The Cultural Heritage Administration on Wednesday announced that it will designate the Ven. Hyunjin’s earliest sculpture from the 17th century as treasure. The piece is called “Jangseong Baekyangsa Mokjoamitayeoraejwasang,” or “Wooden Seated Amitabha Buddha” from the temple Baekyangsa in Jangseong, South Jeolla Province. The sculpture is a 208-centimeter-tall statue that the Ven. Hyunjin created with the Ven. Hueil and the Ven. Moonseub in 1607. The Ven. Hyunjin

Buddha’s Birthday, the largest Buddhist holiday, is celeberated with lotus lanterns of all shapes and colors. Every year, the lanterns cover the yard of Jogyesa, the Buddhist temple in central Seoul, and the surrounding areas.   While this year’s events have been scaled down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Buddhist faithful gather to celebrate the holiday, offering prayers and taking part in rites that have developed within Korean Buddhism over the centuries.  While lotus

A pair of oriental storks, endangered species designated as South Korea’s natural treasure No. 199, laid eggs in a nest they had built on top of a transmission tower standing in the middle of a farmland in southern Taean, South Chungcheong Province on Tuesday.  The storks inhibited in the wild after being artificially fecundated at Yesan Stork Park in South Chungcheong Province. It is rare for wild storks to find their mate and build a nest on an ordinary structure like a transmissi

International Youth Fellowship founder and pastor Park Ock-soo (right) and Fijian Ambassador Peniana Lalabalavu sign a memorandum of understanding in Seoul on Tuesday to promote educational exchange activities for young people and to cooperate in cultural and economic areas.  IYF established a Fiji branch in January 2013 and since then it has carried out various educational activities for young people such as overseas volunteering, character education, cultural exchange and character camp

NCSoft’s Lineage 2M and Nexon’s Fifa Online 4 have come under fire for updates that undermine the efforts of the players and require them to spend more money. Players criticized NCSoft when a new package item update for Lineage 2M was released on April 22. While Lineage 2M is a MMORPG mobile game that is known for multiple in-app purchase contents, updates are generally welcomed by players as they mean new content. But this time many of the items required purchases. Lineage

The number of Catholics in South Korea rose slightly last year as the religion has experienced a slowdown in its growth in recent years, data showed Monday. According to the data by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea, 5.91 million South Koreans were registered with 16 dioceses in the country as of end 2019, up 0.8 percent, or 48,000, from a year earlier. The on-year growth has been hovering around 1 percent for the past decade and dropped to a 0.9 percent gain in 2018. Only in 2014, wh

Byeongsan Seowon, a UNESCO-listed Confucian academy from the Joseon era (1392-1910), was spared from a wildfire in a mountainous area of Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, which raged on for some 40 hours before being put out Sunday. Although the seowon is safe, some of the trees near it were burned. The Cultural Heritage Administration said it would assess the damage and work with the Andong City government to restore the forest. The fire, which broke out Friday afternoon and was put out Sun

T1 continued its dominance over League of Legends Champions Korea with a 3-0 sweep against GenG in the 2020 LCK Spring Finals on Saturday, making them LCK champions for the third consecutive season. A total of 1,074,561 people, not including viewers from Chinese platforms, watched the finals online according to Esports Charts, setting a record for the highest number of viewers for this split. Compared to around 770,000 viewers for both summer and spring season finals last year, there was a not

People in South Korea gathered at some churches and temples for religious services on the first Sunday since the government eased rules on social distancing amid signs coronavirus infections are on the decline. They, however, joined religious events in limited numbers without letting their guard down against the COVID-19 pandemic, while taking precautionary measures, such as wearing masks and keeping their distance from others inside buildings. About 1,200 people attended a service at the ma

Royal Tomb of King Sejong will partially open in May to the public, two years after restoration, the Cultural Heritage Administration, in charge of the tomb management, said Friday. The tomb, located in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, was built for the Joseon era’s fourth King Sejong and Queen Soheon. Entrance to the historic site was temporarily shut down since November 2017 for restoration.  Although visitors are allowed to tour the royal tomb, other historic sites near the tomb, incl

Catholic churches in Seoul on Thursday held their first Masses in about two months as South Korea is preparing to go back to normal, months after the start of the coronavirus outbreak. Some 150 people participated in a Mass held at Myeongdong Cathedral in central Seoul starting at 10 a.m. Wearing face masks, they sat at intervals of one or two meters. It was one of the first Catholic services held since the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul, the biggest in South Korea with 1.52 million followers,

After a 3-1 victory against DragonX on Wednesday, T1 has punched its way to the LCK finals to play against GenG on Saturday, marking the two teams’ first clash in the domestic finals in seven years. While the playoffs were conducted online, the LCK 2020 Spring Finals best-of-five will see T1 and GenG battling for the prize money of 100 million won ($81,000) at LoL Park in Jongno, central Seoul, starting at 5 p.m. Saturday. The teams will be playing to an otherwise empty venue, with no au

Runners were present on the tracks along the Han River on Tuesday despite the strong wind and the coronavirus pandemic. Since spring arrived last week, hundreds of runners have filled Han River Park. Running crews at the park mostly consist of people in their late 20s to mid-30s who must apply to join, but some crews are open to anyone. Members gather two to three evenings a week to run together, but many running crews took a winter break -- one that was prolonged this year with the spread of

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced Wednesday that South Korea has become a signatory to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performance. Since the treaty deals with performers’ intellectual property rights, the ministry expects it to benefit celebrities leading the Korean Wave, or Hallyu, such as K-pop boy band BTS, show presenter Yoo Jae-suk and actress Jun Ji-hyun. The Beijing Treaty was adopted June 24, 2012, and will

The English Premier League’s Son Heung-min and a number of national team athletes are working with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to provide exercises that people can do at home. The “Week of Sports,” which falls on the last week of April, will be marked online this year due to the spread of COVID-19. In honor of the Week of Sports, Son Heung-min shared simple exercises to do at home using a soccer ball that can be viewed online at the National fitness Award (nf