An annual lantern festival will light up the Seoul city center this week with mulberry paper lanterns in the shape of widely loved fairy-tale characters, the city government said Thursday. The 2019 Seoul Lantern Festival will kick off on Friday for a 17-day run over the Cheonggye Stream that runs through the city center, according to the city.Twenty-three mulberry paper lanterns representing well-known Korean and world fairy-tale characters, including the Little Prince, Aladdin and Alice from &q

Hit musical’s associate producer Keith Batten talks about 14 years working with local production

Among Korean men dressed in white traditional garments and women covered with pale green cloak-shaped headgear, Japanese walk in geta, traditional Japanese wooden sandals. Brand new Japanese and German-style houses stand out amid aged Korean homes. These were what Hungarian doctor Dezso Bozoky photographed in 1908 when Korea was undergoing modernization under pressure from Japan, just two years before the country was formally annexed by Japan. As a medical officer, Dezso Bozoky traveled around E

Learning art of dado at sanctuary-like matcha place

Culture ministers of South Korea and 10 Southeast Asian nations on Thursday vowed to promote cultural diversity and discover creative content for future generations in the regions.The joint statement was issued on the final day of the two-day culture ministers meeting of South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations held in the southwestern city of Gwangju.“The South Korean and ASEAN culture ministers will cooperate in promoting diversity of cultural expression and discovering

The exhibition “Splendor and Finesse: Spirit and Substance in Korean Art” is a special one for Yang Seung-mee, the National Museum of Korea curator who put it together. This is the first large-scale exhibition of Korean art in Eastern Europe.The exhibition, which opened at the National Museum in Warsaw on Oct. 11 and runs until Jan. 12, features 391 artifacts from five stages of Korean history: prehistory, the Three Kingdoms (57 BC-AD 668), Unified Silla (668-918), Goryeo (918-1392)

An exhibition at the National Palace Museum of Korea shows the style of makeup favored by the Joseon royal family during the 18th century and offers hints at how it may have influenced today’s globally popular “K-beauty.” The exhibition, titled “Princess Hwahyeop and Her Makeup,” displays relics discovered in a recent excavation of the princess’s tomb, where 12 containers were found with cosmetic substances inside -- along with combs, a bronze mirror and an ep

Technologically savvy Koreans latecomers to science fiction culture

Uber-like taxi service aims to meet pet owners’ traveling needs

Pet day care centers pop up in Seoul

Pets emerge as lucrative niche for IT and home appliance makers 　

From smart pet gadgets to insurance, health care and nutrition, the pet economy is growing

Seonyudo is one of several natural islands on the Han River in Seoul. Located west of Yeouido -- the biggest of those islands -- it is a popular destination for those seeking peace and tranquility inside the concrete jungle of Seoul. The 110,400-square-meter island was the site of a water treatment plant for more than two decades, until the facility closed in 2000. City officials decided to turn it into an urban park, and Seonyudo Park opened to the public in 2002. Its current look is the w

Children pose for pictures with a contraption used for punishment in the Joseon era during the Haemieupseong Fortress Festival in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province, on Friday.  The “juri” punishment, often featured in period dramas set in the era, involves breaking a person’s legs by tightening two pieces of wood.  Running through Sunday, the festival introduces folk culture and the history of the fortress through performances and hands-on activities.The old Army pos

Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, is South Korea’s horse-racing capital. At the Racecourse Park Subway Station, the compound of the Korea Racing Authority, the country’s sole race administrator, boasts the nation’s largest thoroughbred flat tracks with a 450-meter home stretch and two grandstands accommodating over 70,000 people. Originally built for the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, it covers more than 1.1 million square meters, with two artificial sandy tracks, sable areas for