• Society

    Nature, music, book at Paju BookSori 2012

    Books, nature and music intermingle in this celebration to delight readers, authors and publishers in Paju, the Asian capital of books. Located 30 kilometers north of Seoul, Paju in Gyeonggi Province has recently emerged as the nation’s new center of art and culture with events like the DMZ Korean…

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  • Culture

    K-drama leads ‘hallyu’

    A variety of soap operas, from trendy shows to epic series, grace the small screen from morning till night. The popularity of Korean TV dramas has spilled over the nation’s borders since the late 1990s, igniting “hallyu,” or the Korean wave. The biggest hit of the first half of…

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  • Society

    Bestselling history cartoon gets facelift

    The revised version of the best-selling “Faraway Neighbor Countries” cartoon series recently hit local bookstores. (Photo : Gimmyoung Publishing)   A local publisher has recently re-issued one of the most popular comic book series, the “Faraway Neighbor Countries” by the nation’s first-generation cartoonist Lee Won-bok. Since its first publication in…

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  • Society

    Wide awake on hazardous overdose of energy drinks

    At around 7:15 a.m. every school day, Kim Kyu-dong, a 17-year-old high school senior at Gyeonggi Province, drops by a convenience store to buy two tins of Hot 6, an energy drink with high amounts of caffeine and taurine. Kim drinks one of them right before the first class…

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  • Lifestyle

    Face tells one’s aptitude

    There are various ways to analyze physical fitness by scrutinizing the musculoskeletal system, body strength, flexibility and so on. Some say it can also be read by faces, one of the Oriental ways of fortune telling. We may find some interesting clues just by reviewing basic theories. One of…

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  • Lifestyle

    Olympics give boost to taekwondo

    Rules transparent, matches exciting, Koreans no longer dominating force At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, one of the biggest incidents was on the taekwondo mat when Cuba’s Angel Matos kicked a Swedish referee in the face after being disqualified for a timeout violation in his bronze medal match. Since that…

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  • Lifestyle

    Cool summer heat with nighttime swimming

    It’s hot. Seoul had “tropical nights,” when the temperature didn’t go down under 35 degrees Celsius, for over 10 days. Other cities are suffering similar scorching weather. In such heat, cooling off in a pool during daytime will not be enough, and it will be great if you can…

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  • Culture

    SISTAR: Unpredictable girls ready to grow up but no too fast

    As the girls of SISTAR settled down in the sofas of their dressing room backstage at SBS’s weekly K-pop show Sunday, it was striking how comfortable they looked, despite the presence of a reporter they had never met before. First to find her spot, Soyou, 20, asked for her…

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  • Society

    South Korea’s footballers ready for Brazil

    When South Korea faces Brazil at Old Trafford in Wednesday’s semifinal, football fans around the world will be watching to see whether they can provide yet another surprise. “We will put out our best line up against Brazil,” Korea manager Hong Myung-bo said at a media conference in London,…

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  • Lifestyle

    Ko Doo-sim graces ‘Dance Lesson’

    Veteran actress Ko Doo-sim returned to the theater after a five-year break, dancing to her heart’s desire in the play “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks” at Doosan Art Center Yonkang Hall in central Seoul. Ko, who made her debut in 1972, is one of the top actresses in…

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