Michael Jordan American basketball legend Michael Jordan will open an Asian barbecue restaurant with a Korean chef later this year, a Chicago media outlet reported this week. According to NBC, Jordan, 48, will join hands with Korean-American chef Bill Kim and open “Belly Q” in Chicago sometime this spring. The new restaurant will replace “One Sixtyblue,” which Jordan had managed for 14 years w...

7 Wonders chief refutes doubts among Koreans Korea’s Jeju Island was chosen as one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature through fair competition and there should not be any more doubts about the process, the chief of the Swiss-based organization told a Thursday press conference in Seoul. Bernard Weber, chairman of the New7Wonders Foundation, convened a press gathering a day after arriving in Kore...

Top policymaker stresses globalization of Korean wave, eyes 11m visitors this year With the world’s attention continually shifting from one aspect of Korean culture to another, Korea should produce high-quality and consistent cultural products in the coming years by linking the old and new and the unique and universal, Culture Minister Choe Kwang-shik said. “The first hallyu was led by Korean d...

Chung Hyung-min (Culture Ministry) Chung Hyung-min, director of the Seoul National University Museum of Art, was named the new chief of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, the Culture Ministry said Thursday. Chung, 61, will hold the post for two years. After receiving a Ph.D in art history at Columbia University, Chung has held a variety of posts that helped her secure the knowledge and e...

Girl group Kara receives the Asia Star Award during the 2012 Asia Model Awards held at Olympic Park, southeastern Seoul, Wednesday (Yonhap News) Actress Choi Ji-woo receives the Asia Star Award during the 2012 Asia Model Awards held at Olympic Park, southeastern Seoul, Wednesday. (Yonhap News) Hallyu actress Choi Ji-woo, girl band Kara and Hong Kong star Lee Ku won top awards at the 2012 Asia M...

Korea’s Lotte Department Store runs its first advertisement in China’s state-run newspaper People’s Daily on Jan. 17 and 20 to attract more Chinese travelers to the stores during China’s Jan. 22-28 spring holiday season. (Yonhap News) At least 45,000 Chinese travelers are expected to flock to Korea during the neighboring state’s biggest holiday beginning over the weekend, according to Korea’s to...

A model takes to the catwalk during the “Dongdaemun Collection in Osaka,” which was held on Sep. 23, 2011 to introduce designs by six up-and-coming Korean designers with stores in Seoul’s major shopping district. (The Korea Tourism Association) Korea boosts its brand value across the globe Fashionistas around the world may soon be adding a new city to their list of fashion capitals alongside Pa...

Richard Saul. (JW Marriott Seoul) Richard M. Saul has taken office as the new general manager of JW Marriott Seoul. Saul, 48, a native of Melbourne, Australia, joined Marriott International in 1996 as executive assistant manager in charge of housekeeping, sales and marketing at Renaissance Inya Lake Hotel in Myanmar. In 1998, he was appointed general manager of the Renaissance Palm Garden Hote...

Some 5,000 tickets to Korean boy band JYJ’s upcoming tour of South America sold out in less than two days, breaking the record for foreign artists, the group’s agent said Monday. “We began selling the tickets last Thursday (Jan. 12) for the tour in South America and the seats were sold out in two days,” C-JeS Entertainment said in a press release. It was reported that some fans camped overnight...

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. ...

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....

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 bu...