I was on the Han River in Seoul, South Korea celebrating a friend’s birthday at a picnic on the riverfront. Like the fourth of July, we had sparklers and giggled as we tried to eat the ice cream cake before it melted in the late summer weather. In a couple of days I would be on a flight back to California to return to Stanford University to be a fifth year senior and co-terminal master’s student.

But when I got back to my aunt’s apartment, she was still awake and glued to the television. Somehow she had CNN turned on…

Residue of a suspicious white powder was found on Son Jung Min’s wallet during the autopsy in the Han River Gate incident to unravel how this 22-year-old medical student end up discovered dead in the Han River five days after he picnicked there with a friend late at night. At first, it was thought it could be drug related. But then, tests revealed it was calcium stearate. Calcium stearate? It’s an innocuous material used as a food additive or a waterproofing agent. The police couldn’t explain how or why it was there. Therefore, like many other ‘inexplicable’ instances in this…

When you’re uncovering someone who’s cheating on you, every clue you uncover turns you into the bad guy for being suspicious. You have to give the benefit of the doubt. Don’t accuse. Forget about it. And then down the line when you’ve probably seen the light, you really have forgotten about the really big zingers that you let go. No, no. We won’t do that with the Son Jung Min case. We’re gonna bring back some of the turkey legs back that everyone else said were chicken wings in Han River Gate. Let’s snack on these.

What’s the first thing…

There’s a new effort to petition the National Assembly of Korea (South Korea’s version of U.S. Congress) to relaunch a scientifically-based investigation into the mysterious death of Son Jung Min and to release the blocked CCTV footage that would reveal the answers to what many believe is a coverup of a wrongful death.

Only Koreans can sign the official petition (scroll down for non-Koreans), which needs 100,000 signatures by September 18. If you have a Korean resident registration number, you can click below to sign the petition. …

There’s a lot more to the glitz and glamor of Gangnam’s club scene. In our on-going series of exposing the truth behind the real story of the Burning Sun scandal, we explore the tight-knit collusion between club owners, police and the MDs. Marketing Directors or “MD”s are the white-glove concierges of the club world in Korea. They also have facilitated the trafficking of ordinary customers against their will through the usage of substances designed to render innocent women unconscious. Beware before you try to fight your way past that velvet rope.

While we’re waiting on the results of the petition…

A presidential candidate and high-profile politician has backed the efforts of Son Jung Min’s family to find the answers to their son’s mysterious death in the Han River earlier this spring.

His name is Hwang Kyo-Ahn. He posted a public message of support on his Facebook page after meeting with SJM’s family last week.

South Korea’s famous club MD’s (Marketing Directors) made VIP rooms and bottle service at Seoul’s hottest nighttime spots an instant reality. But as the economy got tighter and the tastes of the 1% ever so stranger, they were instrumental in changing the business model of the large-scale nightclub like Burning Sun. Instead of focusing on celebrity DJs and packing the club with music-loving patrons, the MDs focused on high rolling VVIPs who wanted to drop thousands of dollars a night for a walk on Seoul’s wild side.

However, these ‘wild thrills’ increasingly involved drugging innocent fellow club customers for sexual encounters.

Burning Sun promoted itself as a super exclusive and expensive club catering…

Big Bang’s Seungri received a three-year prison sentence and a fine of approximately 1 million dollars after being found guilty on all nine charges against him for offenses related to his Burning Sun nightclub. Though he may have deserved a greater punishment for all the lives he helped to destroy, his high-profiled pillory showed us our first truth about the Burning Sun scandal: rich kids.

Without the profligate demand for pleasure by rich kids, the hybrid excesses of Korean nightlife wouldn’t have flourished at Burning Sun. A well-oiled system evolved. …