South Korea - The Korea Times

Friends of Korea American woman's 1950s images of Korea

Adults and children overlook a harbor town, sometime between 1956 and 1959. / Courtesy of Susan Hanley By Nancy KellyImagine my curiosity and delight when, out of the blue in late 2015, I received an email from a 'Susan Hanley'…she had found the Friends of Korea website while searching the internet and reached out with a query. Susan had close to 1,000 black-and-white images taken in Korea from October 1956 to February 1959 when she was working as an arts and crafts shop director for the U.S. Army at Camp Kaiser in modern-day Pocheon, northern Gyeonggi Province. She told me her shop was a place for the soldiers to relax, learn and do various things like leatherworking, pottery and painting, plus there was a darkroom for developing film and printing photographs. At that time the most popular thing for the soldiers was building model airplanes, flying them and all too often wrecking them.

Jul 27, 2021By Jon Dunbar

[Friends of Korea] American woman's 1950s images of Korea

Cityscapes Gwangju collapse terrifies public temporarily

The day after nine people died when a building collapsed during demolition, a press conference is held at the site in Gwangju while emergency workers stand atop the wreckage, June 10. / Courtesy of Isaiah WintersBy Ron BandunI'm by no means a demolition expert, but I know what I don't like. And I am constantly alarmed and troubled by what I see around me in Korea's urban settings.Demolition techniques briefly entered mainstream conversation following the collapse of a five-story building on the edge of an urban renewal site in Gwangju, onto an active street, landing on a bus and killing nine. Public anger and confusion was palpable. “That's insane! They were demolishing a building that close to the street with traffic allowed to pass by?” one person commented on Facebook. “Why didn't they just block off the road?” asked another, among many others. The backlash caught me by surprise, because as I have been visiting and documenting demolition sites for over 16 years, the techniques used in Gwangju appeared commonplace to me. I especially found it naive that peop

Jul 20, 2021By Jon Dunbar

Photographer's layered Buddhist iconic images find harmony in nature, culture, concrete

A double exposure shows a Buddhist image captured in a ginkgo leaf, at Seonggok Temple in Gongju, South Chungcheong Province, fall 2017. / Courtesy of Anjee DiSantoBy Jon DunbarKorea's Buddhist temples are a great source for artistic inspiration, but Anjee DiSanto, an American living in Iksan, has been using digital photography techniques to develop a new kind of art that matches the contemporary qualities of the temples she visits. For a couple of years now, she's been experimenting with double exposure photography, in which she combines two separate images, such as a statue of a buddha and spring flowers. The resulting combined images she creates are beautiful, profound and suggest a Buddhist way of thinking about the life as interconnected and cyclical. “I like to layer the things that appear in the same spot over time, from nature to culture to concrete,” she told The Korea Times. “Temples are great when it comes to nature-culture-concrete, it turns out, because most of them are embedded in stunning natural places, deposit religious culture and over time become

Jul 20, 2021By Jon Dunbar

Goggas brings Korean comic books and more to English readers

A frame from "NPC Begins" by Hwang Biori / Courtesy of Goggas, copyright Hwang BioriBy Jon DunbarA new bilingual publisher in Korea hopes to share interesting stories with readers in both English and Korean. Goggas, located in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, released for the first time in English, translations of two Korean comic books last month.The two titles, “The Weight of a Picture/NPC Begins” by Hwang Biori and “House of Delusion” by Goo Hyun-seong, both take an experimental approach to the comic book medium, pushing it in unusual directions. In “The Weight of a Picture,” a young woman finds her life untethered after her cat passes away, so she decides to leave home. Meanwhile, starting from the back cover, “NPC Begins” tells the simultaneous story of a video game addict who maybe puts on a mask to go outside, or maybe keeps playing the game, with the story advancing from right to left, sort of like a Japanese manga book. The two stories collide at the middle page of the book, in an unconventional use of the structure of a published bo

Jul 13, 2021By Jon Dunbar

RAS Korea 2nd annual essay contest concludes with awards ceremony

From left, Shin Suhyeon, Kim Gyuri, RAS Korea President Steven L. Shields, Song Sumin and Korea Heritage Education Institute Chairperson Kim Ji-myung / Courtesy of RAS KoreaBy Steven L. ShieldsThree years ago, when the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea received several unsolicited essays from students at the Dongducheon Foreign Language High School, we were thrilled by the gesture. The students had heard of RAS Korea's financial plight, but since young students have limited finances, they hoped to contribute just the same. The gesture deeply moved the RAS Korea officers and directors. Their essays were published in RAS Korea's annual journal, “Transactions” (vol. 93, available free from raskb.com). The encouragement we received was multi-layered. Not only did the students cheer us on with a “fighting” spirit, but they also showed that there is great hope among young people in Korea for exploring their heritage and finding an interest in Korean history, arts, music and literature. This spirit was even more poignant, knowing that many of the students wrote these

Jul 12, 2021

Gov't pushes to grant long-term stay permit to foreign talent

gettyimagesbankThe government is pushing to grant the long-term residency F-2 visa to high-skilled foreigners as a way to tackle the shrinking population and retain talented workers, the justice ministry said Wednesday.The Ministry of Justice announced the plan during a briefing on the result of a government meeting on the economy.The ministry came up with the idea, together with 12 other ministries, in order to retain foreign professionals with specialties in an array of industrial sectors, which, the ministry said, will be determined after close consultation among government agencies.F-2 visa holders can get permanent residency status.Also under discussion is to create a type of visa for remote workers in the technology and information sectors to swiftly respond to a changing working environment that has been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic.The ministry is also seeking to expand the number of beneficiaries of the Skilled Worker Points System Visa.Under the system, foreign employees working legally in the country at least for five years on the Non-Professional (E-9), Maritim

Jul 7, 2021

Gov't pushes to grant long-term stay permit to foreign talent

Gov't to expand child care services to help more women work

Gov't to expand child care services to help more women work

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki speaks during a meeting at the government complex in Seoul, July 7. YonhapSouth Korea's top economic policymaker said Wednesday the country plans to expand child care services in a bid to encourage more women to continue to work amid the chronically low birthrate.Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said the plan is aimed at better tackling the country's demographic challenges from the low birthrate and rapid aging."A decline in labor supply, a jump in welfare costs for senior citizens and regional imbalances will have significant economic and social impacts on the country," Hong said at a meeting on emergency economic situations.The government said it will put priority on strengthening child care services to prevent more women from experiencing a career break due to childbirths and raising their children.More working moms had to quit their jobs to look after their children who study at home as they found it difficult to hire child care workers amid the protracted pandemic.The minister also said the country will expand the issuance of F-2 visas for foreign talent

Jul 7, 2021

Gov't to expand child care services to help more women work

Gov't pushes to grant long-term stay permit to foreign talent

Korea Encounters When Korea's exiled royal family returned home

Crown Prince Yi Eun, left, and Yi Bangja, published in The Korea Times May 2, 1989. / Korea Times Archive By Matt VanVolkenburgThe 20th century was not kind to Korea's royal family. As Japan asserted control over Korea, Emperor Gojong was forced to abdicate in 1907 and the weak Crown Prince, Sunjong, was placed on the throne instead. Sunjong, by then a mere figurehead, died in 1926 without an heir. Emperor Gojong had four children who lived to adulthood. The next oldest child after Sunjong, Yi Gang, was born to a concubine and therefore illegible to rule. He tried to escape Korea in 1919 to join the provisional government but was caught by the Japanese and closely watched afterwards.After Sunjong took the throne, his next youngest sibling, Yi Eun, the son of an Honorable Princess Consort, became Crown Prince. Seeking to Japanize him, Japanese Resident General Ito Hirobumi sent the 10-year-old to Japan In 1907 to be educated in the Gakushuin Peers' School along with

Jul 6, 2021By Jon Dunbar

Foreigners to be allowed to stay in Korea only until their passport expiration date: ministry

gettyimagesbankStarting Thursday, foreigners will be allowed to stay in South Korea only until their passport expiration date, the justice ministry said. But considering traveling restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of Justice has decided to grant a grace period until June 2022 and allow foreign nationals to stay in the country up to one year even if their passports expire earlier than that.After the grace period is over, the ministry will give one-time permission of a six-month stay to those who fail to renew their passports set to become invalid in less than half a year, for various reasons, such as lost passports.The revised policy will not be applied to those holding visas issued to officials here for diplomatic affairs (A-1), governmental affairs (A-2) or under an international agreement (A-3). Those granted refugee status or residing here under a humanitarian stay program will not be subject to the change either, according to the ministry. The ministry said it amended its stay rule for foreigners to prevent them from facing difficulties in entering and depa

Jul 1, 2021

Foreigners to be allowed to stay in Korea only until their passport expiration date: ministry

Online Seoul Drag Parade goes global

The poster for Seoul Drag Parade 2021 / Courtesy of Seoul Drag ParadeBy Chantal TerblancheSeoul Drag Parade hosted its first free online drag show on Sunday, during this year's Seoul Queer Culture Festival, featuring drag performers from all over the world, including drag queens from “RuPaul's Drag Race.”The two co-founders of Seoul Drag Parade are Ali Zahoor, originally from the U.K., who lived in Seoul for five years, and Heezy Yang, a Korean citizen who performs under the name Hurricane Kimchi. An international artist who has performed across Asia, Europe and the Americas and opened for “RuPaul's Werq The World Asia Tour,” Yang was named on Forbes' 30 Under 30 Asia 2018 list.Inspired by Korea's regional queer culture festivals and pride parades all over the world, Seoul Drag Parade was an event founded in 2018 to participate in solidarity with the Seoul Queer Culture Festival, attracting over 1,000 attendees its first time out. It is also one of a few queer organizations in Korea that is completely bilingual, which increases their accessibility to a larger

Jun 29, 2021By Jon Dunbar

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