[Weekender] Dead poets’ salons

 In celebration of National Reading Month in September, some 8,700 book festivals and related programs are planned to promote the classics and new works to the public, according to the Culture Ministry.Adults read an average of 10 books per year while school-age children read an average of 41 books a year, Culture Ministry data from early 2020 showed. Culture critics attribute this significant drop in reading after the teenage years to “reading fatigue” stemming from pressure t

TravelSept. 11, 2021

[Weekender] Saving little by little with money making apps

Ahn Jung-hyun, a 32-year-old worker at an insurance company, knows her salary, 65 million won ($55,370) a year, is well above average. But during her intermittent break time, she never stops making a little extra. Instead of playing mobile games or watching Netflix, Ahn clicks on a number of apps that offer actual money or discount coupons as marketing rewards -- and every little helps. Ahn is one of growing number of Koreans in search of extra income through money making apps. A mobile ped

MarketSept. 4, 2021

[Weekender] Young players breathe new life into golf

Five months after taking up the sport, Kim Arum finds herself more frequently at golf ranges -- real or virtual -- than at restaurants or cafes. She often hangs out with friends on the green, practices almost every other day at an indoor golf studio after work and splurges on golf hats, golf shirts and pants. It has become her favorite pastime these days, said Kim, who works at a TV station in Seoul. While many indoor sports suffered a blow from the virus crisis, this particular one has foun

GolfAug. 28, 2021

[Weekender] Laid to rest, freedom fighter puts veterans in limelight

Hong Beom-do, a highly revered independence fighter against the Japanese occupation of Korea, was laid to rest at home Wednesday, 78 years after his death in Kazakhstan. The previous day, President Moon Jae-in posthumously awarded him the highest national order of merit. At a burial ceremony held at Daejeon National Cemetery, Moon called Hong a war hero and the commander-in-chief of the Korean Liberation Army, whose return he said “gives hope to South Koreans working together to find thei

DefenseAug. 21, 2021

[Weekender] Gotjawal: The mysterious forest that keeps dying to survive

South Korea’s Jejudo, an oval shaped island located in the Korea Strait between Korea and Japan, is teeming with life. Formed through an underwater volcanic eruption some 1.8 million years ago, basalt shaped and covered the land, with Hallasan standing at its core. Yet death pays a crucial role to the island’s survival. English writer Virginia Woolf’s observation on life and death in humans also applies to mother nature: “Someone has to die in order that the rest of us s

TravelAug. 7, 2021

[Weekender] A smart, safe plan B for virus-ridden summer: Vacance-at-home

Kang Seol-ah, 31, was supposed to be on Jeju Island for summer vacation this week, but instead, she chose to buy a small tent and decorative light bulbs to set the camping mood at home. The resurgence of the coronavirus has scared her, as it has forced restaurants and tourist sites to close early, even on the southern resort island known as the cleanest region in South Korea. Her plan B was camping at home, lounging on a camping chair and drinking ice cold beer in her new linen dress from H&am

TravelJuly 31, 2021

[Weekender] Electric personalities: New breed of influencers

Not content with stopping at fast-food tills, toll booths and bank tellers, tech is coming for influencers’ jobs, too. A new wave of artificial intelligence-created digital characters has leapt across the uncanny valley -- the chasm in appeal for renderings that are unsettlingly, but not convincingly lifelike -- and risen to the fore of the marketing world, in some cases clinching deals worth millions of dollars. Korean companies have developed their own virtual influencers, but they a

TechnologyJuly 24, 2021

[Weekender] Why is Kim Jong-un clamping down on millennials, K-pop and slang?

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has a new concern: how to control the country’s younger generation. The 37-year-old leader warned in April that “a serious change” was taking place in the “ideological and mental state” of young North Koreans, and that their ideological education was vital to the survival of the party and the country. Furthermore, the reclusive regime has been cracking down hard on the attire, speaking habits and culture of North Korean millennia

North KoreaJuly 17, 2021

[Weekender] Explore the heart of Seoul by bike

Biking in Seoul, you can come across historic traces of the city which you may otherwise miss when taking bus, subway or car to get around. Here is a bike-ride course that takes you around the heart of Seoul -- from Deoksugung Palace’s stonewall road to Insa-dong. If you don’t have a bike – don’t worry – the city has a bike rental service named Seoul Bike or Ddareungi, through which you can rent bikes at Ddareungi stations across the Seoul. You can start your bik

CultureJuly 10, 2021

[Weekender] With an eye on the future, financial firms don VR goggles

The emergence of the “MZ generation” -- those born in the 1980s and ‘90s -- has brought significant change in South Korea’s financial landscape, pushing its conservative players to navigate uncharted territory in the technological era. Financial institutions are embracing the technological shift from physical space to digital sphere with big-name bankers experiencing the virtual world via VR headsets and holding executive meetings in “metaverse” online setti

MarketJuly 3, 2021

[Weekender] Invitation to Metaverse

To those who have difficulty in grasping the characteristics of the younger generations of millennials and Gen Z -- pay attention to the “metaverse.” A combination of “meta” and “universe,” the term refers to a virtual world shared by people from the real world. Built on the convergence of all things sci-fi such as augmented reality, virtual reality, extended reality, artificial intelligence, fifth-generation networks, edge computing and so on, this digita

TechnologyJune 26, 2021

[Weekender] Can four-day workweek cure the Monday Blues?

When Kim Hyun-kyung, 31, was thinking about changing jobs a year ago, she was drawn to education firm Eduwill’s four-day workweek. Although she was a bit suspicious at first of whether it really worked, she now fully enjoys the policy. Kim takes a day off every Wednesday because she says it is the best day to take a break. “It makes me think on Monday ‘Oh I am OK because I rested yesterday,’ and on Tuesday, I think, ‘I am fine because I will rest tomorrow.&rsq

Social AffairsJune 19, 2021

[Weekender] Domestic bliss: Distancing brings happy hour home

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, drinking at home has become the new norm. It is nearly impossible to grab a drink after work with friends in the Seoul city area, with drinking and dining establishments only allowed to operate until 10 p.m. and nonessential gatherings of five or more people banned. Rather than just quenching the immediate thirst with beer from a supermarket or reaching for the same old green bottle of soju, more people -- not just alcohol aficionados -- are joining in on t

FoodJune 12, 2021

[Weekender] Gardening blossoms in COVID-hit Korea

For viewers of MBC’s popular reality show “I Live Alone,” K-pop boy band SHINee Key’s new hobby struck a chord with their COVID-era lifestyle. His passion of cultivating scallions and other plants at a corner of his home veranda is an illustration of a trend that has been sweeping across South Korea: home gardening. Though raising one or two plants at home may be nothing new, the pandemic has spurred people to take the hobby to the next level. Koreans are now splurging

CultureJune 5, 2021

[Weekender] The truth about biodegradable plastics

For average customers, one of the easiest ways to pursue a green lifestyle is to purchase eco-friendly products. To target these customers and raise their brand images, companies in South Korea are rolling out eco-friendly products one after another, including some made of biodegradable plastic. Typically made from natural materials such as corn starch, biodegradable plastic is designed to break down naturally when it goes to landfills. However, these efforts – and extra expenses -- m

IndustryMay 29, 2021

[Weekender] Tired of green-bottle rotgut, drinkers turn to traditional soju

Drinking in South Korea almost invariably involves soju. The ubiquitous green bottle filled with watered-down alcohol has been, and is, at center stage of Seoul’s drinking scene. The soju most people usually think of -- a mixture of water, alcohol and sweeteners -- is very much an integral part of Korea’s social fabric, and accounts for close to 40 percent of all alcohol consumed in Korea. But while it may be an iconic feature of Korean drinking, many say its taste doesn’t l

Social AffairsMay 22, 2021

[Weekender] [#WeFace] Green architecture brings fresh air

While going green has become an urgent agenda for many industries from retail, fashion to the performing arts and architecture is no exception. Amid the climate crisis, more individuals, companies and the government are paying attention to sustainable architecture, aware of the impact of the lasting footprint left by construction. “Green architecture” refers to an approach to architecture which acknowledges the necessity for improvement in both environmental impact and our healt

Arts & DesignMay 13, 2021

[Weekender] Living without cash

Oh Jong-gyun, a 35-year-old in Seoul, had an awkward moment when he went to pay for valet service during a blind date last week. Not only was he feeling shy in front of a lady he had just met that evening, Oh also realized that he hadn‘t carried ”real money“ for months. “I risked losing face, on my first date, to ask her for 3,000 won. Well, she didn’t have it either,” he said. Oh is one of growing number South Koreans living without physical money as they

EconomyMay 8, 2021

[Weekender] The rise of curated fashion platforms

Having a lot of tabs open while browsing for clothes online? For a growing number of shoppers, those days are over. Similar to how going to a shopping mall with a wide range of brands seems more of a safe bet than having to travel between stores far apart from each other, more people in South Korea are turning to platforms like Musinsa and Zigzag -- algorithm-driven e-commerce fashion platforms where shoppers are presented with items from thousands of brands. Musinsa, which boasts some 6,000

ConsumerMay 1, 2021

[Weekender] Seoul faces tough road ahead to stop Fukushima wastewater release

Since the Japanese government announced plans to dispose of radioactive wastewater from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant by releasing it into the sea, Seoul is scrambling to stop it from happening. At the very least, it wants Tokyo to provide transparent information to the international community. South Korea, Japan’s closest neighbor, views the discharge of more than 1 million tons of contaminated water as a threat to its people and the surrounding marine environment. Even though

Foreign AffairsApril 24, 2021