“Are you ready?” was projected onto the giant stage screens as the 12,000 fans who flocked to Olympic Park Gymnastics Stadium on Sunday night screamed in deafening unison while awaiting K-pop sensation Psy’s entrance. Thousands upon thousands of flashing LED headbands lit up the stadium as part of Psy’s “All Night Stand” winter solo concert series that began on Friday night. The K-pop star pulled out all the stops for the event, returning to his local fans in his first concert in Korea in eight

PerformanceDec. 23, 2013

Actresses who have vowed legal action against rumormongers for alleging that they were involved in prostitution confirmed on Monday that they would continue the war even after the prosecution has declared the information circulating on the Internet to be false, in a move to root out malignant gossip.According to the agent of actress Lee Da-hae, the star of TV dramas including “My Girl,” “Green Rose,” “The Slave Hunters” and “Miss Reply,” decided to retain her complaints with the Seoul Metropolit

TelevisionDec. 23, 2013

The National Archives of Korea on Monday disclosed Christmas cards received by former presidents through its Web portal (www.pa.go.kr).The archives also released six photos and 10 records related to Christmas as well as 14 Christmas cards sent by kindergartners, elementary and middle school students.Presidents receive Christmas cards from people of all walks of life, including members of the public and ethnic Koreans living overseas, not to mention heads of state and political and business leade

PeopleDec. 23, 2013

Hallyu star Bae Yong-joon is dating a 27-year-old woman, his entertainment agency KEYEAST confirmed on Monday. “They have been in a good relationship for three months after they met through a close friend,” an official of the agency said, without providing further details. “It’s not time to talk about marriage yet.”Earlier in the day, a Japanese media outlet broke the story about Bae’s romantic relationship and described the girlfriend as an attractive woman fluent in English, who is also a daug

Dec. 23, 2013

PeopleDec. 22, 2013

LONDON (AFP) ― British celebrity chef Nigella Lawson faces a police investigation into claims of cocaine use which emerged during her personal assistants’ fraud trial after a U-turn by Scotland Yard, the Sunday Telegraph reported.Italian sisters Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo were cleared Friday of fraudulently spending 685,000 pounds ($1.12 million) on a company credit card owned by Lawson’s then-husband, the millionaire art collector Charles Saatchi.The assistants claimed Lawson had allowed t

PeopleDec. 22, 2013

The Sunfull Movement, which promotes a positive online culture, said Saturday that the total number of encouraging comments posted on its website topped 5 million on Dec. 9.Sunfull is currently driving a campaign urging young students to leave encouraging messages on its online bulletin board in a bid to prevent school violence and help with their personal development. The number of postings exceeded 4 million in April.The group plans to include parents and other members of the public across the

PeopleDec. 22, 2013

Portraits have been a popular medium for Chinese artists in expressing the political and social transitions experienced by modern China. China’s top-selling contemporary artists Yue Minjun and Zeng Fanzhi have conveyed the underlying conflicts behind those political and social changes in portraits that reflect social tension. But the strong expressions of social messages have gradually receded in paintings of emerging artists, who focus instead on emotions generally shared by an international au

PerformanceDec. 22, 2013

PREAH VIHEAR PROVINCE, Cambodia (AP) ― Rising out of the jungle on white pillars, the new Preah Vihear Museum’s largest building stands empty. But Cambodian officials hope that one day it will be the place where nine ancient statues depicting a dramatic battle scene are reunited from around the world.They came a step closer to that goal last week, when Sotheby’s auction house in New York agreed to return one of the statues to Cambodia, ending a heated legal battle that began when the U.S. govern

CultureDec. 22, 2013

LONDON (AP) ― A trove of 85 works by Spanish surrealist master Joan Miro acquired by the Portuguese government from a failing bank is up for auction with an estimated value of 30 million pounds ($49 million).Christie’s auction house said Friday the collection is “one of the most extensive and impressive offerings of works by the artist ever to come to auction,” and covers seven decades of Miro’s career.The Barcelona-born artist was influential in the surrealist movement in the 1920s and develope

PerformanceDec. 22, 2013

“The Attorney,” loosely based on the early years of the late President Roh Moo-hyun, set a Korean box office record for attracting more than 540,000 movie goers on Saturday, the highest gross attendance for a single day in December.According to the Korean Film Council, the directorial debut film of webtoon artist Yang Woo-seok drew 541,614 movie watchers on the day, far outnumbering its competitors “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” and “About Time,” which marked 151,839 and 132,722, respecti

FilmDec. 22, 2013

This is the 20th article in a series on producers, MCs, DJs and artists working in the Korean underground hip-hop scene. ― Ed. The hip-hop scene in Korea was very different when rap group 45RPM first started in 1999. The group ― consisting of members Smash, J-Kwondo and Red Roc ― said back then hip-hop was a culture shock to Koreans who had never experienced it before. At the time only a small number of Koreans listened to hip-hop, and there weren’t many rappers or dancers. Back then, there were

PerformanceDec. 22, 2013