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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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Books

56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Poetry Grand Prize winner Sooj Heo

As a visual artist based in Germany, Sooj Heo, the Grand Prize winner in the poetry category, is a devoted poetry lover who discovered the beauty of language and translation while rendering Korean poems for her friends who couldn't read the language. “I wanted to share the ones I loved with friends who could not read Korean, so I used Google Translate’s camera feature. The mistranslations fascinated me — how words slip, meanings deform and reassemble. That curiosity led me to start translating myself, to see if I could bring the poem’s voice across with more care and clarity,” she recalled. Heo is especially drawn to Korean women poets born in the 1950s and '60s, with Kim Eon-hee (1953-), Choi Seung-ja (1952-), Kim Hye-soon (1955-) and Yi Yeon-ju (1953-92) among her favorites. “Their poems carry the suppressed tension of living as talented women in a patriarchal culture, which I find powerful and haunting,” the winner said. Asked what motivated her to select Pak Seo-won’s poems, Heo said it happened by chance. “I was looking for poems with the same intensity and discover

Nov 4, 2025By Kim Se-jeong
[56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards] Poetry Grand Prize winner Sooj Heo
Books

56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Fiction Commendation Award winner Adelle Wee Xing Min

Among the five winners of the 56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards, Adelle Wee Xing Min stands out for her singular focus and dedication to literary translation. A Singaporean student at the Literature Translation Institute of Korea’s (LTI Korea) Translation Academy in Seoul, Wee is an aspiring literary translator. Before entering the academy, she earned her master’s degree in Korean-English translation from Ewha Womans University, following an undergraduate degree in linguistics. Her dream of becoming a literary translator began modestly through fan translation work in the K-pop community. “I actually started out doing fansubs and translating social media posts for an idol group I really liked,” Wee recalled. “There were only a couple of fan translators because the fan base was really small, and fans would have to wait hours and sometimes days before they could read an accurate English translation. So I started subtitling and translating their content to try to shorten the wait time and bridge the gap between non-Korean-speaking fans and the idols they loved so muc

Nov 4, 2025By Kim Se-jeong
[56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards] Fiction Commendation Award winner Adelle Wee Xing Min
  • 56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Fiction Commendation Award: Aeon
Books

56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Kevin O’Rourke Prize winner Peace Lee

Born to Christian missionary parents and raised across multiple countries, Peace Lee, winner of this year's Kevin O’Rourke Prize, grew up with a keen sense of language and translation. “By the time I entered college, I’d already moved more than 20 times. My parents were missionaries, so we left Korea when I was 5 and settled in the Philippines, where I first became aware of the multiplicity of languages. English, Tagalog, regional dialects and even traces of Spanish coexisted in the same air,” the Korean American said. “I remember being 7, fascinated that there were so many ways to say something as simple as ‘eight.’ That early wonder shaped how I came to see the world.” Currently residing in the U.S., Lee discovered the beauty of translation while studying at a theological seminary, where she was training to become a preacher and teacher of homiletics. “I still remember translating a homiletics article from Korean to English during graduate school. Inside it was a single literary quotation — and the joy of translating that one passage lit something in me. I thought,

Nov 4, 2025By Kim Se-jeong
[56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards] Kevin O’Rourke Prize winner Peace Lee
  • 56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Kevin O’Rourke Prize: Iron and Flesh
Books

56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Fiction Grand Prize winner Diana Akhmetova

The Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards organized by The Korea Times have long been exclusive to those who speak Korean or English natively — sometimes both. This year, however, the winner broke that mold. Born in Russia, Diana Akhmetova’s mother tongues are Tatar, the language of the Tatar ethnic group, and Russian. She began learning English at the age of 6 and Korean at 14. Now residing in Gongju, South Chungcheong Province, she studies tourism management at Kongju National University. Akhmetova said she was drawn to Kim Ji-yeon’s novel "The Things that Go By" because of its focus on nontraditional relationships. “What drew me to 'The Things that Go By' were the themes it explores. Nontraditional relationships are still considered taboo by many, which often silences the real struggles faced by those who don’t fit into conventional norms,” she said. The story follows the love between two women. “This story addresses issues of self-acceptance, the search for one’s place in the world, the process of letting go of the past and the courage it takes to trust another pe

Nov 4, 2025By Kim Se-jeong
[56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards] Fiction Grand Prize winner Diana Akhmetova
Books

56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Poetry Commendation Award winner Ketevani Barbakadze

Born in Georgia, Ketevani Barbakadze, winner of this year's Commendation Prize in poetry section, grew up an avid reader and writer with a deep interest in translation. “Whenever I read a translated poem that moved me, I would wonder: How would this line feel in the breath of its own language? How much of the poet’s sincerity was conveyed, and how much remained behind? Not because the translator did a poor job, but because every language expresses emotion in its own unique way — and something is always lost in crossing from one to another,” she said. As a child, she was also fascinated by the mythologies of different cultures — a curiosity that eventually led her to discover Korea and the rich shamanic traditions of Jeju Island. “In school, our world history curriculum placed a strong emphasis on Greek mythology but offered almost nothing about East Asian traditions,” she recalled. “As part of a freshman project for my world history course, I decided to explore that missing half of the world’s imagination. That search led me to Jeju Island and its mythology — a place

Nov 4, 2025By Kim Se-jeong
[56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards] Poetry Commendation Award winner Ketevani Barbakadze
  • 56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Poetry Commendation Award: Words Close to the Heart
K-pop

BTS’ Jung Kook spotted dining alone at Seoul barbecue restaurant

BTS member Jung Kook was spotted earlier this week enjoying a meal alone at a barbecue restaurant in Seoul, drawing attention from fans online. On Wednesday, several photos and videos shared on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, showed Jung Kook eating alone, without his manager or staff. In one clip, the K-pop star appears fully immersed in his meal, mixing his rice without paying attention to onlookers. No one else was seated at his table. Additional images showed Jung Kook paying for his food after finishing and warmly posing for photos with fans who approached him on the street. Jung Kook is well known for his love of food and cooking. He has previously gone viral for creating and sharing his own recipes with fans, including “bulguri,” a combination of spicy chicken ramen and Neoguri brand instant noodles, and “bul-mayo deulgireum makguksu,” a cold buckwheat noodle dish mixed with perilla oil, spicy sauce, dried seaweed flakes and egg yolk.

Oct 31, 2025By Kim Se-jeong
BTS’ Jung Kook spotted dining alone at Seoul barbecue restaurant
Korean Heritage

Museum without walls: Gyeongju’s journey from Silla capital to global stage

As leaders, delegates and visitors prepare to gather in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting on Friday and Saturday, few places in Korea embody the nation’s long history more vividly than the host city. Often called “a museum without walls,” Gyeongju served as the capital of the Silla Kingdom (57 B.C-A.D. 935) through the Unified Silla era for nearly a thousand years. Its landscape remains heavily dotted with tombs, temples, historic buildings and ruins that bring that distant era to life. In this way, Gyeongju is often compared to ancient Athens or Rome — cities where open-air ruins, sacred monuments and royal tombs are part of the everyday landscape, connecting visitors directly with the past. Hosting the APEC summit in the city considered the cradle of the Silla Kingdom places global dialogue within the context of Korea’s historical roots, offering a reminder that today’s innovation and diplomacy stand on centuries of cultural legacy. Center of Silla’s golden age Gyeongju’s location in a natural basin m

Oct 24, 2025By Kim Se-jeong
Museum without walls: Gyeongju’s journey from Silla capital to global stage
Arts & Theater

K-pop pioneer Kim Wan-sun finds solace in art

In 1986, at the age of 17, Kim Wan-sun debuted with her first album “Tonight,” captivating audiences with her sensual dance moves and bold, provocative images. Over the next five years, she dominated Korea's pop music scene, becoming the first female singer to reach such heights in the industry. Between 1987 and 1991, she was named Singer of the Year annually, earning the nickname “Korea’s Madonna.” Beyond Korea, Kim’s music and performances attracted fans in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. She found particular success in Taiwan, where her albums sold more than 500,000 copies — making her one of the early forerunners of K-pop. Nearly 40 years after the height of her fame, Kim has returned — not to the stage, but to the canvas. She is currently presenting a joint exhibition titled “Art Beyond Fame,” with rock musician and former Sanullim member Kim Chang-hoon, at Gallery Marie in Seoul’s Jongno District, featuring nine self-portraits. Except for one full-body portrait displayed in the gallery's entrance, most of her paintings depict herself from the side or back, often

Oct 23, 2025By Kim Se-jeong
K-pop pioneer Kim Wan-sun finds solace in art
Travel & Food

How Gwangjang Market is attracting new generation of shoppers

Suzy and her two friends from Taiwan wandered through Gwangjang Market in central Seoul on a crisp autumn afternoon. All professional dancers, they visited Korea for dance lessons and stopped by the market to try its famous yukhoe (marinated raw beef). After sharing a bowl of raw beef topped with egg yolk and pear slices at a food stall on the eastern end of the market, the trio energetically explored the hip new additions to the market. At Off Beauty, a warehouse-style beauty outlet, one of them picked up a hand cream by Vareli, a Korean lifestyle brand. Their itinerary reflects the changing face of one of Seoul’s oldest traditional markets. Once dominated by small vendors selling hanbok (traditional Korean clothing), textiles and street food, Gwangjang Market is now embracing corporate-owned fashion and beauty shops, convenience stores and coffee shop chains, catering to a new wave of tourists. For Afiqah Razak, 32, a visitor from Brunei traveling with her husband and friends, the market’s transformation was striking. She stopped by to purchase silk for baju kurung — Bruneian tr

Oct 23, 2025By Kim Se-jeong
How Gwangjang Market is attracting new generation of shoppers
Books

Jang Ryu-jin, Sean Lin Halbert to discuss literary translation in upcoming Korea Times book talk

The Korea Times is inviting writers, literary translators and book lovers to a book talk featuring writer Jang Ryu-jin, author of "To the Moon," and translator Sean Lin Halbert on Nov. 4 in Seoul. The event, titled "To the Moon: Korean Literature Meets the World," will take place as part of the 56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Award ceremony, which will take place at the Kyobo Building in the Gwanghwamun area in downtown Seoul. Jang’s latest book, "To the Moon," translated into English by Halbert, was published earlier this year in English-speaking countries. The novel has also been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Turkish, Spanish and German. During the talk, Jang and Halbert will discuss the book, the future of Korean literature and the importance of translation and translators. Literary critic In A-young will moderate the conversation. As one of the longest-running literary translation awards in Korea, the Modern Korean Literature Translation Award has discovered and nurtured talented translators for more than half a century. Halbert began his career in literary tr

Oct 20, 2025By Kim Se-jeong
Jang Ryu-jin, Sean Lin Halbert to discuss literary translation in upcoming Korea Times book talk
  • Sugar-dusted Korean bestseller 'To the Moon' takes off in English edition
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