A Swedish “hotel” is offering customers the chance to sleep in “rooms” including a dirty mattress under a bridge and a sleeping bag in a public park.Faktum Hotels in Gothenburg said the $15-per-night accommodations, which it began offering in November, are designed to highlight the hardships facing the city‘s homeless population, The Local.se reported Monday.　“We asked several of our homeless contacts where they often slept, then we set up our rooms,” said Aaron Israelson, editor of Faktum magaz

Architect Cho Min-suk has been named the commissioner of the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2014, the state cultural agency Arts Council of Korea announced on Monday. Cho will be in charge of selecting architects and planning the Korean Pavilion for the architecture exhibition. Cho runs his own architecture firm, Mass Studies in Korea. Its representative projects include the “Dalki Theme Park,” in Paju, “Nature Poem,” and “World Expo 2010 Shanghai: Korea Pavilion,” for which Cho received the

NHN Corporation, operator of the country’s largest search engine Naver, introduced what is called a “page profit sharing,” or PPS, program to make its webtoon services more profitable for the writers. “PPS is a business package in which we introduce a revenue model to a webtoon page and share the profit with the author,” said Kim Joon-ku, director of Naver Books.Webtoon -- a series of comic strips published through the Internet -- was originally provided for free to local readers. PPS now allows

Coastal city kicks off contemporary classical music festival Friday

Semele Walk, the opening piece for the Tongyeong International Music Festival featured on Friday evening in its Asian premiere, was as strong as it could get from the beginning. Musicians loosely holding their instruments in rainbow-colored hair and dark eyeliner with funky garments appeared on the catwalk and seated at the front row. As soon as the orchestra started playing the quintessential Baroque tunes of the great George Friedrich Handel, flocks of models sashayed the catwalk, flaunting th

NEW YORK (AP) ― The seemingly unstoppable hit “The Book of Mormon’’ has broken another record ― this time on the oter side of the Atlantic. The quirky, profane musical opened Thursday night to some critical bashing, but the next day earned the highest one-day gross in London theater history. Between 10 a.m. and midnight Friday, 2.1 million pounds ($3.2 million) worth of tickets were sold at the box office, according to final figures. By comparison, the Broadway version only earned $1.5 million t

In today’s increasingly digital world, collecting and enjoying books may seem outdated. Nonetheless, many still remain attached to paper books as they allow for a “comprehensive” experience. “I love the feeling of turning the pages, which is a special experience. Paper books will always be closer to my heart,” said Chung Hye-sun, a 34-year-old office worker. In order to survive in the digital era, many libraries are specializing, devoting their shelves to a specific category or language, for exa

Nation’s oldest library showcases knowledge of nation’s forefathers

Theater“Red Poetry”: Local theater troupe Theater Company Gorae is presenting “Red Poetry,” a play that deftly links the controversial suicide of actress Jang Ja-yeon in 2009 to the stories of elderly women who were forced to be sex slaves for the Japanese military during World War II. The play is being told from the perspective of fictional character Dong-ju (played by Kim Dong-wan), a reporter who is deeply disturbed by the sudden death of a popular actress, a stand-in for the late Jang. The s

A white porcelain jar from the Joseon Period was auctioned off for $1.2 million, the highest price fetched at the auction of Japanese and Korean art auction at Christie’s in New York on Wednesday.Paintings by renowned Korean artists Park Soo-keun and Kim Whan-ki were also sold for double their estimates. Park’s “Five seated figures” was auctioned at $711,750, higher than its $400,000-$500,000 estimate.  Kim Whan-ki’s “Moon and Plum Blossom” painting was sold for $663,750, about double its estima

18-year-old to perform with Lorin Maazel in Seoul next month

A recent study claimed that women marrying later in their life were likely to reap financial benefits, while the same was not true for men. The University of Virginia published a report claiming that women who wed in their early 30s earned an average of 56 percent more than those who got married a decade earlier. It also showed that men had higher income when they got married in their 20s, suggesting that getting married earlier in life is beneficial for men on average. Childbirth turned out to

The newly appointed chief of the state heritage agency on Wednesday said she is ready to protect a set of endangered petroglyphs in the outskirts of Ulsan, North Gyeongsang Province, which has been her lifelong project. “The Bangudae Petroglyphs, part of the Daegokcheon Stream Petroglyphs, are the beginning of all Korean arts, and therefore, one of the most urgent items that we must preserve,” said Byun Young-sup, administrator of the Cultural Heritage Administration, who took office on Monday.

 A Massachusetts man said an image that "looks like Jesus Christ" appeared on the drop cloth he has been using to catch paint for four years.Brian Krantz of Saugus said he used the clotch several times before he noticed the image he identifies as Jesus in the paint, WHDH-TV, Boston, reported Monday."A crown or a halo. Two eyes. Mustache, nose, there's the chin, jaw line," Krantz said, describing the image."I can't deny this. This is what it is. It looks like Jesus Christ," Krantz said.Krantz sai