Families with 3 kids or more show steady rise
Lee Su-jin, a 30-year-old housewife, gave birth to her third child in January last year. She said it fulfilled the plan she and her husband made after they got married. “I thought it would be great to have three kids. Having two seemed somewhat insufficient to me,” said Lee, who married a pastor in 2006. […]
Hallyu boom triggers bureaucratic turf war
Ministries vie for dominant role as K-pop leaps borders The hallyu, or the Korean wave, its market grew tenfold last year, compared with a decade ago. According to industry experts, the K-pop craze, which is contagious among young people in Asia, Europe and Latin America, is a key driver for the record-high profits earned from […]
Korea, Philippines agree to prevent illegally-brokered marriages
The government will offer language and other educational programs to Filipino women tying the knot with Korean men prior to their arrival here, to help them adapt to their new life in Korea. This is part of an agreement between the two countries to stem “problematic” marriages between Korean men and Filipino women, the Ministry […]
Japan presence affects agencies’ shares
K-pop entertainment agencies see their fortune greatly affected by the success of their bands in Japan. Clockwise from top left are male band Big Bang, girl group Girls’ Generation and duo TVXQ. K-pop boy band TVXQ is on an 11-city, 26-concert tour in Japan that started February and runs through April. It is expected to […]
Television becoming interactive
A model watches a smart TV from Samsung Electronics at a product launch ceremony held in New York last Tuesday. The introduction of smart TVs and other devices is making television an increasingly social medium. For a long time, television has been regarded as a one-way medium, with viewers passively sitting and watching. But with […]
‘Korean food is so healthy and delicious’
Host of US TV cooking show touts local cuisine as Asia’s soul food Her husband may be a world-renowned chef, but when it comes to Korean cooking, Marja Vongerichten is the boss. The former model and actress, who calls Korean food the soul food of Asia, took her love for Korean cuisine out of her […]
Korea becoming destination for medical tourism
Foreign patients listen to a doctor at the Jaseng Center for Alternative Medicine in Seoul. Fathema Ibrahim Ali Al Ali from the United Arab Emirates believes she has been given a new life in Seoul thanks to a successful kidney transplant performed by Korean doctors. The organ transplant for the 35-year-old woman was conducted at […]
Naval base on Jeju
Opponents need to see island’s strategic value A project to build a naval base on the nation’s southern resort island of Jeju has become a source of conflict ahead of April’s National Assembly elections. Tension is growing as environmentalists, civil activists and opposition politicians have raised their voices against the project, while the government has […]
Aftermath of Fukushima disaster lingers in Korea
Korean consumers are still wary about products from Japan due to fears of nuclear contamination in the wake of the massive earthquake and tsunami, and resultant nuclear catastrophe there on March 11 last year. Interpark, one of the primary domestic online retailers, said Friday that sales of Japanese wet tissues over the past 10 days […]
Many women think men have it better
About 44 percent of female college students would prefer to be a man if they had the choice, while 23 percent of male students answered that they would rather be a woman, a survey showed Wednesday. Albamon, an Internet-based employment agency, surveyed 573 university students and found more women would rather have been born a […]
Media in Tie-up with The AsiaN 
Trump, Kim, and the Three P’s of Summit Diplomacy: 
