Hyundai Card’s ongoing Culture Project series kicked off the year with 5 Nights, Seoul’s first large-scale concert event of the year. A weeklong festival of live music, the company’s latest culture project promised rock-lovers five nights of performances. Originally scheduled to perform were Avenged Sevenfold, followed by Bastille, Starsailor, Rudimental and 22-year-old Icelandic folk singer-son...

For the past decade, Seo Kyoung-duk has waged a cultural fight against Japan’s rightists on two fronts. The professor of general education at Sungshin Women’s University led a variety of publicity campaigns abroad to refute their claims on history and territory. At home, he has focused on education for Korean youths who appear increasingly indifferent to the painful history. The former battle e...

LAS VEGAS ― For more than 40 years, the International CES has been keeping the world’s largest electronics trade exhibition under its belt, providing chances for consumers to witness the most innovative and trendsetting technologies in the world. Gary Shapiro, the president and chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association, the organizer of the CES, said his organization would make fur...

Actor Ha Jung-woo has done an ample amount of diverse, interesting films during his acting career spanning a decade. From a ruthless serial killer in “The Chaser” (2008) and a hopeless romantic novelist in “Love Fiction” (2012), to the most recent, a butcher-turned-bandit in “Kundo: Age of the Rampant” (2014), he has become a household name in the local film industry, characterized by his unique,...

Even if you are not an exercise buff and don’t keep abreast of the latest fitness trends, you’ve probably heard of CrossFit. Combining good old movements such as push-ups, squats and lunges with Olympic lifting, rowing and a lot of jumping and running, the super-intensive, full-body workout has taken the global fitness world by storm, creating a lot of buzz in the past few years. Korea, too, ha...

This year marks Korea’s 70th independence anniversary from Japanese colonial rule and division of the Korean Peninsula. Following reconciliatory overtures by Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae at the end of last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un extended an olive branch by displaying his willingness to hold a summit with the South and improve cross-border ties in his New Year’s address. The K...

A Qatar Airways A350 aircraft stands at Doha International Airport. (AFP-Yonhap) DOHA ― Qatar Airways, the Gulf state’s national carrier, unveiled the world’s first Airbus A350 last week ― the newest aircraft in the market with higher fuel efficiency and a lower noise level. “We are ready to commence operations with the A350 and are delighted to introduce another level of service with our expan...

Clad in a beautiful, yellowish-green hanbok and her hair pulled back in a tight bun at the back of her neck, Kim Hae-sook looks like a living embodiment of Korean tradition. In fact, she would be nothing, if not for the pride of the tradition to which she has devoted her entire life and now officially represents. The 60-year-old is a master of the gayageum, a 12-stringed Korean zither; an autho...

Despite the decline in oil prices and its effect on consumer confidence, the global green car market will continue to prosper, an analyst said. “The need for better environmentally friendly cars transcends economic costs. The words of Chinese President Xi and U.S. President Obama reflect the fact that regardless of the energy cost, there is a drive for regulation,” said James Chao, director of A...

Korean companies need to take a strategic approach to their corporate social responsibility-related activities to link them to sustainable growth for the company, the head of a global CSR strategy consultancy said. “CSR is not a matter of how enterprises spend their money. It’s about how they earn money,” Lee Yoon-suk, founder and CEO of InnoCSR Group, said in a recent interview with The Korea H...

From the humorously trend-setting era of hammer pants to the present day hip-hop infused electro-psychedelic pop, the music world is certainly no stranger to the constantly changing and ever-so-inventive modern fads and phases. Much thanks to YouTube, technological innovation and sheer musical genius, the art of mash-ups is becoming one of the hottest trends in the music industry today. The 2012...

In 2012, the South Korean government established the Korea Adoption Services upon revising its adoption law, which stipulated that infants could not be put up for adoption without their births being registered. After two years as the agency’s first president, Shin On-han is even more determined to bring changes the nation’s adoption policies, as well as to improve the services for Korean oversea...

Can the perplexed teenager Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye” or the Finch siblings in “To Kill a Mocking Bird” or the scandalous Anna Karenina of the eponymous novel help people cope with mental or emotional problems? The answer is yes for the bibliotherapists Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin, who believe that suitable fiction can heal, inspire and transform readers and provide new li...

Kim Gak-han has spent most of his life working with wood, from cabinetmaking to carving ancient texts and drawing on wood plates. “Now that I think about it, I think I was destined to do it,” the craftsman said in his Seoul studio, which was filled with wood plates of different sizes alongside countless handmade cutting tools and chisels. “One beauty of engraving is that you can’t think about a...

Korea has become a sports powerhouse in terms of athletes’ performance, but it has made little progress in cultivating the sports industry. “The nation’s sports industry is still in an infant stage. Most firms in this sector (except a small pool of conglomerates) suffer from a lack of strategy and resources,” Choi Joon-seo, a professor of the sports industry and management department at Hanyang ...