of the New Europe in Euro Pop 26 May 2003

My first-ever op-ed in the mainstream press: WSJ op-ed on Estonian accession to the E.U. 2002

Financial Times: nam june paik guggenheim review 26 Feb 2000

France

 

Finance 

How Does Bitcoin Mining Work?