September 1st

South Korea's military exemption list reads like it was written by someone who time-traveled from 1973. Here's who gets released from 21 months of mandatory service. Lim Yunchan, an 18-year-old pianist who won the 2022 Van Cliburn Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. His Rachmaninoff Third made the jury chair visibly cry on stage. Released. He fits the 1973 frame perfectly: European-coded high culture, decisive international placement. Faker, widely treated as the greatest League of Legends player who has ever lived, who didn't even play in the gold medal final at the 2023 Asian Games because he had the flu. Released. A reserve defender on the 2012 Olympics squad who sat on the bench the entire tournament and was subbed in for the final few minutes of the bronze medal match. Released. The press nicknamed him "4-Minute Discharge." A backup shortstop on the 2018 Asian Games baseball team who was leading his league in errors and strikeouts and logged exactly three pinch-hit appearances in the entire tournament. Released. The public backlash was loud enough that the KBO ended the practice of pausing its season for Asian Games breaks the following year. Now. BTS. First Korean album to top the Billboard 200. Four consecutive number one singles on the Hot 100. First Asian artists to win Artist of the Year at the American Music Awards. An estimated $4.65 billion in annual economic effect. One out of every thirteen foreign tourists in 2017 cited them as a reason for visiting Korea. The 1973 frame had ballet. It had the Tchaikovsky Competition. It did not have pop music, because pop music wasn't generating prestige when the list was written. So all seven members served. The categories decide who counts. And the categories were drawn by a military dictator fifty-three years ago.