The Korea Herald

Tomb found of ancient Chinese female ‘prime minister’

BEIJING (AFP) ― Archaeologists have discovered the tomb of a 7th-century female politician who was one of the most powerful women in China’s ancient history, local media said on Thursday.Shangguan Wan’er ― who lived from 664 to 710 in the Tang dynasty ― was a trusted aide to China’s first empress Wu Zetian and is sometimes described as effectively her prime minister.She married Wu’s son, while having relationships with both the ruler’s lover and her nephew.As a sequence of murders, coups and aff

Sept. 16, 2013

Fashion KODE 2013 to be held next month

A trade show of Korean fashion brands will be held from Oct. 17-19 at COEX in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, the Korea Creative Contents Agency said Monday. Envisioned as Asia’s No. 1 fashion trade show, Fashion KODE 2013 will open with the “KODE Fashion Fair” where international and domestic buyers are invited to meet with the participating Korean fashion brands. The show will be opened to the general public on the third day when visitors will be able to view the latest fashion items and partic

Sept. 16, 2013

Open lab for content makers to launch in Daehangno

An open lab where cultural content creators can initiate, develop and execute their ideas will be set up in Daehangno in northern Seoul in May 2014, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said Monday. The lab, dubbed “Contents Korea Lab,” will be located inside Hongik University Art Center in Daehangno, consisting of seminar and networking rooms, exhibition halls and studios equipped with 3-D printers, media facilities, audio equipment and others that could support budding content producers

Sept. 16, 2013

Rare Buddha statue to be unveiled during Tripitaka Koreana Festival

A 1,200-year-old Buddha statue will be shown to the public for the first time during this year’s global Tripitaka festival, the event’s organizer said Monday.The Haeinsa Temple will unveil “Maaebul,” a 7.5-meter high Buddha statue engraved into a rock wall at Gayasan Mountain, for the 2013 Tripitaka Koreana Festival, which kicks off on Sept. 27 for a 45-day run, the Millennial Anniversary of the Tripitaka Koreana Organizing Committee said.The Maaebul is one of the country’s most well-preserved s

Sept. 16, 2013

Rare Buddha statue to be unveiled during Tripitaka Koreana Festival

3 pre-Hispanic artifacts returned to Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) ― Mexicans got their first chance Friday to see three pre-Hispanic stone carvings that were returned by the Lowe Art museum in Miami after they were apparently removed illegally from Mexico.Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History says the three stone pieces depict a serpent, a water god and a priest or nobleman.While it is hard to say what culture or ruin site they came from, the institute said Friday that experts will study them to try to determine more details.

Sept. 16, 2013

Korea Artist Prize winner adopts nature to describe sick society

Kong Sung-hun, winner of this year’s Korea Artist Prize, said he wanted to show a slice of life through his paintings. “I want to get away from the current art trend and reveal pieces of ordinary lives, including myself living in the present,” he said. The 48-year-old fine arts professor at Sungkyunkwan University received the award from the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea on Sept. 10 for his series of paintings titled “Winter Journey.”The judge panels praised Kong for infu

Sept. 16, 2013

Korea Artist Prize winner adopts nature to describe sick society

Staying in the city for big break

Chuseok surely is a huge deal in Korea, filled with family joys and the signature holiday food.Yet for Seoulites who choose not to visit their family in the countryside, or expats who don’t plan to travel, the holiday leaves them with little to do.Seoul, however, offers a number of options for those who choose to stay in the city for the holiday, from an expat-oriented film festival to English-language musicals. This year’s Chuseok break ― Wednesday to Friday ― is unusually and luckily long, as

Sept. 13, 2013

Calendar

Dance“SIDance”: The annual Seoul International Dance Festival (SIDance) is returning in October, featuring a total of 51 dance companies from 16 countries. The opener this year is a performance by Canadian troupe Cas Public, with its stylish variation of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” Other invited troupes include France’s Cie Heddy Maalem, Finland’s Dance Theatre Auraco, and Italy’s Ambra Senatore. This year’s SIDance runs from Oct. 7 to 27 at Gangdong Arts Center, Seoul Art Center and Goyang A

Sept. 13, 2013

Musicals, games, films, named ‘killer content’

The government on Thursday selected online games, films, animated films, the character business, broadcasting and musicals as well as converged content as Korea’s “killer content,” subject to tailored support in the future. The authorities will also discover and develop storytelling in content that has a uniquely Korean appeal in order to enhance global competitiveness, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Ministry Science, ICT and Future Planning said in a press briefing on Thurs

Sept. 12, 2013

State portal to provide information about 300,000 heritage assets

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Wednesday started releasing comprehensive information about the country’s cultural heritage through its portal site, www.culture.go.kr, giving the public wider and easier access to the country’s traditional cultural assets.Currently, photos and details about 300,000 items are available. The Cultural Heritage Administration and the National Museum of Korea will share their databases in order to provide a broader range of information about the artifac

Sept. 11, 2013

Asia’s top broadcasting fair opening in Seoul

Asia’s largest broadcast visual content market will kick off its three-day run on Wednesday at COEX B Hall in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul. More than 170 visual content providers including BBC Worldwide, NHK Enterprise, Asahi TV, CITVC and TV5 will be participating in Broadcast Worldwide, BCWW2013, organized by the Korea Creative Contents Agency. About 90 domestic content distributors and manufacturers such as terrestrial TV, cable TV, general programming TV stations and production companies wi

Sept. 9, 2013

S.M. Entertainment’s content exports hit W100 billion

Thanks to the growing global popularity of K-pop, exports of Korean cultural content marked a remarkable success last year, with one exporter hitting 100 billion won ($92 million) in exports for the first time in the industry, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said Sunday.According to an administrative report to Rep. An Min-suk of the Democratic Party, S.M. Entertainment, the country’s most profitable showbiz agency with stars such as SNSD, TVXQ and Super Junior, marked 103.6 billion w

Sept. 8, 2013

S.M. Entertainment’s content exports hit W100 billion

History of Chuseok gifts

Thanksgiving on the lunar calendar has been celebrated all across Asia for a very long time. It was the time when people ― even married women who were tacitly restrained from visiting their mothers and fathers after getting married and living with the in-laws ― got together and tried to convey their good status by giving gifts. “After women served all the holiday visitors they were allowed to visit their own parents for a short period of time. Longing for that day for a year, the daughters would

Sept. 6, 2013

Chuseok, sharing the spirit of gratitude

From Sept. 18 through 20, the country will be filled with the holiday spirit as families gather, share love, news and, most of all, holiday presents over Chuseok, or Korean Thanksgiving.Families will visit their hometowns or gather at their parents’ houses, enjoy holiday meals, watch TV and play games, share conversation to catch up on each other’s lives, take a break from their daily routines and then return home with a sense of fulfillment. And of course, their hands will be full with presents

Sept. 6, 2013

Chuseok, sharing the spirit of gratitude

Calendar

Classical Music“Countertenor Andreas Scholl Recital”: Prominent German countertenor Andreas Scholl will have a recital on Sept. 23 at Seoul Arts Center’s Concert Hall. A specialist in Baroque music, world-renowned countertenor Scholl is known for having a singing voice equivalent to that of a female contralto or mezzo-soprano. The program for the recital will include notable German lieder such as Haydn’s “Despair,” Schubert’s “Du bist die Ruh D. 776,” Brahm’s “Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2” and Mozar

Sept. 6, 2013

Over 200 languages lost in diverse India, study finds

NEW DELHI (AFP) ― More than 200 languages have vanished in India over the last 50 years, a new study says, blaming urban migration and fear among nomadic tribes of speaking their traditional tongues.The extensive study, conducted throughout the country over four years and released this week, has found 230 languages have “elapsed” while another 870 have survived the test of time in richly diverse but rapidly modernizing India, home to a vast number of indigenous or tribal peoples.Ganesh Devy, who

Sept. 5, 2013

Louvre’s ‘Winged Victory’ flies off for restoration

PARIS (AP) ― “Winged Victory of Samothrace,” the hulking Hellenistic sculpture that dominates the Louvre Museum’s most frequented staircase, is taking flight ― away from tourists’ gazes for a restoration project.Officials at the famed Paris museum said the 2nd-century B.C. sculpture was set to be dismantled, hoisted onto rollers and wheeled into a closed cabin in another Louvre gallery for structural work and a meticulous cleaning to restore the original hues to its marble over the next nine mon

Sept. 4, 2013

New work sets timeline for the first pharaohs

PARIS (AFP) ― Archaeologists drawing on a wide range of tools said on Wednesday they had pinpointed the crucial time in world history when Egypt emerged as a distinct state.Experts have wrangled for decades as to when turbulent upper and lower Egypt were brought together under a stable, single ruler for the first time.Conventional estimates, based on the evolving styles of ceramics found in human burials, vary hugely, from B.C. 3,400 to 2,900.A team led by Oxford University’s Michael Dee, report

Sept. 4, 2013

KNUA to recruit foreign professors

The Korea National University of Arts will hire more professors from outside the country over the next five years, its newly appointed president Kim Bong-ryol said Wednesday. Aiming to recruit “masters” and “rising stars” in the international art scene to share their knowledge and know-how, the school will establish a special fund to meet international standards of pay, Kim said at a press conference. There are currently 146 professors at the school and Kim plans to raise the number to 165 in th

Sept. 4, 2013

Abandoned casts of Angkor Wat treasures come out of hiding

PARIS (AFP) ― Forgotten and abandoned for over 70 years, casts of the art treasures at the Khmer temple complex at Angkor in Cambodia are coming out of storage to be rediscovered in a Europe that first shunned them.The statues, reliefs and temple decorations in the style of the original ninth to 15-century monuments at the site in northern Cambodia are to be exhibited in Paris’ Musee Guimet in all their splendor.The casts made between 1870 and the late 1920s were commissioned by Frenchman Louis

Sept. 3, 2013