Korea boosts its brand value across the globeFashionistas around the world may soon be adding a new city to their list of fashion capitals alongside Paris, New York, London and Milan.With its up-and-coming designers and beautiful celebrities Seoul is preparing to become the world’s next fashion and beauty destination.Greeting President Lee Myung-bak and his wife at the White House during the Seoul-Washington summit last year, first lady Michelle Obama was clad in a distinguished purple dress de

Ven. Jaseung shares his plan for order’s 50th year anniversaryThe Jogye Order, Korea’s largest Buddhist sect, will focus on promoting harmony and peace this year, its 50th anniversary.“It’s easy to say the word ‘harmony,’” said Ven. Jaseung, president of the Jogye Order, at a press conference at the Center for Korean Buddhist History and Culture in Seoul on Tuesday. “But there is a saying that conflicts are unavoidable unless you live all alone by yourself. This is an important year for Korea, a

After his first performance in Korea on Tuesday, Norwegian singer-songwriter Bellman pondered why Scandinavian musicians often created such music. The musician, whose real name is Arne-J Rauan and who describes his sound as “floating, atmospheric pop music,” said the otherworldly quality associated with Scandinavian groups could be down to the weather in Northern Europe.  “In these countries, when it comes to the winter, it is dark all the time and people they are getting emotional. I think they

The number of US pedestrians who have been killed or badly injured while wearing headphones has tripled in six years, according to a study published Tuesday. An attendee listens to music wearing House of Marley, LLC headphones at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada

CAIRO (AFP) ― Swiss archaeologists have discovered the tomb of a female singer dating back almost 3,000 years in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, Antiquities Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said on Sunday.The rare find was made accidentally by a team from Switzerland’s Basel University headed by Elena Pauline-Grothe and Susanne Bickel in Karnak, near Luxor in Upper Egypt, the minister told the media in Cairo.The woman, Nehmes Bastet, was a singer for the supreme deity Amon Ra during the Twenty-Second Dyna

Philippe Thiebault, who studied Korean philosophy in Korea for the past three decades, died of pneumonia and other complications on Saturday. He was 67. Thiebault, a visiting professor at Seoul’s Sejong University, is especially recognized here for translating “Mongmin Simseo” ― written by Jeong Yak-yong (1762-1836), one of the leading scholars in the late Joseon Dynasty ― into French in 2007. The book, whose title means “Admonitions on Governing the People,” describes the fundamental principles

NEW YORK (AP) ― In the end, “Porgy and Bess’’ didn’t need anyone coming to its rescue after all.A gorgeous version of the American stage classic opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Thursday for the first time in more than three decades with plenty of hand-wringing that this updated version led by director Diane Paulus and playwright Suzan-Lori Parks was messing with a Gershwin masterpiece.Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Paulus and Parks have protected and cared for this th

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― Chris Burden’s latest kinetic sculpture, “Metropolis II,’’ does more than just imitate life. The colorful display of roads, cars, trains and buildings is art imitating what the artist foresees life being like in five or 10 years.It will be a time, Burden forecasts, when cars will race across Los Angeles’ no-longer-gridlocked freeways and streets, past a skyline of towering buildings and single-family homes, at speeds of 386 kilometers per hour or more.That’s just what the tiny

Office workers choosing ‘learning, meeting, resting’ over eating at lunchFor many Seoulites who often find themselves working nights and weekends to survive in the city of excessive competition and gloomy unemployment, lunch break is like a blessing to endure the long, tiring day. Feeling the one-hour break is too precious to waste on eating and gossiping with co-workers, a growing number of people here are coming up with different ideas to make the time more worthwhile. “I recently had three bl

From the day it opened 20 years ago, Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” has been hailed as perhaps the greatest of the Disney animated classics, nominated for multiple Oscars, including best picture, upon its release in 1991.And as a new wave of ecstatic reviews greet every re-release (“the quintessential Disney masterpiece,” according to Christianity Today), Paige O’Hara, who sang the role of Belle, the “Beauty” of the title, recalls first looking at the songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken for

Unique acid pop carried in five voicesVOY“VOY meet Girl”(Mirrorball Music)Lee Byung-hoon, well-known for directing music for the movies “Sunny” and “The Happy Life,” introduces unique acid pop on his new album through the voices of five female vocalists ― Gyepi, Han Hee-jung, Oh Ji-eun, Ahn Sin-ae and Kim Jin-a. The three-member band’s second album “VOY meet Girl” is clearly “Lee’s album” with the musician taking care of not just the composition, but the arrangement, keyboard and mixing. While “