Some 300 authors from 114 countries will be visiting Korea in September, including Nobel literary prize winners Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka, and Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, to attend the 78th International PEN Congress in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province. A London-based international association of writers, International PEN has been hosting the congress, which consists of networking and lite...

For Jennifer Emmert, it’s the best of both worlds. Emmert loves kids and spends tons of time with her six nieces and nephews, from outdoor activities to sleepovers at her place. The 30-year-old is engaged to be married, but she’s perfectly happy living up to the name of one of her favorite books: “Childless and Loving It.” “I’m completely content with adoring and smothering my nieces and nephews...

The Northeast Asian History Foundation, a state-run history research institution, announced on Monday that it will build a national database on Korea’s early kingdoms as well as Dokdo and have it available online by November. According to the foundation the database will feature Korea’s ancient history as well as Dokdo, the rocky islets in the East Sea that the Japanese claim are part of their t...

If chocolate’s the thing for your sweetie on Valentine’s Day, why give plain old candy when you can give a chocolate plant (Theobroma cacao)? THE CHALLENGE OF CHOCOLATE Growing chocolate from seed is difficult. Fresh, they are covered with what looks like a cottony mass that keeps them properly moist for sprouting. The covering is slimy, though, and starts to rot away as soon as the seeds are o...

STOCKHOLM ― South Korea’s Culture Minister Choe Kwang-shik on Saturday promoted the country’s traditional culture at the opening ceremony of a Korean antiquities exhibition room at a museum here. The Korean room in Sweden’s Museum of East Asia in Stockholm displays 160 of 350 Korean artifacts owned by the museum, most of which are ceramics. “The Korean room is our project to promote relations b...

“We hope to help Tongyeong Festival to become an incubator, a hot bed for compositions from Asia,” explained Reimar Volker, head of cultural projects at the center. There has been a growing interest observed in German arts, particularly in theater works in recent years. Last year, German artists participated in Korean works or staged German productions on opening programs for all three major per...

Namdaemun, Seoul’s historic gateway and National Treasure No. 1 which was severely damaged by arson in 2008, will be completely restored by December, according to the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea. Friday marks the fourth anniversary of the arson. Currently, the restoration is about 70 percent complete. The damaged gate site, which has been cordoned off with a set of fences and a cu...

Buddhist group to open temple food restaurant in Paris next year A Korean Buddhist group will soon bring temple food to the world as a part of its effort to introduce the 1,700 years of Korean Buddhist culture abroad. “Korean Buddhist temple foods have been drawing attention from the health-conscious in North America and Europe,” Ven. Jihyun, director of Cultural Corps of Korean Buddhism, an af...

An Iranian government-affiliated agency has banned dolls of the Simpsons cartoon characters, who join Barbie and others on a toy blacklist, an independent newspaper reported on Monday. The report said that the Simpsons were banned to avoid the promotion of Western culture. But Superman and Spiderman were allowed, because they helped the "oppressed." "We do not want to promote this cartoon by im...