Korea eyes World Heritage status for Seoul City Walls

South Korea will apply for World Heritage Status for an ancient defensive wall encircling its capital city in 2016, a government committee said Thursday.The Seoul City Walls, an 18.6-km-long wall surrounding Hanyang, the former capital of the Joseon era (1392-1910) and present-day central Seoul, was chosen during a meeting on Tuesday to be, along with other heritage items, on South Korea’s application for the UNESCO heritage listing for 2016, the Cultural Properties Committee said.The advisory p

Nov. 6, 2014

Shipwreck thought to date back to Joseon found

A shipwreck with more than 100 pieces of earthenware, presumed to date back to 18th- or 19th-century Korea, has been found in western waters in what archeologists say could be the first discovery of a Joseon-era ship. The National Research Institute of Maritime Cultural Heritage said Wednesday that its underwater research team discovered what appeared to be a vessel’s stern and some wooden beams on the seabed off Mado Island, Taean County, South Chungcheong Province.“A pilot excavation of the sh

Nov. 5, 2014

A modern take on love story ‘Chunhyangjeon’

Romanian-born American theater director Andrei Serban has compared the famous classical Korean love story “Chunhyangjeon” to freely adapted works of Shakespeare. “Like Shakespeare’s stories, you can turn the story upside down, improvise and do the craziest experiments to recreate,” Serban said in a press conference on Wednesday about his new production “Andrei Serban’s Different Chunhyang,” which will be staged with the National Changguek Company from Nov. 20 to Dec. 6. “But at the end of the da

Nov. 5, 2014

Grandma’s Roundtable eases life challenges for 7 lucky grandkids

MINNEAPOLIS ― She’s a therapist and career coach, cheerleader and wise woman, secret keeper and borscht pusher.Mostly, 85-year-old Gretta Freeman of Golden Valley, Minnesota, is chief executive officer of perhaps the most endearingly run support group in the Midwest, and likely beyond. Unfortunately for us, membership is closed.For 18 years, Freeman has guided her seven grandchildren, now grown, through myriad life passages and challenges. She has done this through her Grandma’s Roundtable, a pe

Nov. 5, 2014

Call him ‘Biilzbub’: Man gets creative with bones of dead animals

PITTSBURGH ― They crawl and they feed on rotting flesh and sinew, appearing to pulsate as they strip the skull and thorax of a small rodent. The sight of them might give a chill or turn a stomach, but it is simply nature at work.The grubs of dermestid (or skin, hide or carrion) beetles are scavengers that feed on the carcasses of the deceased and are commonly found on roadkill or, more grimly, on abandoned corpses.But in a 208-liter aquarium tank on the coffee table of a Pittsburgh apartment, th

Nov. 5, 2014

Homeless ‘urban travelers’ are vexing to tourist-dependent cities

SANTA BARBARA, California ― Joe McCabe sits on a wooden bench and calls out to two men strolling up State Street, “Have any spare change? I’m actually a traveler.”The men continue walking, and McCabe grumbles a homophobic slur that they don’t hear.McCabe gets up from the park bench and saunters down State Street in the opposite direction. At the corner, he stretches his right arm out to a woman wearing short shorts and high heels. She grimaces and looks at her friends questioningly as she maneuv

Nov. 5, 2014

1,000-plus years of living: 10 centenarians share secrets to a long life

BALTIMORE, Maryland ― As a young girl, Downing Jett Kay danced to music played on a Victrola and watched Model T’s drive through the streets of Baltimore.She wore her hair in a flapper’s bob as a member of Forest Park High School’s Class of 1926, conducted interviews during the Depression for the Gallup Poll and listened to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats on the radio.Kay, who is to turn 107 next month, attributes her longevity to two factors: drinking lots of coffee and maintai

Oct. 29, 2014

Daughter’s one-dose ecstasy death spurs parents to publicize dangers

FORT WORTH, Texas ― Jessica Mary Hunter made two significant choices in life, her father said.The latter killed her.“Her first choice was accepting Jesus Christ,” her father Alan Hunter said, tears welling up in his eyes. “And her second was to take this drug.”Jessica, 21, died on Oct. 8, three days after taking Ecstasy with friends at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. It was the first time she had taken the party drug, friends said.Weeks after their daughter’s death, her parents remain dum

Oct. 29, 2014

‘War Horse’ to hit local cinemas

The National Theater in London’s international smash-hit production “War Horse” will be screened at local cinemas next month. A rebroadcast in cinemas of the West End production will open on Nov. 8 at select Megabox cinemas, mostly in Seoul, the local cinema chain said Tuesday. Featuring a life-sized puppet horse, the production was an instant sensation when it was first performed in 2007. The original production never came to Korea. Indicative of the high level of interest among theatergoers he

Oct. 28, 2014

Polish, Israeli presidents to open Jewish museum

WARSAW (AFP) ― Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski and Israeli counterpart Reuven Rivlin will on Tuesday inaugurate a Warsaw museum chronicling the vibrant 1,000-year history of Poland’s Jewish community, all but wiped out during the Holocaust.Built on the site of the former Warsaw ghetto, the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews will be “a game changer” for Polish-Jewish relations, the country’s chief rabbi Michael Schudrich told AFP.“That does not mean the relations were bad, but it me

Oct. 28, 2014

Korean folktale webtoon launched for foreigners

The King Sejong Institute Foundation, a government entity promoting Korean language and culture overseas, has produced a webtoon series to help foreigners better understand Korean traditional culture, in five languages. Twenty-four folktales, including “Kyunwoo and Jiknyo” and “The Sun and the Moon,” will be published as a weekly webtoon series ― digital cartoons regularly released through portal sites ― on the foundation’s website in Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish.  The King Sej

Oct. 27, 2014

Forum urges preservation and diversity of scripts

Participants at the World Script Symposia 2014, a festival of arts and scripts, adopted a declaration to promote the diversity and preservation of different writing systems on Oct. 26. “Scripts constitute a key part of the endeavor to protect and restore cultural diversity worldwide,” says the “World Script Seoul Declaration.” “All scripts have their own unique value, there can be no superior or inferior script. Therefore, preserving diversity is an important symbol demonstrating that human righ

Oct. 27, 2014

J.K. Rowling announces new ‘Harry Potter’ backstory tale

It’s no Halloween trick: There’s more witchcraft and wizardry in store for “Harry Potter” fans, who can expect a new tale from author J.K. Rowling on Oct. 31. In an announcement posted to Pottermore.com, Rowling reveals that she has penned a new 1,700-word story that will offer “revealing first-person” thoughts about former Hogwarts professor Dolores Umbridge.  Imelda Staunton (right) played Dolores Umbridge in the “Harry Potter” movies. (Warner Bros.)Umbridge is a fitting character for a Hallow

Oct. 26, 2014

Calendar

Classical musicThe Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra: Maestro Mariss Jansons will conduct his Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in two concerts at Seoul Arts Center. On Nov. 18, the world-renowned orchestra will perform Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures At An Exhibition” (arr. Ravel). The program for the next day consists of Strauss’ “Don Juan” and “Der Rosenkavalier Suite (The Knight of the Rose)” and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. Tickets run from 60,000 w

Oct. 24, 2014

[Herald Interview] Deriving 21st-century questions from classic masterpiece

Continuing on the Shakespeare theme after the much-hailed production earlier this month of Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette,” the Korea National Opera is presenting another Shakespeare play-turned-opera ― Giuseppe Verdi’s “Otello.” For the production, which will be staged next month at Seoul Arts Center, the state-run company has brought in British stage director Stephen Lawless, who in previous works has displayed a balance between traditional and nontraditional approaches to the classic opera reper

Oct. 23, 2014

Homeless kids take snapshots of lives, dreams

PHILADELOPHIA ― The photograph that 6-year-old Logan Reed snapped near the place he once lived as a homeless child conveys not a thousand words, as the saying goes, but one plain desire.“My hope is to have friends,” says a quote printed beneath his photo, on a greeting card bearing an image of two young girls holding hands at a playground. His words convey a bittersweet longing against a sanguine snapshot taken by a boy with a fetching, toothless smile.“Maybe because we moved around so much,” sa

Oct. 22, 2014