The Korea Times

Korea Times Spring Concert to feature maestro Chung Myung-whun

This year’s Korea Times Spring Concert will feature maestro Chung Myung-whun, who will lead the KBS Symphony Orchestra in a concert version of Bizet's opera "Carmen" in Seoul on April 17. The concert will offer a rare opportunity to hear one of Korea’s most renowned conductors, who is currently serving as the orchestra’s music director. He is also an internationally recognized musician. Last year, he was appointed to lead La Scala, the historic opera house in Milan — regarded as the birthplace of opera — starting in 2027. The upcoming performance will mark Chung’s second full opera-in-concert with the KBS Symphony Orchestra in 29 years. In 1997, he conducted Verdi’s “Otello.” The concert will also highlight Chung’s long-standing relationship with the orchestra. He first conducted the ensemble in 1972 at the age of 19, later serving as its fifth chief conductor in 1998 and becoming its first conductor laureate in 2021. Last year, he was reappointed as the KBS Symphony Orchestra’s music director. “Under the baton of Chung, an authority in opera conducting, ‘Carmen

Apr 1, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Korea Times Spring Concert to feature maestro Chung Myung-whun

Trends

From auction-house prestige to living room interior, moon jar sets lifestyle trend

Once a plain white storage jar for soy sauce and grain in late Joseon homes, Korea’s moon jar has risen to a multimillion-dollar blue-chip star of the global art market — and now, it has quietly come full circle, returning to Korean living rooms as a good luck décor staple and everyday lifestyle trend. Its soft silhouette and milky glaze have found a new place as visual therapy, offering a sense of quiet and warmth to Koreans in time of uncertainty and overload. Its round shape and white color are believed to carry yin energy and water, associated with wealth, while its full-moon form symbolizes stability and abundance at home. On a leading home decor and lifestyle commerce platform Ohou, a search for “moon jar” pulls up 1,718 items, from wall prints under 10,000 won ($6.5) to diffusers, vases, plant pots, doorbells and LED mood lamps in the 30,000 to 100,000 won range. KakaoTalk’s gift service also reflects the craze, showing 5,526 results for “moon jar,” from small home accents to house warming and new year gifts that users can send with a few taps. Budget retailer Daiso

Apr 1, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

From auction-house prestige to living room interior, moon jar sets lifestyle trend

Books

Han Kang wins US National Book Critics Circle Award for 'We Do Not Part'

Nobel Prize-winning author Han Kang’s novel “We Do Not Part” won the U.S. National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Award on Thursday (local time), one of the most prestigious literary honors in the United States. The NBCC announced that Han received the award in the fiction category. The novel, translated by E. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, was published in the United States last year. Speaking about the winning work, the NBCC said the novel is “a work of blinding melancholy, bleak weather and murmuring syntax. It is a subtly rendered sketch of trauma in the wake of the Jeju Massacre and a rumination on creation and truth amidst loss. This artful novel lingers like an atmospheric and arresting dream.” The award marks another honor for the Korean author following her Nobel Prize win in 2024. Set against the backdrop of one of the darkest chapters in modern Korean history, “We Do Not Part” centers on the 1948 Jeju April 3 Uprising, a protest against U.S. military-led rule that the then-government falsely labeled a communist revolt, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of

Mar 27, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Han Kang wins US National Book Critics Circle Award for 'We Do Not Part'

Books

DMZ World Literature Festa to discuss peace with Nobel winner Alexievich

Against the backdrop of barbed wire and guard posts of the inter-Korean border, writers from around the world, including Nobel Prize-winning Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich, will gather to ask what literature can do in an age of war, division and democratic backsliding this weekend. Titled “Out of the Land of Silence with the Language of Life,” the event will run from Friday to Sunday at Camp Greaves inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Paju’s Book City, featuring 150 authors, including Alexievich, Korean literary heavyweight Hwang Sok-yong and writers from conflict zones and migrant communities around the world. Co-hosted by Gyeonggi Province, the Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation and the Writers Association of Korea, the three-day event and its companion book fair “Between Pages” aim to spotlight literature’s role in promoting peace, coexistence and human dignity. On Friday, Alexievich, best known in Korea for “The Unwomanly Face of War,” will deliver a keynote speech on the 2020 Belarus protests and speech as resistance under authoritarian rule. Hwang, who recently

Mar 26, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

DMZ World Literature Festa to discuss peace with Nobel winner Alexievich

Travel & Food

Spring fields, fortress nights: Behind Gochang's festivals

GOCHANG COUNTY, North Jeolla Province — When the spring wind sweeps across the rolling hills of Gongeum-myeon in Gochang County, nearly 770,000 square meters of green barley sway in unison like ocean waves. This picturesque landscape is drawing visitors from across the country to a county that has mastered the art of turning its rural landscape into a year-round tourism landmark. Gochang County, home to seven UNESCO designations, anchors its tourism calendar around two vastly different festivals — a spring celebration of grain fields and an autumn homage to a 15th century stone fortress — that altogether draw more than 700,000 visitors a year to a place with a population of less than 60,000. Gochang Green Barley Field Festival The Gochang Green Barley Field Festival is arguably Korea's most successful example of "landscape farming," turning farmland into scenic tourism spot. The story of how it began is deceptively simple. Professional photographers started exhibiting their barley field shots at exhibitions around the country, and word spread. Crowds began arriving, eventually grow

Mar 26, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Spring fields, fortress nights: Behind Gochang's festivals

Travel & Food

Gochang's 7 treasures: Visit Korea’s renowned UNESCO county

GOCHANG COUNTY, North Jeolla Province — Gochang, a quiet county on Korea’s southwest coast that is the size of Seoul, calls itself a “UNESCO destination with seven crowns.” From World Heritage sites and a biosphere reserve to an Intangible Cultural Heritage and a Global Geopark, the county holds seven internationally recognized designations that serve as Gochang’s main attractions and anchor the county government’s push for sustainable tourism. It makes for an ideal weekend getaway for travelers seeking heritage-rich destinations in Korea. Prehistoric stone city: Gochang dolmen site Gochang’s UNESCO story begins in the Bronze Age landscape around Maesan village, home to the largest and most diverse cluster of dolmens in Korea. Of the 1,748 dolmens recorded across the county, more than 440 were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000 for vividly illustrating the global “megalithic culture” of the second and first millennia B.C. These table-like stone tombs, alongside quarry remains that show how they were carved and raised, offer a rare insight into prehistori

Mar 26, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Gochang's 7 treasures: Visit Korea’s renowned UNESCO county

Travel & Food

Gochang looks to its past to build sustainable future

Gochang, a coastal county in North Jeolla Province long known for its dolmens and tidal flats, is positioning itself as a “sustainable world heritage city” and leveraging its cultural assets to confront depopulation and build a new model for rural development. The county holds multiple internationally recognized designations. Its dolmen, or stone tomb, site and tidal flats are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, while Ungok Wetland was designated under the Ramsar Convention in 2011. In addition, Gochang’s coastal area and the entire county have been recognized by UNESCO as a Global Geopark and Biosphere Reserve. Separately, in 2023, archives of the Donghak Peasant Revolution, which took place in the Gochang area in 1894, were added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. The county is also deeply rooted in traditional Korean culture, including pansori (musical storytelling) and nongak (community band music, dance and ritual), both listed as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. In a recent written interview with The Korea Times, Gochang County Mayor Shim Deok-seob sa

Mar 24, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Gochang looks to its past to build sustainable future

K-pop

Taemin to become 1st K-pop solo artist featured at Grammy Museum

Taemin, member of K-pop boy band SHINee and soloist, will take center stage at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles next month with a new exhibition — the first ever devoted to a K-pop solo artist. Running from April 1 to May 25, “TAEMIN: Performer. Artist. Icon” will trace the 32-year-old singer’s evolution as one of contemporary music’s most dynamic performers, featuring an intimate selection of his signature stage ensembles and personal keepsakes. “Each performance is a story I share with my fans. These outfits and artifacts hold memories of those moments on stage,” Taemin said in a statement. “I hope visitors can feel the passion and love for music that has guided my journey. I’m truly honored to have my stage outfits displayed at the Grammy Museum.” The display will feature two of Taemin’s distinctive costumes — a red and black outfit from his “Ephemeral Gaze” world tour in 2024-25 and a white look worn during his “Veil” arena tour and on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” in 2025 — along with his in-ear monitors, white stage-used microphone, official light

Mar 22, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Taemin to become 1st K-pop solo artist featured at Grammy Museum

Arts & Theater

Peek into Korea's plan for 2026 Venice Biennale art exhibition

In the world of art, the Venice Biennale has long held an unrivaled stature. Dubbed the “Olympics of the art world,” the festival showcases avant-garde, multidisciplinary works that engage with political and cultural issues from across the globe. Since the opening of the first Korean Pavilion in 1995, Korea has provided more than 20 contemporary artists with a platform to present their ideas to an international audience. Participants have included Lee Wan, siren eun young jung, Hwayeon Nam and Kimsooja. With the 61st International Art Exhibition scheduled to run from May 9 to Nov. 22, the Arts Council Korea last week unveiled the theme of this year’s Korean Pavilion, along with its two featured artists. According to artistic director Binna Choi, who will curate the exhibition, the pavilion will transform some of the most turbulent chapters of Korea’s recent political history into a meditation on what “liberation” means in an age of democratic crisis. Titled “Liberation Space: Fortress and Nest,” the exhibition takes the 2024 martial law crisis as its point of departure, w

Mar 20, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Peek into Korea's plan for 2026 Venice Biennale art exhibition

Arts & Theater

Life, death and diamonds: Damien Hirst debuts 1st Asia solo show at MMCA Seoul

Damien Hirst’s first large-scale solo exhibition in Asia has opened at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul, bringing the polarizing British artist’s signature explorations of life, death and belief to Korean audiences at a moment of intense debate over his relevance. Titled “Damien Hirst: Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible,” the show is part of MMCA’s ongoing drive to introduce major figures of global contemporary art to the public and runs through June 28. It gathers some 50 works spanning four decades, from rarely seen early experiments to the controversial animal vitrines and recent paintings that continue to divide critics. MMCA officials acknowledged that choosing Hirst — a central figure of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement and a lightning rod for criticism over commercialization and spectacle — is a deliberate, even risky, move for a national museum. Yet, showing how Hirst persistently probes humanity’s bond with death, our drive to escape it, the money that exploits that urge and the systems that cloak such forces in

Mar 19, 2026By Lee Hae-rin

Lee Hae-rin

Read more

Korea Times Spring Concert to feature maestro Chung Myung-whun

From auction-house prestige to living room interior, moon jar sets lifestyle trend

Han Kang wins US National Book Critics Circle Award for 'We Do Not Part'

DMZ World Literature Festa to discuss peace with Nobel winner Alexievich

Spring fields, fortress nights: Behind Gochang's festivals

Gochang's 7 treasures: Visit Korea’s renowned UNESCO county

Gochang looks to its past to build sustainable future

Taemin to become 1st K-pop solo artist featured at Grammy Museum

Peek into Korea's plan for 2026 Venice Biennale art exhibition

Life, death and diamonds: Damien Hirst debuts 1st Asia solo show at MMCA Seoul

Top 5 stories