In today’s world of live broadcast sports and entertainment backed with mega corporate endorsements, there’s a constant stream of people whose net worth amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars -- sports legends, music greats, movie stars and business magnates. In South Korea, there’s one more profession on the list -- star lecturers. In the tvN drama “Crash Course in Romance,” which began streaming on Netflix last month, the male protagonist Choi Chi-yeol is call

Social Affairs Feb. 10, 2023

Could ChatGPT measure up to be an impartial referee on political debates? Apparently, a South Korean lawmaker thought so. Rep. An Byung-gil of the country’s ruling People Power Party cited the artificial intelligence chatbot to criticize a legislative proposal pushed by his liberal opponents on how to manage South Korea’s leftover rice, stressing that the bot “clearly predicts” negative side effects. In a press release Tuesday, the politician said he had asked ChatGPT to

Politics Feb. 7, 2023

If countries were people, Korea would be the quiet, hardworking kid who had little chance to show what an interesting person he is, until he started writing great songs and tales that made people cry, laugh and think. If he continues to excel by getting better at understanding others and making himself understood, he will gain influence, or “soft power.” A term coined by American political scientist Joseph Nye Jr., soft power is defined as the ability to affect others to get what y

Hashtag Korea Feb. 6, 2023

Since 1984, turning 65 in Korea has come with one nice perk: free subway rides. It has encouraged older adults to travel more for social gatherings, hiking and other activities, helping reduce rates of suicide and depression, as well as medical fees, according to research from the Korea Transport Institution. However, as Seoul's city government pushes to raise subway and bus fares from as early as April, on top of a taxi fare hike that started Wednesday and a steep rise in gas and electricity ra

Social Affairs Feb. 3, 2023

Just a couple days ago, I spoke to ChatGPT, the revolutionary artificial intelligence chatbot everyone is gushing about. Yes, it was beyond impressive watching the bot produce concise pieces of writing on any given topic with relevant info extracted from mostly English-language sources on the web within seconds. It even spilled out a nice short story about AI and aliens as soon as I asked for it. It may soon be practically pointless for humans to write simple articles, solve math problems or wri

Social Affairs Feb. 1, 2023

The remains of Korean independence fighter Whang Ki-hwan, the real-life inspiration for 2018 hit TV drama “Mr. Sunshine,” are set to return home some 100 years after he passed away in New York. The Korean patriot, whose English name was Earl K. Whang, inspired the drama series' producers to create the character Eugene Choi (played by Lee Byung-hun), a Korean American US Marine Corps officer who returns to Korea and ends up helping his compatriots thwart a looming Japanese invasi

Social Affairs Feb. 1, 2023

Sixteen-year-old Koh Yoo-jin spends her winter break at a math hagwon from 9 a.m. through 5 p.m. In the evening, she does her homework and studies other subjects until 1 a.m. Like her peers, she finished learning everything on the high school math curriculum before graduating from middle school, and has since been working on endless drills to prepare herself against “killer questions” in "Suneung," or the College Scholastic Ability Test. Studying for the multiple-choice S

Social Affairs Jan. 31, 2023

Liberals in their early 20s are more likely to use Twitter, while conservatives in the same age group prefer Facebook, according to a local study released Tuesday. Two out of 5 South Koreans aged between 19 and 24 are on their smartphones for more than five hours a day, according to an online poll of 2,214 people of this age group conducted in July last year by the state-funded National Youth Policy Institute. They mostly use YouTube, KakaoTalk, Instagram and Facebook and come across a lot of fa

Social Affairs Jan. 31, 2023

As South Koreans are still trying to process the shocking heating bills they received this month, taxi and public transport fare hikes await. In some regions, water and sewer fees, as well as volume-based waste disposal fees, are also slated to rise. In Seoul, the base fare for a midsized sedan cab will jump by 1,000 won (81 cents) to 4,800 won from 4 a.m. on Wednesday, the first hike in four years. The distance covered with the initial fare will be reduced from the current 2 kilometers to 1.6 k

Economy Jan. 29, 2023

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote in his new memoir that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un told him in 2018 that he needed US forces in South Korea to protect himself from China. Kim "said that he needed the Americans in South Korea to protect him from the CCP, and that the CCP needs the Americans out so they can treat the peninsula like Tibet and Xinjiang," Pompeo wrote, referring to the Chinese Communist Party, in his book "Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America

North Korea Jan. 25, 2023

한국 콘텐츠의 인기로 전 세계에 한국어 배우기 열풍이 일고 있다. 84개국에 244소의 세종학당을 지정 및 지원하고 있는 세종학당재단은 한국어 수업과 한국 문화 체험 기회를 제공함으로써 미래의 친한파 인재들을 양성하고 있다. 이해영 세종학당재단 이사장은 최근 코리아헤럴드와의 인터뷰에서 학생들에게 한국어 학습이 단순한 취미생활에 그치지 않고 한국과 오랜 유대를 형성하는 바탕이 될 수 있다고 밝혔다. 또한 세종학당이 정부 운영 기관이지만, 자국의 언어와 문화를 일방적으로 세계에 전파하는 것을 목표로 삼지 않으며, 상호문화주의적 관점을 가지고 운영되는 곳임을 강조했다. 이 이사장은 “국고를 들여 취미생활 지원으로 끝나고 싶지 않다”며 최근 각계에서 리더로 활동하는 세종학당 출신들을 찾아보기 시작했다고 말했다. 또한 이들이 "문화 소비자에 그치지 않고 문화 생산자이자 전문가로 발돋움할 수 있도록 지원하겠다”는 포부를 밝혔다. 2007년 13개소에

한국어판 Jan. 25, 2023

A postpartum caregiver ended up giving a newborn a concussion as she tried to hit her coworker who was holding the infant at an apartment in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, in November. Video footage released by SBS TV Thursday evening showed the attacker in her 60s swinging her fist toward her coworker’s head during an argument. As her target turned around, her fist hit the one-month-old baby in the face. The blow came shortly after the attacker said to the other caregiver, “Don’

Social Affairs Jan. 20, 2023

Commercial satellite imagery can clearly capture North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s office, residence and other key facilities of Pyongyang, US state-owned broadcaster Voice of America reported Wednesday, as it released Google Earth images of those locations. Last month, North Korea disclosed photos of downtown Seoul including the area around President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office and the Incheon port, claiming they were taken by a prototype of its reconnaissance satellite under developme

North Korea Jan. 19, 2023

The Korean tradition of ancestral rites has been passed down through generations for thousands of years. But it may be only a matter of time before the ritual disappears for good. The lighting of incense, circling of rice wine and bowing before a table of assorted food items offered to one’s dead ancestors are called “charye” on major holidays like Seollal (New Year’s Day) and Chuseok, and “jesa” on their death anniversaries. The tradition itself means well. B

Culture Jan. 17, 2023

South Korean authorities are investigating suspected operatives working for North Korea on Jeju Island and in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, who told each other to “swallow thumb drives” if they get caught, a vernacular newspaper reported Monday. The purported spies, mostly in their 50s and 60s, received orders from Kim Myong-song, an agent of the Cultural Exchange Bureau of the North’s Workers’ Party of Korea, to engage in anti-US campaigns, “infiltrate&rdquo

Social Affairs Jan. 17, 2023