Flight attendants on Jeju Air are officially permitted to wear glasses and nail art, the South Korean low cost carrier said Tuesday. Jeju Air said it recently revised the rules for its cabin crew so that cabin members are allowed to wear eyeglasses and are required to carry an additional pair or contact lenses, in case the glasses get broken. The rules also allow nail art of all colors and type...

Seoul Metropolitan Government will stop providing plastic umbrella sleeves at subway stations and government offices, starting next month. Seoul said Monday that starting on May 1, plastic umbrella sleeves, which have been provided at the entrance of buildings on rainy days, will be replaced by umbrella dryers or carpets that can absorb water. Plastic umbrella sleeves, which are used to prevent...

A man has been questioned by police for causing a disturbance on a flight bound for Incheon. The man, who is from Russia and in his 50s, is accused of shouting and throwing the tray of an in-flight meal, Incheon International Airport Police said Thursday. He is also accused of forcefully pushing one of the flight attendants serving the meals. The man was on board a Korean Air plane departing fr...

An overwhelming majority of workers in Korea were found to have experienced abuse of power by someone in a superior position, a recent survey showed Wednesday. According to a poll conducted by job seeking portal Incruit on 898 Korean workers, 97 percent of respondents answered that they have worked for someone who abuses their juniors. Gapjil is a Korean term which refers to the abuse of power...

A soldier on vacation was arrested for taking photos of a woman in a public restroom, Cheongju Heungdeok Police Station said Tuesday. According to the police, a soldier was caught after he secretly took photos of a woman’s body at around 1:15 a.m., Sunday, in the restroom of a restaurant in Heungdeok-gu, Cheongju in North Chungcheong Province. The man was arrested upon the woman’s report to the...

Hyolyn of disbanded girl group Sistar will drop a new single in a week. The singer’s agency Bridge said Tuesday that “Dally” will be released next Monday as part of Hyolyn’s solo project, “Set up Time.” It will be the second single of the project, following “To Do List” which was released in February. According to Bridge, the new single will feature a unique performance by Hyolyn, dubbed “heel...

A man in his 40s has been sentenced to eight months of imprisonment suspended for two years for threatening and hitting his neighbor over a noise dispute, Incheon District Court said Sunday. The man was indicted in September 2017 for threatening a neighbor with a weapon and injuring the victim’s face and hip bone in the hallway of his apartment building in Incheon. He reportedly committed the o...

Scream detection systems installed in public bathrooms have given off more false alarms than actual emergency reports, according to local police. North Chungcheong Provincial Police said Sunday that most cases reported by scream detection systems in public bathrooms of local parks were not related to actual dangers. Out of 153 cases reported from March through April 13, 85.6 percent (131 cases)...

In the age of social media, workout routines and diet plans are easily coupled with the desire to share these efforts with friends and followers online. At the last count, more than 1 million posts each under hashtags “dietgram” and “dietmeal” in Korean have been shared on Instagram, a social platform that is quickly expanding its user base here. The word “diet” in Korean implies a wide range o...

A female news presenter of one of the three major TV networks here appeared wearing glasses on air, sparking interest online. Lim Hyeon-ju, who delivers the news on MBC’s morning news program “MBC News Today,” wore a pair of round-rimmed glasses on air Thursday. While male news presenters in Korea have often been seen wearing glasses on air on major TV networks, including KBS, SBS and MBC, it i...

Mnet’s new audition program “Produce 48” will start airing in June, the TV network said Wednesday. “Produce 48” will broadcast competitions among 96 trainees from both South Korea and Japan, contesting for four months to debut as a global girl group. Members of popular Japanese girl group, AKB48, will also be part of the 96 contestants. Trainers will include Lee Hong-ki of FT Island, Soyou, ra...

All five of the K-pop group Black Pink’s music videos have each exceeded the 100-million-view mark on YouTube, as of Monday afternoon. According to the group’s agency YG Entertainment, the official music video of “Stay,” released in November 2016 on their second single “Square Two,” reached 100 million views at around 12:40 p.m. on Monday. This comes two days after the music video for “Playing ...

Literary translator and professor Kim Wook-dong asserted in his recently published article that the English version of the novel “The Vegetarian” has a significant number of mistranslations. In his article published online on March 30, Kim wrote that “The Vegetarian,” a winning novel of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, contains many more mistranslations than what “one would expect from a...

Korean discount store chain E-Mart will be the first in the country to provide cereals made of edible insects. The superstore chain said Sunday that it will sell three varieties of “Futureal” starting this month, which are cereals developed by Future Food Lab, made of edible insect powders and mushrooms. By Cho Yun-myung ( yunc39@heraldcorp.com )

The consumption of soju in South Korea rose slightly in 2017, data showed Sunday. According to Statistics Korea, domestic consumption of soju, the traditional Korean distilled liquor, increased by 0.5 percent last year compared to 2016. The total consumption of soju here in 2017 was approximately 1.31 million kiloliters, which amounts to around 3.64 billion bottles. A shot glass of soju can ho...