30 Stunningly Cool Facts About South Korea You Shouldn’t Miss

In 2011, a 39-story building named Techno Mart in Seoul was evacuated after tremors were felt on the top floors. Instead of an earthquake, it was found that an exercise class on the 12th floor was playing Snap!'s “The Power”, which happened to match the building's resonant frequency and caused it to violently shake.

In South Korea, February 14th is Valentine's day where women give men presents. March 14th is White Day where men give women presents. April 14th is Black Day where single people gather together, dress in black, and eat a bunch of food.

BTS, a seven-member South Korean boy band, brings in more than $3.6 billion to South Korea's economy each year and was the reason one in every 13 foreign tourists visited the country in 2018.

It's such a stigma to adopt children in South Korea that women are recommended to wear a maternity pillow to appear pregnant until the adoption is finalized.

In South Korea, men who win Olympic medals do not have to participate in the two-year-long mandatory military service.

In an effort to reduce the high number of suicides on South Korea's Mapo Bridge, it was unofficially renamed the Bridge of Life. It was decorated with positive affirmations and even sympathetic sculptures. Suicides increased sixfold the following year.

In 2014, Christians in South Korea put up a giant Christmas tree that was visible from the North Korean border. The North Koreans claimed it was a tool for psychological warfare and demanded it be taken down. The South Korean defense ministry then claimed that it was dismantled for safety concerns.

When South Korean representatives open the door at the DMZ meeting room for the North, they hold hands to prevent being pulled across the border.

South Korea once sent China thousands of trees to plant in the Gobi Desert to help minimize the "yellow dust" that engulfs the Korean peninsula every spring. Instead, China planted the trees along a highway.

In South Korea to rent an apartment you have to pay a lump sum up to 80% of the value of it. You then live "rent-free" for two years, then get your money back.