The snow made me do it. After much vacillation over whether to visit the US side of my family over Christmas or to stay in Seoul, I had finally resigned myself to spending the holidays at home. I had booked my flights months in advance, in hopes that the pandemic situation would improve with time. After all, vaccines that can protect against the virus that causes COVID-19, or at least lessen the severity of an infection, were now widely available. We had also learned over more than a year of

Viewpoints Dec. 31, 2021

Photographer MJ Kim’s life has been a wild roller-coaster ride. From studying film in London to landing a job with singer Paul McCartney, a partnership that would last more than 10 years, to taking photos of everyday people and making an award-winning short film, Kim, 49, has done it all. With irrepressible optimism and enthusiasm. A soft bossa nova tune plays in Kim’s studio, his “man cave,” in the hipster neighborhood of Seongsu-dong in Seoul. The white walls of the ro

Culture Dec. 19, 2021

One day, out of nowhere, a son receives a very generous, unexpected bequest from a stranger. One day, out of nowhere, a daughter receives a very generous, unexpected bequest from a stranger. The stranger’s will contained no conditions to the bequests. One day, the father announces that he is taking the bequests from his children. He declares that since the children are part of the family and he is the head of the household, it is within his rights to do as he pleases with what was given

Viewpoints Nov. 28, 2021

A cacophony of images, a riot of colors. That is what I saw at an exhibition in Itaewon, central Seoul, heralded as a hip show. It surely had all the elements of an of-the-moment show: Provocative images, saturated colors, all the glamour of glossy artwork. “Toiletpaper: The Studio” at Hyundai Card Storage in Itaewon is a literal replica of the photography-based magazine Toiletpaper’s Milan studio. The exhibition is touted as the first to ever look inside the studio of Ita

Viewpoints Oct. 29, 2021

On a recent Sunday morning, I went for a leisurely stroll at Seooreung, a Joseon royal tomb in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, just outside Seoul. Entering the compound of five royal tombs, my husband mused about his elementary school field trips to Seooreung. Pointing to the huge mound on which the twin tombs of King Sukjong and his second wife sit side by side, he said the kids would run up the mound and then roll down. Korea in the ’70s did not have many grass fields and there were signs o

Viewpoints Oct. 15, 2021

For Seoulites, this weekend is a great chance to hike a somewhat challenging historical path in the northern part of Seoul. The 9th Hanyang Doseong Culture Festival under the theme “Sungseong: Embracing the Wishes” will be held both on and offline, including on-site participation for visitors. The festival begins Oct. 1 and continues for 10 days. Hanyang Doseong, also known as the Seoul City Wall, follows the ridges of Bugaksan (Baekaksan), Naksan (Naktasan), Namsan (Mongmyeoks

Culture Sept. 30, 2021

A colorful postcard bought in Amsterdam “just because it was so pretty,” notes and letters from friends and a large card with black-and-white graphics -- a ticket to a show by a Korean electronic music group from two years ago he kept because he was very impressed and wanted to remember it -- are lined up neatly inside violinist Yang In-mo’s violin case, affording a glimpse of his taste. “I think it is fun to decorate the interior with postcards like this,” he says

Performance Sept. 24, 2021

American artist Mark Dion -- who doubles as an amateur ecologist, archaeologist and naturalist -- showcased his first solo exhibition in South Korea at Barakat Contemporary in central Seoul after going through thorough on-site research in South Korea’s western and southern coastlines. Dion’s solo exhibition “The Sea Life of South Korea and Other Curious Tales” includes his new large-scale installations “Cabinet of Marine Debris” and “Sea Life of South

Culture Sept. 23, 2021

When I heard a friend who is a few years older say that she missed the chaos of the kitchen before “jesa,” or ancestral rite, I was incredulous. She described how the women of her family would line the kitchen floor with layers of old newspaper to prevent the cooking oil from splattering and set up an electric griddle on top of it. “I miss the sound of sizzling jeon and the smell of cooking oil that wafted through the house,” she said. The kitchen countertop was not lar

Viewpoints Sept. 18, 2021

  A photo of massive, foreboding, rocky mountains, barren except for a few bushes, with a truckload of soldiers carrying rifles is a lasting image I have of Afghanistan. I used the photo, clipped out of Time magazine, I think, to make a scrap book about various countries -- a middle school geography assignment. I don’t remember why I chose Afghanistan, among all the other countries that started with the letter A. Perhaps because this was in the early 1980s and the country was much in

Viewpoints Sept. 3, 2021

What does a pianist who travels the world on concert tours do when the world goes into a lockdown? You go on an emotional roller coaster, refocus and record your first studio album. That is what pianist Sunwoo Yekwon did. “I was going through the same mental stages as other people,” said Sunwoo Yekwon in an interview with The Korea Herald on Aug. 17 at the Universal Music office in Seoul. “In the beginning, I was quite hopeful, hoping that things will get better soon,&rdquo

Performance Aug. 28, 2021

His penname “Gamro,” given to him by a Buddhist monk, means “spreading a valuable message to the people.” Korean-American photojournalist Kang Hyung-won is trying to live up to that name. Kang is a man on a mission. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes – one in 1993 for coverage of the 1992 LA riots with the Los Angeles Times and the other in 1999 for coverage of the Bill Clinton impeachment and the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal for the Associated Press -- aims to highlig

Culture Aug. 13, 2021

The blockbuster film “Escape From Mogadishu,” released July 28, has drawn more than 1.85 million theatergoers, becoming the biggest box office hit so far in a year that is seeing many of the films originally set for release last year finally make it to screens despite the continued pandemic. The harrowing escape scene and the exotic location -- the film was shot in Morocco for three months last year before the pandemic halted virtually all international travel -- are certainly rivet

Film Aug. 12, 2021

Can the safety and health of the athletes be guaranteed? What is the point of having world-class athletes perform to an empty stadium? In a city where COVID-19 is raging out of control, would not the thousands who will descend upon it exacerbate the situation?　 These questions and more bothered me as countries debated whether to send their national teams to the once-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. For someone who has never played competitive sports and is not a great sports fan, participating in t

Viewpoints Aug. 6, 2021

Judging by their looks alone, Seodo Band does not immediately strike one as a “fusion gugak” band, melding the traditional music of Korea with the sounds of the West. There are no traditional instruments in the band. And all for a reason. “It is not that we don’t use them. Rather, we are not able to use them,” Seo Do, the vocalist of Seodo Band, said during an interview with The Korea Herald on July 14, explaining the absence of traditional instruments in the panso

Performance July 24, 2021