It was never easy for Lee Jun to become a professional comic artist. Without proper training or money to hire assistants, he had to master the skills of drawing and storytelling on his own. Lee dropped out of college, but kept his job as an office worker not only to make ends meet but also to realize his lifelong dream. “It was never easy to create webtoons,” Lee said in an interview with The ...

WeMakePrice, Korea’s most visited deal-of-the-day website, is now eyeing a bigger, more promising market: China. “We are currently operating a beta site and observing the outcome. We won’t make haste in advancing into the global market, but when the time is ripe, we won’t hesitate,” Park Eun-sang, CEO of the social commerce company, told The Korea Herald in his first media interview. The compan...

Kim Mun-jeong can’t forget the day when the set, props and lights all came together onstage for the Korean production of the musical “Once.” The set was a rustic Irish pub, with walls covered with tiny lamps and mirrors of varying size and shape. “Other than the mirrors and lamps, there was really nothing. It was just one simple set,” she said, sitting on a couch at Seoul Arts Center on Thursda...

Koreans seem to be keener than ever on safety issues after witnessing a series of accidents this year, including the Sewol ferry disaster that killed more than 300 passengers and the deadly collapse of a ventilation grate at a concert venue. Adding to the safety concerns recently have been the geological problems and construction flaws affecting the Lotte World Tower in Seoul, which is expected ...

ANDONG, North Gyeongsang Province ― Despite their historical and cultural value, Confucian printing woodblocks are barely studied. Most people don’t even know they exist. That’s why Lee Yong-doo and his researchers at the Advanced Center for Korean Studies can’t slow down after the 10-plus-year campaign to salvage the relics from the threat of theft and damage. Deciphering the wisdom of Joseon ...

For many people with irritable bowel syndrome, their symptoms don’t give a clear indication of their condition. While IBS is a common gut disorder which causes abdominal pain, bloating, and sometimes bouts of diarrhea and or constipation, those who suffer indigestion ― also known as functional dyspepsia ― may experience the same, often accompanied with nausea or heartburn. But Dr. Jeong Seong-a...

Armed with expertise and a multiethnic culture, KDI School is ready to step up its contributions to sharing Korea’s know-how on economic development through an online database, policy advisory projects, and lectures and seminars, its chief said. The Seoul-based school in 2012 launched an online archive called K-Developedia, providing free access to resources accrued over the last six decades on ...

Mobile technology has brought profound changes to the way people consume digital goods, with life cycles of products and services getting shorter. As people are constantly exposed to a slew of new information, their tastes change every minute, making it harder to predict their future spending patterns. This is why companies today need the assistance of artificial intelligence that can help them...

After moving to New York from Paris with wide-eyed dreams of moving to Harlem to pursue a life with jazz, David Naze instead found himself unexpectedly enthralled with Korean culture. Living in Big Apple for two years and being exposed to the city’s large Korean community, Naze said that he was so eager to discover Korean culture that he decided to pack his things and do away with his American d...

For many bladder cancer patients, a cystectomy ― the surgical removal of all or part of the bladder ― can be a traumatic experience. In many cases, the surgery inevitably requires a urostomy, the creation of an artificial opening that allows one’s urine to be collected in a bag attached to the outside of one’s body. After this procedure, one has to empty the flat, watertight bag regularly. And ...

Imagine people exploring the deep sea, taking pictures of the underwater landscape and exotic sea creatures and using Wi-Fi networks to share them on the spot through social media sites such as Facebook. Slowly but steadily, the underwater wireless communications technology environment is becoming a reality thanks to Singapore-based start-up Subnero’s pioneering researchers. Subnero’s wireless ...

Actor Song Sae-byeok is not the most well-known actor in Korea, but he has infused his characters with an intensity and unique likability that makes people remember him. Following a brief appearance in Bong Joon-ho’s “Mother” (2009), his supporting role as the perverted, corrupt official Byeon Hak-do in the period film “The Servant” (2010) drew laughter on account of his nonchalant, comic poise ...

Korean transnational adoptee Sarah Bowling was adopted to the U.S. in 1974 at age 3 from an orphanage in Busan. Despite two DNA tests with potential parents in the 1990s ― both came out negative ― Bowling has not found her birth family. However, her experience living in South Korea since 2009 as well as her own birth family search have inspired her to start a project with a very personal connec...

“My mother thought she had a big nose and big feet, was too skinny with skimpy breasts. She would look in the mirror and say, ‘I don’t understand why people think I’m beautiful,’” Audrey Hepburn’s son said about his late mother, deemed the 20th century’s most beautiful woman by fans around the world. Luca Dotti, 44, the second son of Hepburn, who stewarded Hollywood’s golden age, came to Korea l...

In 1948, high-flying metallurgy professor Choe Ke-soon decided to start a new chapter in his life by going to the U.S. Moving there without any relatives or friends, he started as a visiting scholar at Princeton and Columbia universities in New York, before being recruited by The Boeing Co. in 1967 and passing away in 2003 as a top engineer, self-taught calligrapher and watercolor painter, and a ...