‘Nongak’ added to UNESCO heritage list

Korean farmers’ traditional folk dance and music “nongak” has been recognized by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity, the Korean government said Thursday. It is Korea’s 17th item to be inscribed on the international heritage list, following the addition in December last year of “gimjang,” the culture of making and sharing kimchi. Meeting in Paris, representatives of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage decided to add th

CultureNov. 28, 2014

Actress Nam to wed in January

Nam Sang-miActress Nam Sang-mi will tie the knot with a businessman in January, her agency said Friday. The star of the TV dramas “Time between Dog and Wolf” (KBS, 2007) and “Gourmet” (SBS, 2008) met her husband-to-be through a mutual acquaintance in November last year and the two have been dating ever since, JR Entertainment said through a press statement. The wedding will be held on Jan. 24 at a small church in one of Seoul’s southern suburbs. It will be a private ceremony, with only family me

TelevisionNov. 28, 2014

Agency refutes B.A.P claims

K-pop boy band B.A.P. (TS Entertainment)TS Entertainment on Friday refuted accusations by the K-pop boy band B.A.P that they were working under a “slave contract.” “The artists have not been mistreated, and there are no unfair clauses in the contract,” the label said in a press release, countering the boy band’s allegations. The response comes two days after the rookie K-pop singers filed a lawsuit against their agency, demanding the termination of their exclusive contracts. All six members of B

Nov. 28, 2014

[Design Forum] Food for thought, thoughts on design

The Herald Design Market on Thursday welcomed visitors with an array of snazzy snacks, one-bite sweets and beverages that bring greater aesthetic inspiration. Peter Callahan, renowned caterer and food stylist, shared his genre of food that brought a whole miniature food boom in the U.S., during a “Food Talk” session. “We try to make every ingredient a decoration,” Callahan said. “It’s all about the details that make the difference.” Callahan, who has served food for many famous personalities suc

FoodNov. 27, 2014

[Design Forum] Seoul is city in an 'impossible place’

As one of the greatest architectural figures in modern times, Rem Koolhaas has designed structures that can be seen in major cities across the globe. Founder of the architecture firm OMA and a Harvard University professor, Koolhaas is widely considered one of the world’s most influential architects and is the mind behind the visually perplexing CCTV Headquarters building in Beijing as well as the Seoul National University Museum of Art. The architect, who was one of the keynote speakers at this

Arts & DesignNov. 27, 2014

[Design Forum] Innovators discuss bridging gap between business and design

As part of the Herald Design Forum 2014, four leading experts in the fields of marketing and design gathered at the JW Marriott Dongdaemun Seoul on Wednesday to share their insights during the Herald Design Premium Talk. This year’s talks featured two separate sessions under the theme “Design Changes the World ― Design Management and Design Storming.” The first session touched upon issues of corporate social responsibility and design innovation and was led by Alexander Schill, global chief creat

Arts & DesignNov. 27, 2014

Gong shares journey of faith

Best-selling novelist Gong Ji-young, who has openly discussed themes including dictatorship, feminism and the labor movement in her works, recently published a new book on faith and her own spiritual journey, which also includes a section on her encounter with the Holy Spirit. “More of the Monastery Travelogue 2” chronicles her visits to 11 monasteries here and abroad, including Waegwan Abbey in North Gyeongsang Province and Monte Cassino Abbey in Italy, over a three-year period. It has been 13

BooksNov. 27, 2014

Ignoring woes, AC/DC sticks to rock formula

PARIS (AFP) ― One band member is retired with dementia and another has faced charges over a murder plot. But for the rest of AC/DC, the time-tested hard rock formula is still going strong.The Australian rockers next week release “Rock or Bust,” some 40 years since Angus Young first donned his schoolboy outfit and took out his Gibson SG to play the sorts of power riffs that remain virtually unchanged on the latest album.And it has almost been as long since Brian Johnson took the microphone in 198

PerformanceNov. 27, 2014

Peter Capaldi muses on his first year as ‘Doctor Who’

Finishing out his first season as “Doctor Who,” lead actor Peter Capaldi feels he’s living a dream and having a “fabulous” time.“I get up at half-six in the morning,” he says, “and by 7 o’clock I’m fighting Daleks, running down corridors, skipping down ventilation shafts. That’s a great way to be living your life at this age, I think.”The Doctor is an alien from the planet Gallifrey who travels through time and space in his TARDIS (time machine), having adventures and usually defending Earth. Th

FilmNov. 27, 2014

Joy of Nongak is all in the playing

Having lived in Korea for more than a decade now, Sam Hammington has had several encounters with nongak, traditional music performed by farmers. For a long time, he held on to his first impressions of the music. “My impressions were like ... What kind of music is that? It’s too loud,” said the Australian, who is one of the most popular TV personalities in Korea. Then a three-day trip to Pilbong, a small agricultural town in South Jeolla Province, where the cultural heritage of preindustrial Kore

TelevisionNov. 27, 2014

Rise, fall and sale of multiculturalism in U.S.

Jeff Chang remembers the first time he saw the comic strip “Wee Pals” and the jolt it gave his young mind. Right there, on the comics pages that were generally colorless even when they ran in full color, was an Asian-American face looking back at him.“I could relate to it,” he says by phone as he drives to a reading of his new book, “Who We Be: The Colorization of America” (St. Martin’s, $32.99). “I thought, hey, I’m on the funny pages.”“Wee Pals,” Morrie Turner’s strip about the adventures and

BooksNov. 27, 2014

‘Blue Avenue’ channels classic noir

Blue AvenueBy Michael Wiley (Severn House)Jacksonville, Florida, author Michael Wiley takes a measured walk on the dark side in his intriguing thriller “Blue Avenue” that channels classic noir author James M. Cain and the Coen Brothers’ debut film, “Blood Simple.”While Wiley’s fourth novel launches his new series about Jacksonville police detective Daniel Turner, “Blue Avenue” belongs to shady businessman William “BB” Byrd, whose obsessions drive the plot. Turner’s role as more of an observer al

BooksNov. 27, 2014

‘Family Furnishings’ deep, surprising

The most astonishing aspect of Alice Munro’s “Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014” may be its chronology. The two dozen efforts here come from late in her career, after she had established herself as (perhaps) the preeminent short-fiction writer of her time.Munro’s first book came out in 1968; she had already received pretty much every award possible before winning the Nobel Prize in literature in 2013. Yet rather than fall into any sort of expected pattern, she has, as Jane Smiley n

BooksNov. 27, 2014

‘See You in Paradise’ plays with genre

See You in ParadiseBy J. Robert Lennon (Graywolf Press)“Most contemporary literary fiction is terrible: mannered, conservative and obvious,” J. Robert Lennon stated on Salon, responding to another acclaimed writer urging students to read any new fiction they can in the major literary magazines and anthologies.This might be surprising or even hypocritical from Lennon, who is published in elite magazines like Granta and The New Yorker.But Lennon urges his students to read whatever they are natural

BooksNov. 27, 2014

‘Revival’ asks if there is life after death

RevivalBy Stephen King (Scribner)A page-turning tug-of-war between reformed rocker Jamie Morton and man of faith Charles Jacobs, “Revival” (King’s second novel this year after spring’s “Mr. Mercedes”) fuses human drama with supernatural horror. As has become King’s wont over the past decade, much of the tale wrestles with the idea of mortality.The 67-year-old author has found the sweetness in aging, although his reflections upon growing older are always tinged with a little sadness and fear.Mort

BooksNov. 27, 2014