When the press show for YouTube Premium series “Top Management” was held in Seoul in October, it received a great deal of attention from local media outlets. Starring up-and-coming actor and singer Cha Eun-woo of boy band Astro, the show’s pilot episode was watched nearly 1.7 million times in a week. Nadine Zylstra, head of YouTube Originals for the Asia-Pacific region, said at the event that t...

Following the rise of the subscription economy, an increasing number of startups have launched services adopting the new business model. One such startup is Daily Shot, which offers a craft beer or cocktail at a pub for a monthly fee of 9,900 won ($8.70). Daily Shot includes a drink at partner pubs and bars to customers who sign up for the monthly plan. The average price of a craft beer or cockt...

Korean cuisine wouldn’t be what it is today -- spicy, savory and soupy -- without jeotgal: fermented seafood used as a seasoning or condiment. And salted shrimp, or saeu-jeot, is a key ingredient in quintessential Korean food such as kimchi, as well as an indispensable relish enriching broths such as dwaeji gukbap and sundaeguk. Along with salted anchovies, salted shrimp is the most popular jeo...

MACAU -- China’s autonomous region of Macau is one of Asia’s top tourist destinations to enjoy gambling, entertainment and nightlife. The mesmerizing nighttime view of extravagant casinos shows why the city became known as the Vegas of the Orient, but Macau also has rich tourist attractions for travelers of all ages. The historical background of Macau, which was a Portuguese territory until 1999...

Jeotgal, or salt-fermented seafood, continues to be loved Next time you are in Seoul, pay a visit to the heart of the city. Take a gander at Dongdaemun Gate, and tumble onto Jongno 5-ga, where you will stumble across the vibrant Gwangjang Market filled with merchants welcoming regulars, hagglers seeking to put a little more into their bags, and the pungent smell of a mixture of dishes floating i...

Though the phrase “pickled seafood” may not sound so appetizing to the uninitiated, savor jeotgal, the fruits of days, weeks or even months of preparation, and everything changes . Jeotgal is salt-fermented seafood. A wide variety of seafood can be used to make it, including fish, roe, clams, oysters and tiny shrimps, as well as fish gills and intestines. Assorted jeotgal (Im Eun-byel / The Kor...

Lee Noh-hyun, 32, who introduces himself as a “taeeumin,” or a person with the taeeum physiological type, said he has been trying to eat more beef and less chicken and pork since he was told of his type by his Korean medicine doctor. “Although I don’t have blind faith in the relation between the diet based on physiological type and health, I can’t still completely ignore it because Korean medici...

The contents in this article are subjective and not intended as a professional recommendation. – Ed. Believe it or not, I am to stay away from chicken. Or at least that was the result of my recent trips to a traditional Korean medicine clinic. While most Koreans are used to herbal medicine and acupuncture, finding out one’s body type based on constitutional typology and sticking to respective ...

It has been a decade since South Korea started issuing short-term visas for foreigners seeking medical treatment here as part of measures to boost medical tourism. Since then, the medical tourism market has expanded rapidly, with the number of annual foreign visitors for medical treatment here rising 52.2 percent in the four years through 2017 to some 321,600, according to data compiled by the K...

Emily Doran, an English teacher in Seoul, has found homes for more than 140 dogs over the past two years -- many of them “last-day dogs” from city shelters, where unclaimed strays can be killed after a 10-day holding period under South Korea’s Animal Protection Act. Her rescue group, Domo’s Friends, has more than 1,000 followers on Facebook. Doran is one of a number of advocates concerned about...

Change is taking place on the streets of Seoul for human-cat cohabitation. The Seoul city government’s stray cat policy centers on population control, but there’s more to homeless cats’ lives than reproductive impediment. Where the city government fails to fill in, people who are in touch with their feline neighbors on a daily basis are paving the way for humans and street cats to live together....

A stray kitten named “Popo” died after someone laced its food with rat poison and other chemicals. Another cat hid after suffering in a similar way. Last spring, there was even a couple trying to poach cats, dragging a bag around Ewha Womans University campus and asking where the strays were. They said they wanted to make “cat soup,” and that it was good for old people as it boosts cartilage. ...

Hiking is a hugely popular pastime in Korea, with 32 million of the 51.6 million population said to visit a mountain at least once a year. Hiking’s popularity, and older generations’ apparently love of hiking attire for everyday activities, has led to a massive market for “outdoor” clothing, peaking at over 6 trillion won ($5.2 billion) in 2014. The popularity of hiking also comes with a downsi...

Every autumn, a chunk of the population rushes to the mountains to enjoy the breathtaking hues of the fall foliage, but a number of environmentally unfriendly habits that they bring along have been polluting South Korea’s ancient slopes for more than a decade. In recent years, eating meals packed in plastic containers and drinking bottles of rice wine at the summit has become a ritual for the hi...

Korea is a mountainous country with mountains taking up 70 to 80 percent of the land mass. Though downtown areas may barely hint at the presence of mountains amid the skyscrapers and traffic, there are some visual reminders that Korea is a nation of mountains: middle-aged people dressed in mountaineering clothing without a hiking plan on their mind. The “athleisure” look of wearing clothes for ...