If you want to get a date, try carrying a guitar. According to a recent study by researchers from the University of South Brittany, the number of women giving their phone numbers doubled when a man was carrying a guitar compared to a man without.Professor Nicolas Gueguen, a researcher of behavioral science who led the study, hired a 20-year-old man to ask a total of 300 women aged between 18 and 22 for their numbers in a shopping mall.The man approached the women with the same comment holding di

Designer Moon Young Hee is a rare example in the Korean fashion scene: a designer with a unique perspective who has been presenting her signature style to the global audience every season at Paris Fashion Week since 1996. In recognition of her persistent efforts and fresh input to the Parisian fashion world, Moon received the National Order of Merit, one of the highest honors given by the French government, on Tuesday in Seoul. “Putting on shows for 18 years has been a difficult task. It’s reall

Celebrated author Hwang Sok-yong said he wants his best-selling novel “Yeowoolmoolsori” off the shelves after a TV program accused his publishing house, Jaeum & Moeum, of hoarding copies of the novel. Jaeum & Moeum CEO Kang Byung-cheol has offered to resign from his position. According to news reports, author Hwang said he was shocked and outraged to find out about the alleged hoarding and wants to cancel his deal with Jaeum & Moeum. “I wrote the novel ‘Yeowoolmoolsori’ to celebrate the 50th ann

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Basketball hall-of-famer Dennis Rodman, who forged an unlikely friendship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on a recent trip, appealed Tuesday for the freedom of an American sentenced to 15 years.“I’m calling on the Supreme Leader of North Korea or as I call him ‘Kim,’ to do me a solid and cut Kenneth Bae loose,” Rodman tweeted.Bae, whose Korean name is Pae Jun-ho, was sentenced last week to 15 years of hard labor on charges that he tried to topple the North Korean regime.

LONDON (AFP) ― U.S.-born “king of stop-motion animation” and special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen died aged 92 in London on Tuesday, his family announced.Hollywood tributes flooded in for Oscar-winner Harryhausen, who is best known for his work on “Jason and the Argonauts” and “Clash of the Titans.” “Ray has been a great inspiration to us all in special visual industry,” said Star Wars mastermind George Lucas.“The art of his earlier films, which most of us grew up on, inspired us so much. Wit

Kozo Igarashi, a former Japanese chief cabinet secretary who worked to resolve issues regarding the “comfort women,” who were forced by Japan into sexual slavery during World War II, died of pneumonia at a Sapporo hospital on Tuesday, Kyodo news agency reported. He was 87. Igarashi was chief cabinet secretary in the administration of Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, who apologized for Japan’s colonial rule and invasion of neighboring countries.  During his tenure as chief cabinet secretary from

NEW YORK (AP) ― Food may not have been their first calling, but coming late to the culinary scene clearly hasn’t slowed David Chang and Paul Kahan.On Monday, the two were jointly honored as the nation’s most outstanding chefs by the James Beard Foundation, an exclamation point on circuitous careers that began in other fields _ Chang in finance and Kahan in computer science ― but saw them quickly ascend to the top of the restaurant world.The men ― only the third pair to tie for the top chef award

Greek epics are full of upheavals, but White Box Theater has been completely overhauled for Probationary Theatre’s production of Liz Lochead’s “Medea.” The stage has been moved to a different side of the theater from which it pushes out into the audience. “That’s the one thing that theater has over film,” said director Robbie Quinn. “We don’t have a screen in the way, so we can get the actors as close to the audience as possible.”“The space has presented problems, but it has created an incredibl

New movie “Amiss” could take Korea’s burgeoning community of expat filmmakers to the next level.The film, directed and produced by Raoul Dyssell and Will Sonbuchner, who works under the name Sonny, is a revenge tale played out in Korean and English.After his daughter kills herself, a Korean father kidnaps key figures from her life and imprisons them in a warehouse, where he begins to interrogate them to find the person responsible for her death and take revenge. His captors are forced to comply,