Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Hwang Hee attended the first official G20 Culture Ministers‘ Meeting in Rome, Italy, the Ministry announced Sunday. During a two-day event held under the Italian G20 presidency, a total of 40 cultural delegations, including ministers from G20 countries and representatives of international organizations gathered at the Colosseum. The G20 Culture Ministers’ Meetings had been held in the form of a special meeting in the past, but was promoted to a

A goldfinch is sitting on the stem of a sunflower planted in a garden near the Danwon district office in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, on Aug. 29. A goldfinch eats a sunflower seed in a garden near the Danwon district office in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, on Aug. 29. (Photos: Yonhap)

Jirisan has long been revered by many South Koreans as one of three holy mountains alongside Geumgangsan and Hallasan. Hwaeomsa, the head temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, is located at the southern foot of the mountain in South Jeolla Province. The temple is home to an array of national treasures, and visitors can also enjoy scenic views of the mountain.  Records say Yeongi, an Indian monk, established the temple in the 5th century, but the construction was not completed unti

The most famous Korean cultural festival in Latin America, K-Expo 2021 kicked off in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Thursday, according to Korean Cultural Center Brazil. The annual festival is being held online for the second consecutive year via two popular streaming services, Youtube and Twitch. A special studio in Bom Retiro, Sao Paulo, was set up for viewing the virtual event.　 The first day of the show started with a virtual tour around Seoul’s hip Ikseon-dong followed by an online fan meeti

The CHA plans to submit additional list of tidal flats for UNESCO review in 2025

BORYEONG -- The annual Boryeong Mud Festival has been selected as one of Asia's three major festivals by an international festival association, a local government said Tuesday. According to the city government of Boryeong, about 190 kilometers south of Seoul, its popular mud festival was designated as one of the Three Major Festivals of Asia by the International Festivals & Events Association (IFEA) Asia. The two other festivals that received recognition were the annual Harbin Internationa

South Korea's tidal flats have been officially inscribed as a UNESCO world natural heritage despite receiving a deferral in a preliminary review, cultural heritage authorities said Monday.  Seoul has been pushing to register "getbol," or "Korean tidal flats," on UNESCO's world heritage list in the 44th session of the World Heritage Committee taking place in Fuzhou, China, online. The decision came as a surprise, considering that getbol was deferred from the list of pot

Some 291.8 billion won ($253.3 million) has been set aside for the second round of COVID-19 supplementary budget this year for the culture, sports and tourism sectors. Of the total extra budget, 141.8 billion won will be allocated for job creation in the culture industry and for a coupon program to encourage domestic demand for culture, sports and tourism, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said Sunday in announcing the new supplementary budget. The 150 billion won secured through t

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Thursday announced that it had made some changes to the translation guidelines for kimchi, which were published in July 2020. The new guidelines state that kimchi’s proper Chinese translation is “xin qi.” The ministry deleted a part that said “pao cai” -- a pickled vegetable dish eaten in China -- is an acceptable translation for kimchi, as it is the name that is already widely used in China. The amendments came aft

The Korean Cultural Center in Paris on Thursday announced that it has kicked off the special exhibition “Korea: Cubically Imagined,” displaying diverse types of immersive content including one that allows the viewer to look through the houses from the Oscar-winning “Parasite” film. The virtual reality content at the exhibition will show the opulent home of the rich Park family and halfway underground home of the struggling Kim family from “Parasite.” &ldquo

Korean businesses‘ support for the local arts scene decreased in 2020 as pandemic shutdowns dealt a devastating blow to the country, a report released Wednesday by the Korea Mecenat Association showed. Corporate funding for the art industry dropped 14.6 percent on-year to 177.8 billion won ($154.5 million) in 2020, when 390 companies helped finance 953 art projects, the report showed. In 2019, 547 companies spent 208.1 billion won on 1,431 projects. “It seems that corporations&rs

Learning about summer Korean style is only a click away from anywhere around the world. The Korean Culture and Information Service, under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, announced Friday that 27 Korean Cultural Centers around the world would be offering cultural programs such as food, music and films that introduce how summer is enjoyed in Korea. The programs will be held online, complying with the respective governments’ COVID-19 guidelines, according to KOCIS, which opera

A statue of King Sejong, the inventor of the Korean alphabet, Hanguel, will go up in Uzbekistan's capital as part of a cultural exchange between two local districts. The office of Seocho Ward in southern Seoul said Thursday it signed a memorandum of understanding with the office of Mirabad district in central Tashkent on promoting ties between the two regions. In celebration of the agreement, the two districts will each construct a statue of a historical figure from the other country. The st

Hanseong Baekje Cultural Festival The Hanseong Baekje Cultural Festival is set to take place in Songpa-gu, southern Seoul, from Oct. 6 to 10. The festival celebrates the history and culture of the Baekje Kingdom’s Hanseong era, when its capital was in Seoul. Visitors can travel back in time and enjoy activities. Sponsored by Songpa-gu office and Songpa Cultural Foundation and managed by the Hanseong Baekje Cultural Festival Organizing Committee, the event features folk performances, mus

Whether Korea’s tidal flats, or “gaetbeol,” make it onto UNESCO’s list of Natural World Heritage sites will be decided soon as the World Heritage Committee meeting kicks off on Friday. The committee’s 44th annual session is slated to run virtually in cooperation with UNESCO and the host country China. Separated into two groups, Cultural World Heritage and Natural World Heritage, the committee will assess the nominations and decide which sites to include on the Wo