Born in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, in the late 1960s, London-based design expert Don Tae Lee grew up without electricity. “Whenever I tell my employees in England about my upbringing, they don’t believe me,” said the 45-year-old during the opening ceremony of the Herald Design Week held in Seoul on Monday.“And I, who grew up without lights at home, am now working for a foreign company. I somehow moved to England, somehow got myself to speak English, and somehow got myself hired at Tangerine. I

Arts & Design Oct. 8, 2013

Robert Ramsey, director of the center of East Asian Studies at the University of Maryland, is to receive an Order of Cultural Merit from the Korean government, along with nine others who have contributed to the study and promotion of Hangeul, the Culture Ministry said Monday.Ramsey, 72, is known for his research into the Korean language. In 2011, he published “A History of the Korean Language,” the first history book on the subject ever written in English. The 2013 list of medal recipients also

Performance Oct. 7, 2013

Technically dazzling and emotionally gripping, “Gravity” is a space-age science fiction thriller grounded in something pretty close to reality.A space shuttle / space junk accident picture, Alfonso Cuaron’s movie gives us Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, space-walkers whose ship is wrecked, forcing them to face the ultimate human fear.No one wants to die alone. There is no place lonelier than the cold, silent and airless vacuum of space.Filmed in a stunning “How’d they DO that?” 3-D, we meet c

Film Oct. 4, 2013

Filmmaker Im Kwon-taek announced Friday that his 102nd movie would be a film adaption of author Kim Hoon’s 2004 award-winning short story “Hwajang.” Actor Ahn Sung-ki, who previously starred in a total of six films by Im, has been cast in the leading role. Kim’s short story, which won the prestigious Yi Sang Literary Award in 2004, is about a middle-aged man who spends most of his life working for a cosmetics company, and his wife, who is dying of cancer. The devoted and patient husband also has

Film Oct. 4, 2013

BUSAN― A Bhutanese film directed by a Buddhist monk, featuring India’s traditional dance and its spirituality, opened the 18th Busan International Film Festival in Busan on Thursday.Cohosted by veteran Korean actress Kang Soo-yeon and Hong Kong singer and actor Aaron Kwok, the festival’s opening ceremony was attended by some 4,000 guests, including renowned cineastes from home and abroad such as Japanese filmmaker Shinji Aoyama, French film critic and historian Charles Tesson, and Korean filmmak

Film Oct. 3, 2013

Jhumpa Lahiri, who at 46 has already won a Pulitzer Prize (for her first book, the 1999 story collection “Interpreter of Maladies”), and was recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (for her new novel, “The Lowland”), does a number of things obviously well: Not one for literary gymnastics, she is a precisionist, a realist, not an ironist. She does not bend genre, slum among dystopias or gauge the state of the nation. A stern admirer of Thomas Hardy, Alice Munro and Mavis Gallant ― all of wh

Books Oct. 3, 2013

Margaret Atwood, a master at creating clever names, is always on the lookout for more. Settling into a cafe chair on a gorgeous August morning in Manhattan’s Bryant Park, she points out a sandwich kiosk called Wichcraft.“I like that one,” she says. Gracious of her, since it pales in comparison with monikers of the fantastic creatures populating “MaddAddam,” the just-published conclusion to Atwood’s trilogy about a small band of humans ― and gentle humanoids ― trying to survive after a man-made p

Books Oct. 3, 2013

Gaddafi’s Harem: The story of a Young Woman and the Abuses of Power in LibyaBy Annick Cojean (Grove Press) The first half of this deeply disturbing book is one woman’s account of how Moammar Gadhafi forced her, when she was barely 15, to become his sex slave, keeping her and other victims imprisoned for years. He summoned them to his bedchamber day and night, where he drugged them, beat them, raped them and sodomized them.The woman, Soraya, said that Gadhafi chose his victims by strolling throug

Books Oct. 3, 2013

Korea’s biggest annual film festival opens in Busan today, featuring a total of 301 films, including 95 world premieres from 70 countries, and two highly anticipated directing debuts by prominent Korean actors.Part of the lineup of the Korean Cinema Today section are actor Ha Jung-woo’s (“Love Fiction,” “The Chaser”) directing debut “Fasten Your Seatbelt” and veteran actor Park Joong-hoon’s (“Nowhere to Hide,” “Radio Star”) directing debut “Top Star.”Ha’s “Fasten Your Seatbelt” is a comedy about

Film Oct. 2, 2013

Director Hong Sang-soo’s latest film “Our Sunhi” has drawn 50,000 viewers in 19 days, a record for the filmmaker. According to the state-run Korean Film Council, Hong’s film, which belongs to the local diversity film chart ― a chart for indie and art house films released in fewer than 100 theaters nationwide ― topped 52,359 viewers as of Tuesday. In the local film industry, the 10,000-viewer mark for indie films is generally considered equivalent to the 1 million mark for a commercial film. “Our

Film Oct. 1, 2013

Paju Book City, home to some 300 local publishing houses in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, is throwing its annual book-themed festival, focusing on Asian literature and authors this year. Dubbed “Paju Booksori,” the festival celebrates its third edition this year. The event, which opened Saturday, includes lectures, performances and exhibitions, featuring authors and publishers from home and abroad.One of the festival’s exhibitions features the life and works of Yi I (1536-1584), one of the most promi

Books Sept. 30, 2013

Seoul’s Gangnam is hosting its annual month-long hallyu bash starting Thursday, presenting a K-pop concert, fashion shows and an international marathon for both expats and locals starting Thursday.Marking its seventh edition this year, the Gangnam Festival celebrates hallyu culture as well as a marathon that welcomes expats, foreign tourists and local residents to run together. Gangnam gained worldwide attention last year as Psy’s “Gangnam Style” became the first YouTube video to reach 1 billion

Performance Sept. 30, 2013

One of the biggest performing arts festivals in Asia arrives in Seoul on Wednesday, featuring a total of 19 works from seven countries, including a play about late celebrated intellectual Susan Sontag (1933-2004). This year’s lineup for the annual Seoul Performing Arts Festival, celebrating its 13th edition, is filled with a number of cutting-edge, highly experimental works that blur the line between fantasy and reality. “SPAF 2013 aspires to encourage and inspire a new mode of creativity by inv

Performance Sept. 29, 2013

 As a kid, cartoonist and scholar Rhie Won-bok spent most of his time doodling alone.“In the 1950s, you only had two choices as a kid,” Rhie, now 66, tells The Korea Herald. “You either went outside and played with other kids, or stayed inside and found something to do. People were poor and we all didn’t have many things. Books were also very hard to find. I wasn’t a very active type, so I stayed inside and just doodled.”After many years of doodling, he started drawing random things. He drew a l

Books Sept. 27, 2013

Throughout the last 33 years, Rhie Won-bok’s educational series “Far Countries, Near Countries” offered young Korean readers a glimpse into the culture and history of other countries. Yet the series’ volume on Korea is also a great introduction for people with no background knowledge on the country. Based on Rhie’s thorough research and keen observations, the book presents an insightful and sometimes hilarious analysis of Korean culture, society and its people. “I’ve received a number of invites

Books Sept. 27, 2013