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Kim Se-jeong

Korea Times K-Culture Reporter

I am covering trend, food and fashion. Previously, I covered diplomacy, city, environment and unification.

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South Korea

Opposition seeks law against state textbook

By Kim Se-jeong The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) said Sunday it will propose a bill to ban state authorship of history textbooks this week.The move comes four days after the government announced the plan in an official gazette to control publishing of history textbooks.“With the goal of setting up the basis for democracy, we will submit a bill to prevent state-authored textbooks,” said Rep. Choi Jae-cheon, chairman of the NPAD policy committee.“The new law will state the importance of democracy and diversity in history education. We plan to have the law take effect immediately after its passage.”This poses another obstacle to the government’s campaign for the state textbooks, with the primary obstacle coming from the process of finding writers.The National Institute of Korean History (NIKH) said Wednesday that it will receive applications from scholars up to 6 p.m. today. It plans to use a total of 36 authors, 25 of whom will be selected among independent applicants.The institute is encouraging teachers and scholars to

Nov 8, 2015By Kim Se-jeong
Opposition seeks law against state textbook
South Korea

hotel brief

  The Millennium Seoul Hilton offers a Himalaya Package with yoga meditation only on Nov. 13.The package includes a one-night stay in either a deluxe or executive room, an Indian herb skin care set, breakfast for two, room service for the Indian beverage mango lassi, free Wi-Fi service, a yoga workshop and access to fitness center and swimming pool. The yoga workshop will take place at 10 a.m. till noon on Nov. 14, led by Abhijit Ghosh, a yoga specialist from India. The package starts from 260,000 won. For more information and reservations, call (02) 317-3000.The hotel also holds the Indian cultural festival between Nov. 9 and 14, during which famous chefs Vikram Udaygiri and Kasiviswanathan will cook traditional Indian cuisine for guests.  Conrad Seoul topped the rank in five fields at the 2015 World Travel Awards ― 22-year-old hotel awards. The five fields were lifestyle hotel, luxurious city hotel, business hotel, leading hotel and hotel suite.Votes from almost 650,000 individual travelers were counted for the award. Located in Yeouido, the city’s fi

Nov 5, 2015By Kim Se-jeong
hotel brief
South Korea

Charcutier revamps Grand Hyatt deli's pate menu

Baked apple pate with calvados / Courtesy of Grand Hyatt SeoulBenito PlasschaertBy Kim Se-jeongA renowned charcutier who is currently visiting Grand Hyatt Seoul is improving its deli shop’s menu items.Benito Plasschaert from the Netherlands is a third-generation charcutier. He makes his own sausages and meat spreads, including pate, terrine and rillette.Plasschaert received the Golden Medal from Belgian King in 1998 for pate. It was one of many medals he received in his four-decade old career.He ran “Benito” delicatessen in Ghent, Belgium for 20 years until 1998. His shop in Belgium had more than 300 different kinds of pate made with recipes that are almost a century old.Now, he works independently, along with his wife, traveling around the world to train butchers and promote his recipes. He has been coming to the Grand Hyatt Seoul since 2011.Plasschaert came up with several menu items that local customers might appreciate, including champagne pate with grapes; baked apple pate with calvados; and red wine chicken pate.Pate is relatively unknown in Korea. It is

Nov 5, 2015By Kim Se-jeong
Charcutier revamps Grand Hyatt deli's pate menu
South Korea

Kensington Jeju offers luxurious, all-inclusive getaway

“Skyfinity” is the first outdoor rooftop pool in a five-star hotel in Korea. / Courtesy of Kensington Jeju HotelBy Kim Se-jeongAt first glance, the E.Land Group’s Kensington Jeju Hotel seems like a great mansion hidden in the woods and owned by a member of the British royal family.The long, private driveway leading to the front gate of the hotel makes guests feel like they are invited to a very special party by the “Kensington family.”Kensington Jeju has 221 “home away from home” rooms, including 25 suite rooms, 24 rooms for families with children and 172 deluxe rooms. The hotel has its own curated gallery filled with paintings and other artworks.Kensington Jeju opened in June last year with the aim of providing a luxury private villa in which customers can enjoy delicious meals and drinks at the poolside bar, swimming at the pools, partying and other fun activities in an all-inclusive package.Kensington Jeju Hotel’s deluxe room“Currently, most of our customers are Koreans, but we are making extra efforts to woo foreign guest

Nov 5, 2015By Kim Se-jeong
Kensington Jeju offers luxurious, all-inclusive getaway
South Korea

Namdaemun Market to have 'K-food street'

By Kim Se-jeong Namdaemun Market, the nation’s largest traditional market, will be refurbished to cater to foreign visitors.According to Jung District Office in Seoul, Thursday, a section at the market will be designated as “K-food street,” where visitors can experience Korean food, mainly street snacks. The list of food includes deep fried vegetable and fish, “sundae” (Korean sausage stuffed with various ingredients), “tteokbokki” (rice cakes in red chili sauce), “hotteok” (sweet pancake), “gimbap” (rice rolled in dried seaweed), fried chicken with sweet sauce, fish cake, chicken and beer, among others.“We are confident the project will make Namdaemun a major tourist attraction for cuisine,” an official from the district office said.He said they hope the project will also prompt the Korean food industry to help turn Namdaemun into another tourist attraction for food similar to Gwangjang Market, which has become a hot place for tourists seeking traditional Korean snacks.Part of the market will become a

Nov 5, 2015By Kim Se-jeong
Namdaemun Market to have 'K-food street'
  • Street vendors, restaurants at war in Myeong-dong
South Korea

TV station under fire for fake job interview

By Kim Se-jeong Imagine that you find an opportunity for a job overseas after long unemployment. At the job interview, you feel humiliated by the interviewers’ absurd requests, but stay quiet because you want the job. At the end of the interview, you learn that it was a fake without any promise of a job, and that it was recorded for a TV show.This happened to 15 university students in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province last month. The fake job advertisement and interviews were organized by a cable television channel, Campus TV, which wanted to produce a reality show to commemorate its scheduled official opening in December.The scandal erupted last month as Campus TV put out a job advertisement at Dong-Ah Institute of Media and Arts. The TV station stated that it was looking for enthusiastic applicants for positions at a sheep farm in New Zealand. It lured students by promising that the winners would travel for free, earn money and make new friends.The only condition was that their job interviews would be filmed for a TV broadcast.Interviewers, who were actually actors, made demand

Nov 4, 2015By Kim Se-jeong
South Korea

Opposition grows against textbook

Members of an anti-Japan, pro-independence activists’ association demonstrate against the introduction of government-issued history textbooks in schools from 2017 in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, Tuesday./ Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chulBy Kim Se-jeong Historians, teachers and civic groups are ramping up their opposition to the proposed state-authored history textbooks for middle and high schools.Liberal civic groups said Tuesday they will stage public campaigns to show that the government is only presenting one point of view in the textbook.Bang Eun-hee, a leader of a coalition of more than 450 civic groups, said, “We will not keep quiet. We will launch campaigns and use other means to show that state-authoring is wrong.”A group of retired history teachers staged a protest outside the Government Complex where Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn and Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea announced that they had approved of the textbooks.The protestors wore shirts emblazoned with the slogan: “We want democracy in history education,” and carried banners tha

Nov 3, 2015By Kim Se-jeong
South Korea

Rights agency to recommend action plan to protect workers

By Kim Se-jeong The National Human Rights Commission said on Monday that it will recommend that the government set up rules to improve business management systems to better protect workers’ human rights at workplaces.The commission said it is working to make a draft of a national action plan that will be in compliance with the United Nations guidance on the issue. The move follows mounting pressure from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to address the issue after the government rejected similar recommendations in 2012.“The national action plan is being drafted to take care of an urgent need to address human rights violations at the work place,” according an official at the commissionThe urgent issues include unfair labor conditions, discrimination in employment and labor, a ban on forming a labor union, lack of safety regulations at the workplace and inhumane treatment of employees.The action plan will recommend the government stage awareness campaigns about rights issue among employees, take rights issues into consideration when selecting pr

Nov 2, 2015By Kim Se-jeong
South Korea

'Men from North Gyeongsang Province least helpful in housework'

By Kim Se-jeongIn the old days under Korea’s patriarchal system, people used to say men should not enter the kitchen, as cooking ― as well as other household chores ― was women’s work.That has changed to some extent, and many men do more housework than before. But a survey showed that the old way of thinking may be stronger among men from North Gyeongsang Province, as they are the least helpful husbands, and that attitude has been affected by a culture where people prefer sons to daughters.  According to the survey by Professor Lee Chul-hee at Seoul National University released Friday, women with husbands from North Gyeongsang Province spend 65 minutes more doing housework each day than those married to men from Incheon, and more than women in any other part of the country.North Gyeongsang Province has long had a high sex-ratio imbalance at birth. For example, the ratio in 1990 was 131 boys born for every 100 girls. In Incheon that year, the ratio was 112 boys for every 100 girls.That huge imbalance mostly resulted from the development of ultrasound technol

Oct 30, 2015By Kim Se-jeong
South Korea

Ex-presidential secretary booked for drunk driving

By Kim Se-jeong Cho Won-dong, former presidential secretary for economic affairs, has been booked for drunk driving, police said, Thursday.According to officers from Suseo Police Station in southern Seoul, Cho allegedly crashed his car into a taxi on a street in Daechi-dong, at around 10:20 p.m. Wednesday while under the influence of alcohol.The taxi driver, Kim, told police that Cho was in the driver’s seat. Kim and Cho allegedly argued over the damage, and as Cho tried to leave, Kim stopped him and called the police. Cho then allegedly ran away.As police officers arrived at the scene, Cho allegedly came back but claimed a chauffeur service driver had been driving the car.But police confirmed Cho’s driving through a surveillance camera recording. Cho refused to undergo a sobriety test, and police detained him.Police released him after questioning, but plan to cancel his driver’s license.This is the second time Cho has been in trouble for allegedly driving drunk. The first incident was in 2006, and it led to his failure in a promotion bid at the finance ministr

Oct 30, 2015By Kim Se-jeong
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