For those who reminisce on the good old ’70s and ’80s, a festival sure to conjure up old memories and exhibit the culture of the time is to be held next month. The music festival “Arirang Fest,” themed around the music of the ’70s and ’80s and makgeolli, one of Korea’s favorite alcoholic beverages, will be held for the first time from June 8-10 at Kintex in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province.  Well-known singers and bands from the era, including rock singer Kim Jong-seo, band Love and Peace and six other

Performance May 30, 2012

Kukje Gallery exhibition features early iconic works shown for the first time in Korea An exhibition of works by the late French-American artist Louise Bourgeois opened last week, featuring some of her early iconic pieces that are being shown for the first time in Korea. Titled “Personages,” the exhibition showcases 14 pieces created between the 1940s and the early 1950s that established Bourgeois as one of the most prominent sculptors after World War II.Known in Korea for the gigantic spider sc

Culture May 29, 2012

Exhibition, symposium and performances to commemorate the artist’s life and worksAs this year marks the late pioneering video artist Paik Nam June’s 80th birthday, a series of events are planned to shed new light on the artist’s life and work.Starting on his birthday, July 20, the Nam June Paik Art Center in Gyeonggi Province plans to hold a special exhibition featuring a rare collection of his major works, followed by a symposium and musical performances attended by his wife Shigeko Kubota, his

Performance May 28, 2012

ULAANBAATAR ― The travels that the Korean workers undertake to study hazards in Mongolian mines are full of risks and challenges. Researchers of MIRECO, the Korean mine hazards prevention organization, visited more than 200 mines last year, traveling more than 600 kilometers each time. “We covered the western part of Mongolia and it was 18,000 kilometers away from Ulaanbaatar. The asphalt roads only cover 400 kilometers from the capital and the rest of the roads are just unpaved. We travel on th

Social Affairs May 27, 2012

 ULAANBAATAR ― The chief of Korea’s state aid agency in Ulaanbaatar said aid programs should lay the groundwork for a mutually beneficial economic cooperation in the future combining Mongolia’s vast land and resources and Korea’s technology and development know-how.“Korea and Mongolia are very close countries geographically and culturally. There are projects the two countries can work together on to achieve economic prosperity in the Northeast Asian region,” said Lee Dong-ku, resident representa

Social Affairs May 27, 2012

Korean aid agency builds infrastructure for water supply, waste management for improved lives, economic developmentThis is the sixth installment of a series of articles introducing programs and activities of the Korea International Cooperation Agency, a state-run organization for overseas assistance and humanitarian aid. ― Ed.ULAANBAATAR ― Korea’s state aid agency is leading projects in Mongolia to combat environmental problems such as water shortages, desertification and mining dangers, major h

Social Affairs May 27, 2012

When major sports brands opened registration for their marathon events earlier this month, some saw their websites crash as thousands of people tried to register online at once. New Balance increased the number of participants for its 2012 New Race, scheduled for June 10, from 5,000 last year to 15,000 this year in response to the growing popularity of marathons in the country. When this week’s nike Women’s 7K Race opened registration last month, its 7,000 places were quickly filled, closing reg

Culture May 25, 2012

There’s a museum with something for everyone in Victoria, B.C., from evocative exhibits of native history to tea and croquet on the lawn of a 19th-century home-turned-museum.Here’s a sampling:Royal BC MuseumThis don’t-miss museum, the city’s biggest, has a world-class First Nations gallery (with ceremonial masks, totem poles and more artifacts of British Columbia’s native groups); natural-history galleries with lush sea and forest dioramas; and a child-pleasing reconstruction of a 19th-century t

Travel May 25, 2012

EL ORIENTE, Ecuador ― This is one rain forest the world has saved.After donors around the globe pledged $116 million by the December 2011 deadline to prevent oil drilling in the biologically fragile Yasuni National Park, the Ecuadorian government agreed to leave it alone for now.There will be no roads, drilling or pipelines this year.Instead, tourists can continue to witness the damp glory of the region’s tangled forests and the riotous color of even the smallest frog and butterfly.“Everyone on

Travel May 25, 2012

K-pop singers held a concert near Google’s headquarters in Mountain View in California earlier this week to celebrate a content-sharing deal between MBC and YouTube. The concert marked the partnership between the Korean broadcaster and the world’s biggest video-sharing site, which was signed in October last year. The concert was broadcast live on YouTube Presents, an Internet-live music and performance broadcasting platform, as well as on the MBC K-pop channel on YouTube, according to MBC. Major

May 24, 2012

 Artist highlights writers’ artistic agonies and sufferings mixed with his ownThe multi-talented British artist Billy Childish sheds new light on two prominent Korean writers of Korea’s modern literature, Yi Kwang-su and Yi Sang, at his first exhibition in Seoul. “I wanted to make some paintings that related directly to the people who would be coming to see the exhibition,” Childish said at the opening event for his exhibition “Strange Bravery” in Seoul on May 11.Studying the two writers’ litera

Culture May 23, 2012

Members of the K-pop boy band 2PM and girl group miss A will participate in a tour program designed to promote Korean culture to foreign K-pop fans in June, Korea Tourism Organization said on Tuesday. Serving as goodwill ambassadors to the state-run travel agency, members of the two groups will accompany groups of foreign fans of K-pop selected through a video contest in May. The odds of getting selected were 310-to-1, KTO said. The program will invite seven winners of the contest and eight cand

People May 22, 2012

A travel booklet illustrating Korean culture won a design award in the United States earlier this month. The Korea Tourism Organization’s booklet featuring photos introducing the charms of Korea received a gold medal in the travel brochure category of the ASTRID Design Excellence Awards, the tourism organization said on Monday. The annual awards, founded in 1987, recognize companies and government agencies that have achieved higher standards of quality in design and communication in fields rangi

Culture May 21, 2012

Photo exhibition gives views of the capital from colonial times to 1960Photos showcasing the most turbulent times in modern Korea are on public display at Seoul Museum of History.The photo exhibition “Seoul in Turbulence: As Seen by the AP” features vivid images taken by the Associated Press during the tumultuous days of Japanese colonial rule and the Korean War to the April 19 revolution, the nation’s first upheaval for democracy.While government censorship was imposed on domestic media, the fo

Culture May 20, 2012