Lifestyle - The Korea Times

All sorts of Korean culture, from K-pop to media art, to be showcased in heart of Madrid

An official poster for this year's 37th edition of the Veranos de la Villa Festival in Madrid, Spain / Courtesy of Madrid Destino By Park Han-solFrom K-pop to temple cuisine and new media art, a wide range of Korean cultural content will appear in the heart of Madrid, Spain, during its hottest summer months.Korea has been invited as the first Asian guest country to the 37th edition of the Veranos de la Villa Festival, one of the biggest cultural events in Madrid since 1985, drawing more than 110,000 visitors annually, according to its organizers and the Korean Cultural Center in Spain. This year's festival kicked off on July 6 and will continue until Aug. 29.Among the more than 50 featured performances that will take place in multiple venues throughout the city, the Korean program will start off on July 24 with the K-pop Competition, Spain edition. With the K-pop wave leading to the birth of an explosive number of international dance cover groups, Spain has quickly

Jul 18, 2021By Park Han-sol

All sorts of Korean culture, from K-pop to media art, to be showcased in heart of Madrid

Church court dismisses pastor's appeal against suspension for LGBTQ blessing

Rev. Lee Dong-hwan, the pastor of Glory Jeil Church in Suwon who was suspended from duty after holding a "blessing prayer" at the 2019 Queer Culture Festival in Incheon, poses during an interview at The Korea Times office in Seoul, April 23. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul Rev. Lee pledged to take legal action and protest against the “unfair” decisionsBy Park Ji-wonThe Korean Methodist Church's (KMC) ecclesiastical court dismissed an appeal by Rev. Lee Dong-hwan, a Methodist pastor in Suwon south of Seoul, to have an order suspending him from duty for two years overturned. The court originally suspended Lee for holding a “blessing prayer” at the 2019 Queer Culture Festival in Incheon. Lee criticized the decision, Friday, claiming that it was “unfair,” and pledged to take legal action in a civil court to overturn the suspension.According to media reports and insider sources, members of a committee of the ecclesiastical court decided to dismiss the appeal as Lee f

Jul 18, 2021By Park Ji-won

Church court dismisses pastor's appeal against suspension for LGBTQ blessing

Pangyo Techno Valley emerging as mecca for practicing orthopedics

An IT company employee works in an office in Pangyo at around 10 pm, July 9, 2021. Korea Times photo by Lee Hae-rinChronic ailments among software engineers and some 50,000 commuters make it attractive place for orthopedicsBy Lee Hae-rinPangyo Techno Valley, South Korea's equivalent of Silicon Valley, has no nightlife to speak of, compared to other brand-new towns around the greater Seoul region. Stretching across a 670,000-square-meter area in central Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, it is home to some 1,300 high-tech startups and IT giants that employ over 70,000 people, including software engineers, programmers and graphic designers who work invariably day and night.Contrary to the boring nightlife, there's a defining characteristic that makes the Pangyo Techno Valley a unique outlier ― it has become a mecca for orthopedic clinics.Pangyo is unrivaled in terms of the number of orthopedic facilities. According to Statistics Korea, there are 3.64 orthopedic hospitals for every 10,000 people in Pangyo. The figure is six times higher than the entire average of Seongnam (0.56). The figures

Jul 15, 2021By Lee Hae-rin

Pangyo Techno Valley emerging as mecca for practicing orthopedics

Seoul city adopts discrimination-free design for public restrooms

A newly designed public restroom of a community service center in Guro District, southwestern Seoul, features a wireless push button for its automatic door making it accessible by foot pressure to help prevent unnecessary contact amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Government By Park Han-solSeoul Metropolitan Government and the affiliated Seoul Universal Design Center (Seoul UDC) have selected the restrooms at three community service centers in Guro-dong, Sinjung-dong and Mangwon-dong for remodeling as part of the city's efforts to bring inclusive design to urban civic spaces.Some of the features of the “universal design” campaign include hands-free door openers, large signs for the visually impaired and diaper changing stations in men's rooms for fathers with babies.The aim of universal design is to create a safe and nondiscriminatory environment and buildings that remain accessible to all, regardless of gender, age, disability or nationality

Jul 14, 2021By Park Han-sol

Seoul city adopts discrimination-free design for public restrooms

Entrepreneur Ryan Kulp develops Korean word board game

Ryan Kulp holds the “Yangmal Game,” a Korean word board game he developed. Courtesy of Ryan KulpBy Kwon Mee-yooRyan Kulp, app developer, founder of the social proof marketing platform, fomo.com, and a self-taught musician from Atlanta, recently set foot in a new field ― board games. Based on his experience of learning Korean, Kulp created a Korean word game named "Yangmal Game." Growing up in Atlanta, which has a large Korean American population, Kulp was aware of Korea and Korean culture from his friends in orchestras where he played the violin in middle school. "It was always kind of in the back of my mind to learn Korean as a second language," Kulp said during a phone interview with The Korea Times, Tuesday. Kulp started to teach himself Korean in 2019 and moved to Seoul in 2020 as an app developer, buckling down to learn Korean. "I started with a lot of tutors. So at one point, I had five tutors and each of them tutored me for one or two hours per week. I had a couple textbooks and I also bought short stories such as 'jeollaedonghwa' (traditional folk tales). I also t

Jul 14, 2021By Kwon Mee-yoo

Entrepreneur Ryan Kulp develops Korean word board game

KOCCA gears up for this year's Fashion KODE fashion fair

2022's S/S Fashion KODE will be held from Oct. 13 to 15. Courtesy of KOCCABy Lee Gyu-leeThe Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) is gearing up for Fashion KODE, its annual fashion fair, co-organized by the Council of Fashion Designers of Korea and hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.The state-run agency announced Tuesday that this year's Fashion KODE for Spring-Summer 2022 has teamed up with Seoul Fashion Week's trade show to help support local fashion brands in targeting overseas markets. It has begun recruiting brands to participate in the fair, set to be held from Oct. 13 to 15, online and offline at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul. “It is expected to be, by far, the largest-scale event of our trade fair history,” the agency said in the statement.Designer brands for apparel, shoes and other fashion items can submit applications to take part in the fair by Friday. The submitted brands will be evaluated by related experts, depending on the marketability and potential of the brand. The selected brands will be offered opportunities to meet potential buy

Jul 13, 2021By Lee Gyu-lee

KOCCA gears up for this year's Fashion KODE fashion fair

Abandoned rural schools reborn as art galleries, animal shelters

The old Seongnam Elementary School building has been reborn has Kil Hyun Art Gallery, an exhibition space and arts and crafts center since 2010, in Namhae, South Gyeongsang Province. Courtesy of Namhae County's official blogBy Park Han-solAs the birthrate continues to plummet in Korea, hitting a new record low of 0.84 child per woman last year, schools in rural counties have been hit hard. It's not hard to find closed schools across the peninsula, after the young populations they once served dwindle and disappear.South Gyeongsang Province has been no exception, with 584 former schools standing as of 2021. However, in recent years, more and more of these empty facilities have started transforming into other public cultural institutions ― art galleries, libraries, with one even earmarked for an animal shelter. As a result, only 86 of these schools remain unused currently.In Namhae, the old Seongnam Elementary School building, which had been abandoned since 1999, was reborn as Kil Hyun Art Gallery in 2010, named after its director, artist Kil Hyun.“Even just a decade ago, I believ

Jul 12, 2021By Park Han-sol

Abandoned rural schools reborn as art galleries, animal shelters

Korea in search of solutions for looming ultra-low childbirth, aging population

gettyimagesbankThe inclination against having babies and raising a family, particularly stronger among South Koreans, has turned out to be a trend that apparently not even money can solve.South Korea's total fertility rate hit a record low of 0.92 in 2019, way below the 1.63 average of members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, proving that over 140 trillion won ($122.4 billion) in state funds poured into tackling the nation's low birth rate crisis over a decade since 2006 was futile.This trend does strike as particularly troublesome especially during an economy weighed down by the COVID-19 pandemic ― as reduction in jobs and thus overall income are undoubtedly detrimental toward efforts to overturn the country's low-birth, aging society conundrum.Under the circumstances, policymakers are keeping close tabs on the looming demographic challenge, as a structural change in the overall population is projected to have deep economic impacts on both the macroeconomic and individual scales.Last week, South Korea's top economic policymakers laid out a rough policy v

Jul 11, 2021

Korea in search of solutions for looming ultra-low childbirth, aging population

Nearly 90 cities, counties in danger of extinction due to population decrease

Global comics market transforming in favor of Korean webtoons

Cartoon fans turn their attention away from Japanese manga and towards mobile-friendly webtoonsBy Lee Hae-rinRafael Zerbini, 30, a Brazilian graphic designer, is an avid reader of Korean web comics, better known as webtoons in Korea, or web-based, scroll-down comics optimized for smartphone users.He used to be a huge fan of Japanese manga since childhood, but grew tired of zooming in and out on his smartphone screen to read poorly-scanned pages. In 2018, he discovered South Korea's webtoons, realizing they constituted a whole new world for comics lovers.Rafael Zerbini / Courtesy of Rafael Zerbini“It was love at first sight,” says Zerbini. “The first time I learned that Korean webtoons are made for a mobile experience, I got really curious. I'd always thought: how come there is nothing optimized for a smartphone?”French citizen Adelaide Lucena is another webtoon fan converted from Japanese manga. For her, reading webtoons is part of her daily routine. “The webtoon's digital format is something the French market hasn't seen before. French readers are now g

Jul 8, 2021By Lee Hae-rin

Global comics market transforming in favor of Korean webtoons

INTERVIEW Lifestyle startup helps millennials, Gen Z find their true self

“Meet me” offers various routine tasks including home decorating and running / Courtesy of meet meBy Lee Gyu-leeA working mom stumbled across a website that offers a program that requires her to devote 40 minutes of her time every morning to follow a set of self-development tasks. A friend introduced her to the platform, called “meet me,” after seeing her struggling to balance work and family life. The online program invites participants to set aside 20 minutes to keep a journal and another 20 minutes to work out right after getting up in the morning.“She didn't look so happy at first… because it's hard for working moms to have their own time. But (after the program), she told me that this allowed her to dedicate 40 minutes of her morning to fully focus on herself,” Lee Yong-bok, CMO and one of the three co-founders of the lifestyle startup “meet me” said during an interview with The Korea Times, Tuesday, at the company's facility in Seongdong District, eastern Seoul.The concept of a “ritual lifestyle,” or committing

Jul 1, 2021By Lee Gyu-lee

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