South Korea - The Korea Times

Singer rejects gambling rumor

Singer Tae Jin-ah speaks in a news conference in Yongsan, central Seoul, Tuesday. By Lee Min-hyungSinger Tae Jin-ah has dismissed a rumor that he indulged in illegal gambling in the U.S.“I have never spent hundreds of millions won on illegal gambling,” he said at a news conference Tuesday.His anger came a week after weekly magazine Sisa Journal USA published an article that claimed Tae visited a casino in Los Angeles and might have spent tens of millions of won in a day.Tae’s lawyer said: “We will take legal measures against the media. All the evidence that we released today will be submitted to investigation authorities.”He said Tae made about $7,000 gambling at the casinos during his one-week trip to the U.S.Tae and his lawyer also released a recording of a telephone conversation between Tae’s acquaintance, Howard Park, and a Sisa representative.In the recording, the representative asked Tae for at least $200,000 in return for not publishing the article.“(If it is published,) Tae’s life will be ruined,” he said.The report a

Mar 25, 2015

Appetite builds for packaged fresh food

Packaged fresh food items are popular with single people and working couples due to convenience and the nutritional value they contain. / Courtesy of Shout Waggner EdstromPackaged fresh-food items are flying off shop shelves as single-person households and working couples rise as major spenders.Ready-made food that could be eaten after a couple minutes in a microwave has always been popular among busy consumers. But while people still want to save the time and hassle of cooking, they have become more health conscious.Items that are now popular include skinned and filleted fish and washed and peeled fruit and vegetables.According a Norwegian Seafood Council survey of 723 people in their 20s to 50s, 89 percent said they had bought packaged filleted fish and 77 percent said they did so because it was more convenient. Retailers are now stocking up on these items to meet demand. They have also reduced the amount of groceries sold in bulk.

Mar 25, 2015By Kim Bo-eun

Incheon launches 'cool' book challenge

/ Korea Times fileBy Kim Bo-eunThe western port city of Incheon, designated by UNESCO as one of the world’s book capitals for 2015, is starting a book-reading challenge based on the “ice-bucket challenge” that swept social media last year.Incheon City said Wednesday the challenge would start among city officials on April 1.Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok will read a book, post a book review on a website for city officials and designate two people to follow, who will read and upload a review within 10 days and chose another two people.If those people do not post a book review in time, they will have to donate a newly published book to the city’s library. They also will be banned from the challenge.The campaign was devised based on the ice-bucket challenge, where participants were either showered with ice water or donated money for research on Lou Gehrig’s Disease.UNESCO has been naming cities with quality programs to promote books and reading as world book capitals since 2001, to celebrate the international organization’s World Book and Copyright Day that falls

Mar 25, 2015By Kim Bo-eun

Blooming flowers

Japanese apricot flowers are in full bloom in front of DongdaemunDistrict Office in Seoul, Tuesday. The weather agency forecast the cold spell to end Wednesday. Warm weather is expected until Sunday without rain./ Yonhap

Mar 24, 2015

Colin Firth vows to visit Korean fans

By Lee Ji-hyeLeading actor Colin Firth is "absolutely thrilled" by the overwhelming popularity of "Kingsman: The Secret Service," which has topped Korean box offices for the past month."I knew it would hit a certain spot for some people," Firth."But to see it do so well in a territory as important as Korea is certainly gratifying."Firth has never been to Korea, but says he will visit Seoul when the movie’s sequel is released."I'm dying to go -- even more now, really," Firth said. "There's is no question I'll go."

Mar 24, 2015

Doubts over Queen Myeonseong's photo

By Lee Min-hyungCover of "The Passing of Korea" by Homer B. HulbertThe widely known photograph of Queen Myeongseong, wife of Emperor Gojong, may not be genuine, a global electronic newsletter says.The Korean-American Science and Technology News (KASTN) said in its March 18 edition that a history expert had questioned the photo’s authenticity, which many other experts believe is genuine.Kim Dong-jim, president of the Hulbert Memorial Society in Seoul, had made the claim, according to the KASTN.The controversial photo first appeared on the cover of the book “The Passing of Korea” by the late Homer B. Hulbert, published in 1906.Kim said there was no explicit mention of the queen relating to the photo. But when Hulbert displayed a photo of King Gojong in the same book, he captioned it as King Gojong.The queen was assassinated in 1895 when photography did not exist in Korea. All the available photos of King Gojong’s court were taken around 1905.What made the photo unreliable was that the queen revealed her feet in it, which was almost impossible to imagine during t

Mar 24, 2015

Reservists in the gun over underwear incident

The controversial photo of reservists of a Gangwon Province-based university being disciplined in their underwear that appeared on various websites last week. / YonhapA photo of several dozen reservists of a Gangwon Province-based university being disciplined in their underwear has ignited controversy.The picture was posted on various websites and shows the students in their underpants, with their military uniforms pulled down to their knees. They appear to be singing. In front of them are a dozen students clad in military reserve uniforms watching.The photo started spreading on social networking sites last week and generated controversy as netizens criticized the culture of reservists at colleges.Those in the picture were from a private university. They had finished their reservist drill for the day, had dinner at a nearby restaurant and had belched military songs in the street in their underwear.The school’s student representative body apologized on Facebook, saying “We apologize for not having prevented such abhorrent practices from occurring.”It said that, toget

Mar 24, 2015By Kim Bo-eun

Reservists in the gun over underwear incident

NK 'no' to apology over warship sinking

/ Korea Times fileBy Lee Min-hyungNorth Korea has refused to apologize over a torpedo attack that sank the warship Cheonan, calling for the South to reinvestigate the case."Pyongyang has nothing to do with the incident," the North's National Defense Commission said Tuesday.The attack happened near the West Sea border on March 26, 2010, and killed 46 South Korean sailors. Following the incident, President Lee Myung-bak stopped all inter-Korean cooperation by imposing the so-called May 24 sanction.This increased military tension and on November 23, 2010, the North shelled the South’s Yeonpyeong Island, killing four, including two civilians.King Sejong the Great, a 7,600-ton Aegis warship, in a military drill days before the fourth anniversary of the sinking of warship Cheonan, on March 19, 2014. / Korea Times filePyongyang has since demanded the Seoul government lift the sanction, denying responsibility for the warship sinking.An international group, including 24 military experts from five countries, investigated the warship attack. Two months after the sinking, the South officia

Mar 24, 2015

Haggling on witness

Rep. Kweon Seong-dong, left, of the ruling Saenuri Party, has a heated argument with Rep. Hong Young-pyo of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy at the National Assembly, Monday. They tried to reach a consensus on a list of people to be questioned during the ongoing parliamentary investigation into the failed “energy diplomacy” conducted by the former President Lee Myung-bak administration, but to no avail. The two are the respective representatives from ruling and the opposition parties who belong to the 18-member special committee in charge of the investigation. / Yonhap

Mar 23, 2015

When parents disapprove of your lover, what do you do?

A scene from the film Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), where the father (Steve Carell), opposes his daughter (Emma Stone) seeing her boyfriend (Ryan Gosling). / Captured by YoutubeSingle men and women are willing to keep seeing their lover, even if their parents disapprove, a survey shows.Match-making firm Duo surveyed 521 single men and women aged 20 to 39.Six in 10 said they had been in a relationship with which their parents were unhappy.But women were found to value their relationships with their parents more, with 42.6 percent) saying they would try to persuade their parents, or break up (28.6 percent).On the other hand, more than half of the men (52.7 percent) said they would continue with the relationship regardless of their parents’ opinion or try to persuade them (45.5 percent).When it comes to marriage, 72.8 percent of men said they would go through it regardless of their parents opinion, whereas 86.9 percent of women said they would follow their parents’ advice.Parents were found to disapprove of their children’s partners because “their job or academic b

Mar 23, 2015By Kim Bo-eun

Others

Others

Singer rejects gambling rumor

Appetite builds for packaged fresh food

Incheon launches 'cool' book challenge

Blooming flowers

Colin Firth vows to visit Korean fans

Doubts over Queen Myeonseong's photo

Reservists in the gun over underwear incident

NK 'no' to apology over warship sinking

Haggling on witness

When parents disapprove of your lover, what do you do?

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