Lifestyle - The Korea Times

Sex Appeal Icon Lee Rejects W2 Bil. Offer

Lee Hyo-ri, the 30-year-old sex icon, will be free from an exclusive contract with her current management agency, Mnet Media, from December, leaving both the broadcast and entertainment circles to pay special attention to her next agency-contract move. However, Lee has decided to get reunited with Kil Jong-hwa, who was the manager of the defunct four female singer group Fin.K.L that Lee belonged to, online entertainment news Newsen.com said Friday. Kil has recently set up a management agency to promote Lee’s activities. Their projected reunion has spread since last summer. But the two sides have not disclosed the plan as Lee has to release one more album under the contract with Mnet Media. Lee is preparing her fourth solo album, whose release date has not yet been determined amid speculation that it will hit the market in October or November. As a result, this will be the final album to be released under the management of Mnet Media. Currently, Lee appears in Family Outing, “the first division of Sunday Is Good,” the entertainment program of SBS TV. It was reported

Sep 25, 2009

Cube Exhibition May Come to Korea

By Bryan Kay Staff Reporter An exhibition on the Rubik's Cube and the impact it had on the world could come to Korea as part of a potential world tour, the inventor of the famous mind puzzler said Thursday. Hungarian Erno Rubik, who is in Korea at the invitation of the Korea Foundation, spoke to The Korea Times after a luncheon hosted by the foundation at a restaurant in Samcheonggak. ``I'm preparing an exhibition about the cube and the impact of the cube on the world,'' he said. ``And there's a possibility it could come to Korea.'' It was 30 years ago that Rubik turned a puzzle he had been tinkering with into the reputed ``must-have brain twister toy.'' And he said the invention may never have come about if he had not been so interested in 3D design. ``I didn't plan the invention. But when I had invented it, because it was so simple it could be successful,'' Rubik explained.

Sep 24, 2009

Seo to Lead Int’l Group for Confucian Studies

By Kang Shin-who Staff Reporter Sungkyunkwan University President Seo Jeong-don, 66, has been selected as the fourth chairman of the International Confucian Association, the university said Thursday. Founded in October 1994 in China, the association, the largest Confucian research institute in the world, aims to network institutes studying Confucianism. More than 20 countries, including Korea, Japan, U.S., Singapore and Germany, are members of the association. It is holding a large-scale symposium in Beijing from Thursday until Saturday. The event is held every five years with some 1,000 scholars of Confucianism participating in the latest forum. Seo will lead the association for five years until 2014. He became president of Sungkyunkwan in 2003 and was reappointed in 2007. kswho@koreatimes.co.kr

Sep 24, 2009

Actor Shin Accused of Assaulting Manager

By Han Sang-hee Staff Reporter The manager of movie actor Shin Hyun-joon filed a complaint with the police against the 41-year-old for assault, according to the Gangnam Police Station, Thursday. Police said that the manager, only identified as Jang, who has been working with the actor for the past five years, claimed that he was assaulted by Shin after having a conversation at a bar in Sangsu-dong, Mapo-gu, early this month. ``The content of the written complaint is not enough to prove Shin's charges, so we need additional investigations,'' a police officer said. ``After confirming the complaint with Jang, we will summon Shin and investigate further.'' Shin made his debut in 1990 in the movie ``The General's Son'' and has appeared in numerous films and dramas ever since. Two of his most famous works include the drama ``Stairways to Heaven'' (2003, SBS) and the film ``Barefoot Gi-Bong'' (2006). He published a photo-essay ``Shin Hyun-joon's Confessions'' last year, which documented his personal story about life and religion. sanghee@koreatimes.co.kr

Sep 24, 2009

Rain Joins F1 Rocks Concert in Singapore

Korean pop star Rain has filmed a segment for the F1 Rocks show, the only officially F1 endorsed concert during the Grand Prix week in Singapore. The three-day music festival, which began at Fort Canning, Thursday, will be recorded and repackaged as two music and entertainment shows that will air to 600 million viewers in about 200 countries, Rain's agency J. Tune Entertainment said in a statement. The concert is bringing some of the biggest names in music to the island city state, with the concert being broadcast on the eve of the "2009 Formula 1 Singtel Singapore Grand Prix" that starts Sunday. Rain filmed the clip in the Chinese and Japanese Garden, one of the most popular tour sites in Singapore, along with Mark Webber, the 2008 German Grand Pix winner. They performed as racers fighting for an F1 championship. Rain's filming is also designed to promote his upcoming movie "Ninja Assassin," which will hit theaters around the world Nov. 26. Among other stars participating in the concert are Beyonce, the Black Eyed Peas, DJ Havana Brown and Jacky Cheung. Rain retu

Sep 24, 2009

Korean Inaugurated as President of Dartmouth College

By Cho Jae-hyon Staff Reporter Global health pioneer Dr. Jim Yong Kim called on students to "aspire to change the world" at a ceremony to inaugurate him as the 17th president of Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., Tuesday, the school said. Born in Seoul and raised in Muscatine, Iowa, Kim is the first physician to lead the college in its 240-year history and the first Korean-American to head an Ivy League school. In front of an audience of more than 5,000 people, Kim said, "The historical moment in which we live demands that your generation unite ― as never before ― learning with action, passion with practicality" to address the world's most pressing challenges. He argued that the liberal arts education they would receive at Dartmouth could uniquely prepare them to do so. A physician, educator and infectious disease expert, Kim said it was "deeply humbling for me - the child of Korean immigrants from a small town in Iowa" to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and lead Dartmouth College. Kim told students that "your generation must dream, dream more ambitio

Sep 23, 2009

AMKORE’s Chief Donates $1 Mil. to KAIST

By Kim Hyun-cheol Staff Reporter A Hawaii-based Korean-American entrepreneur donated $1 million to a Korean university for a development fund, Wednesday. Kim Chang-won, chairman of AMKORE A&E, a construction company located in Honolulu, signed an agreement on the donation to the Korea Advanced Institute of Sciences and Technology (KAIST) at the school in Daejeon. Kim, 82, is currently a member of the advising committee and the board of KAIST. A Seoul National University graduate, he moved to the United States in the 1950s and studied civil engineering at Hawaii University. Kim has been running AMKORE A&E for nearly 30 years, growing his company to a size of $5.5 million in annual sales. In 2003, Kim headed a fund-raising campaign to establish a foundation to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Korean emigration to Hawaii. With the achievement acknowledged, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal from the Korean government the same year. "The strong will of Chancellor Seo Nam-pyo to grow KAIST to a globally acclaimed school moved me to make this donation,"

Sep 23, 2009

Shin to Lead Visit Korea Campaign

By Do Je-hae Staff Reporter Lotte Group's Vice Chairman Shin Dong-bin was elected Wednesday as the new chief of a committee tasked to attract more foreign tourists. Shin, 55, was picked at a board meeting of the committee for the Visit Korea 2010-2012 campaign, succeeding former Kumho Asiana Group CEO Park Sam-gu. The committee is a unit of the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO). ``As Lotte Group has a close association with the tourism industry, we believe Shin is the right person to lead the campaign to attract 10 million foreign tourists to Korea over the next three years,'' an official with the committee said. Shin formerly served as vice president of the Federation of Korean Industries and the Korea-Japan Economic Association. Heads of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports, the Korea Tourism Association, Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, Incheon International Airport Corporation and the KTO, among others, constitute the board of the committee consisting of 31 experts from the private and public sectors. The campaign, first announced last year, is currently prom

Sep 23, 2009

It’s the Golden Era of Documentary Films

By Han Sang-hee Staff Reporter For renowned movie director and critic Thom Anderson, documentary films are the most powerful medium revealing the lives and cultures of other people. Anderson, the head judge of the EBS International Documentary Festival (EIDF), says he enjoys watching and making documentaries because of their very nature. ``There was a certain period when people didn't like the word documentary. They thought it was limiting, but I was always proud to be a documentary filmmaker,'' he said in an interview at the EBS headquarters in southern Seoul, Monday. ``For me, cinema is a way of revealing life, showing people how others live and also different cultures. When filmmakers can say `none of this is made up and they all come directly from life,' that connection is particularly strong, and this (connection) can be found in documentary films,'' he said. Andersen is also a professor at the California Institute of the Arts. He won the National Film Board Award for Best Documentary at the 2003 Vancouver International Film Festival in 2003. He said he w

Sep 23, 2009

Brown Eyed Girls’ Member Hospitalized After Fainting

Ga-in, a member of the popular girl group Brown Eyed Girls, was hospitalized after fainting due to exhaustion and overwork, her agency said Tuesday. She fainted at her residence at dawn and was rushed by her manager to hospital, an official of her agency, Nega Network, said. She cancelled her schedule for the day. ``Ga-in had stayed up at night for three days due to commercial recordings and other events,'' the official said. ``She will have a medical checkup in the afternoon.'' Ga-in will rest before deciding on her upcoming schedule, he added. The four girls have been actively performing their hit song ``Abracadabra'' as their third album has swept domestic music charts. chojh@koreatimes.co.kr

Sep 22, 2009

People & Events

People & Events

Sex Appeal Icon Lee Rejects W2 Bil. Offer

Cube Exhibition May Come to Korea

Seo to Lead Int’l Group for Confucian Studies

Actor Shin Accused of Assaulting Manager

Rain Joins F1 Rocks Concert in Singapore

Korean Inaugurated as President of Dartmouth College

AMKORE’s Chief Donates $1 Mil. to KAIST

Shin to Lead Visit Korea Campaign

It’s the Golden Era of Documentary Films

Brown Eyed Girls’ Member Hospitalized After Fainting

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