Lyrics

Look at me

What do you see?

I Have nothing to believe

Look at me

What do you see?

I Have nothing to believe

It’s the end of my hope

I can’t cry, I can’t smile

I can’t smelt the roses around me

There’s no lights in my way

There’s no dreams in my veins

I can’t feel my body now

Remember my days

And how they were insane

Forever in my mind

I’m looking for all the time

And where is the Paradise?

My pain is so alive, alive...

I’m Fine

Look at me

What do you see?

I Have nothing to believe...

I can’t cry, I can’t smile

I can’t smelt the roses around me

There’s no lights in my way

There’s no dreams in my veins

I can’t feel my body now

Remember my days

And how they were insane

Forever in my mind

I’m looking for all the time

And where is the Paradise?

My pain is so alive, alive...

I’m Fine

The Secret and Inspiration

Look at me. What do you see? I learned early on that in South Korea, nobody really looks—they just observe. We are a nation of tall buildings, efficient hospitals, and silent subways where everyone avoids eye contact. I work as a nurse at Severance Hospital in Seoul. I've always known how to recognize pain in others. I've never known how to recognize my own. My husband, Joon-ho, left home three months ago. He said he was in love with another woman. He said it with the same calmness with which someone comments on the winter weather. Since then, the ground no longer exists beneath my feet.

Winter in Seoul is dry and biting. The wind sweeps through the streets of Gangnam as if searching for something to tear away. At night, the neon lights continue to shine, indifferent. The economy grows, people work late, churches are packed on Sundays, Buddhist temples remain silent in the mountains. Everything keeps functioning. Only I have stopped.

I have two teenage children. Min-jae and Ara. They walk around the house as if afraid of breaking something invisible. They speak softly. I respond even less. I lie when I say I'm tired from my shifts. The truth is, I feel nothing. I don't smell coffee, I don't feel the cold on my face, I don't feel the touch of my own skin. "I can't cry, I can't smile." The words echo like a diagnosis.

I remember when my marriage seemed intense. We argued, we laughed, we made plans. Now there's only an empty space in the bed and the shadow of another woman occupying every corner of my memory. Joon-ho left a simple note. He said he needed to "be happy." I stared at that sentence for hours. Where is my paradise? Where is the place where the pain doesn't throb like this? "My pain is so alive, alive…"

The first time, I thought it was just exhaustion. I sat on the bathroom floor, looking at the white tiles, listening to the dripping tap. I thought that if I stayed still long enough, maybe the world would disappear. But it didn't. Min-jae knocked on the door and asked if I was okay. I said yes. The second time, it was a silent dawn. The entire city seemed suspended beneath the polluted winter sky. I watched my children sleeping. They breathed deeply, too young to understand what it means to lose the axis of their own existence. I felt guilty for not feeling anything for them at that moment. Just emptiness. “There’s no lights in my way.”

Today is the third time I sit alone in the living room. The apartment in Mapo is too quiet. The buildings on the other side of the window reflect blue and red lights. My mind is strangely calm. It’s not despair. It’s absence. The phone vibrates. I ignore it. Another vibration. I ignore it again. There are footsteps in the hallway. I hear a male voice calling my name.

It’s Hyun-woo, Min-jae’s friend. Twenty-two years old, an engineering student. He usually helps my children with math. I don’t know how he got in—maybe Min-jae asked him to, maybe he sensed something was wrong. He calls my name again, louder. He knocks on the door. He insists. His voice trembles. There's something almost childlike in his despair. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be seeing this.

He finally enters the room. His eyes scan the space and stop on me. There's no judgment. Only fear. He says Min-jae was worried. That I wasn't answering the phone. That he rushed here by subway. He speaks too fast. I watch him as if he were on the other side of thick glass. He holds my shoulders and says, "Please."

I look at him. At that boy who still believes everything can be fixed if he arrives in time. The silence weighs heavily between us. Outside, the buildings remain illuminated. The city continues to function. Korea continues to chase goals and productivity. Inside the room, there is only his breathing and the emptiness within me.

Look at me. What do you see? Hyun-woo stares at me as if he were holding something about to break. I straighten my face, correct my posture, and let the mask settle back into place. My voice comes out steady, almost gentle.

"I'm fine."

South Korea - Performance

Each country profile presents the most recent data available on a range of indicators relating to the well-being of women and children. Each country profile page is composed of data from multiple sources, depending on the indicator domain. For example, child mortality rates come from the most recent data produced by the UNICEF-led Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME).

SDG indicators related to children

The 2030 Agenda includes 17 Global Goals addressing the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Attached to the Goals are 169 concrete targets measured by 232 specific indicators.

To map and monitor how ambitious and realistic countries’ targets are, UNICEF has created quantifiable country-level benchmarks for child-related indicators for which data are available to measure and monitor child rights on a common scale.

Below is a snapshot of the country’s performance against the 45 child-related SDG indicators, grouping results into five areas of child well-being to provide an overall assessment of how children are doing. Countries are assessed using global and national targets. The analysis provides valuable insights into both historical progress—recognizing the results delivered by countries in the recent past—and how much additional effort may be needed to achieve the child-related SDG targets. This approach provides a framework for assessing ambition as well as the scale of action needed to achieve it.