Pyeongtaek Univ. president awarded for Korea-Japan ties

Cho Ki-hung, the president of Pyeongtaek University, received the Prince Takamado Award from the Prince Takamado Memorial Foundation for Japan-Korea Exchange, Monday, for his years of work in building ties between the two countries.Cho, 81, was awarded for organizing various student exchange programs between the two countries for more than 40 years. Princess Hisako, the widow of Prince Takamado, handed the award to Cho at the fifth award ceremony held in Tokyo, the foundation said.The foundatio

PeopleDec. 13, 2013

Hanjin donates 3 billion won to charity fund

Hanjin Group donated 3 billion won ($2.8 million) to the Community Chest of Korea on Friday. The donation ceremony at the nationwide charity fund-raiser in Seoul was attended by Korean Air president Ji Chang-hoon, Community Chest of Korea chairman Lee Dong-kurn and others. Hanjin Group assists impoverished teenagers who support their parents and siblings, provides foods to seniors living alone in poverty, donates books to rural villages and makes other social contributions.By Chun Sung-woo (swch

PeopleDec. 13, 2013

Documentary filmmaker dies of cancer at age 50

Documentary filmmaker Lee Seong-gyou, who is best known for his 2010 film “My Barefoot Friend,” died on Friday. He was 50.He started shooting “My Barefoot Friend,” a film documenting the life of a 50-something rickshaw operator named Shalim living in Calcutta, India, in 1999. It took him more than 10 years to complete the film, which became the first Asian feature-length documentary to be nominated in the competition lineup of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in 2010.Lee was

FilmDec. 13, 2013

Former idol to wed medical doctor

Go Ji-yong, former member of the idol music group Sechs Kies, is getting married on Friday.Go and his bride-to-be, Heo Yang-im, will hold their private wedding at Grand Hyatt Seoul Hotel, and about 50 bodyguards have reportedly been hired to protect their privacy. Heo is a doctor at the department of family medicine at the Seoul Paik Hospital who guest-starred on several TV shows, including “Vitamin” and “Escaping Crisis No.1.” Go Ji-yong is said to have been running his own business since the b

TelevisionDec. 13, 2013

Choo reveals how he joined ‘Superman is Back’ with his daughter

Korean-Japanese fighter Choo Sung-hoon said his wife Shiho Yano had encouraged him to appear on “Superman is Back,” a segment of a South Korean variety TV show that has become wildly popular.Yano’s agency was originally opposed to the idea of featuring the Choo family on a Korean program. Yano is one of the top models in Japan, and it is assumed that the Japanese agency did not want something to happen to undermine her image because of the show. But Yano asked Choo to consider the proposal posit

TelevisionDec. 13, 2013

Art auction of Chun family collection draws huge interest

The long-sluggish Korean art market got a boost on Wednesday after dynamic sales of the seized art collection of the family of former President Chun Doo-hwan, setting the stage for the next round of auctions of the Chun collection next week. All items being auctioned were sold off, raking in some 2.5 billion won ($2.4 million), about nine times K Auction’s original estimate.The Korean government commissioned K Auction and Seoul Auction, two major auction houses in Korea, to sell all 235 confisca

PerformanceDec. 12, 2013

Jeon Do-yeon speaks about her latest movie, motherhood

Even after winning the Best Actress Award in Cannes in 2007, celebrated actress Jeon Do-yeon says she still struggles with self-doubt. “I think that is why I work hard,” the 40-year-old actress said in an interview with reporters in Seoul, Wednesday. “I don’t think I ever started something with confidence. My close friends tell me, whenever I tell them I feel insecure, ‘You’ll be fine, you know you’ll do fine. You are just saying this.’ “And I usually end up doing fine, I usually pull it off. Bu

FilmDec. 12, 2013

Sohee no longer a Wonder Girl

The popular K-pop starlet Sohee of Wonder Girls has decided not to renew her contract with the group in order to focus on her acting career, according to a press release issued Wednesday by her agency JYP Entertainment.“The contract with Sohee ends on Dec. 21 and we have decided to respect her decision to focus on her acting career after much discussion,” the statement said. Although Sohee has opted to discontinue her activities as part of Wonder Girls, members Yeeun, Yubin and Sunye ― whose con

PerformanceDec. 12, 2013

Book recounts Depression-era mystery

The Maid’s VersionBy Daniel Woodrell(Little, Brown and Company)In his first novel in seven years, Daniel Woodrell, author of the acclaimed “Winter’s Bone” (2006) and “The Outlaw Album (2011),” returns to his beloved Ozarks with a ghostly tale about a mysterious explosion at a rural Missouri dance hall in 1929 that left more than 40 people dead.It’s a departure for Woodrell, whose previous nine books have mostly focused on the hard-bitten lives of the rural poor. “The Maid’s Version,” based on a

BooksDec. 12, 2013

An improbable woman of mystery

Stella BainBy Anita Shreve (Little, Brown)There’s no doubt that public education has neglected World War I, with history teachers squeezing in a few lectures before launching into succeeding conflicts. Literature has been kinder to the Great War, offering many opportunities to remedy that oversight. Shell shock alone has been the subject of scores of novels (most notably Pat Barker’s “Regeneration” trilogy) that remind us how WWI inextricably altered the trajectory ― and the mythology ― of the h

BooksDec. 12, 2013

Suggestions for the readers on your gift list

Look for a present for the hard-to-buy for-reader? Here is an exotic assortment of worthy books for the holiday season and beyond.For readers who like photography and nature, introduce them to “North America: A World in One Continent” (Running Press) by Huw Cordey. A coffee-table book, it’s the companion to the Discovery Channel series “North America.” The photographs were shot over three years as that the television crew filmed the continent. It’s riddled with personal stories and factual nugge

BooksDec. 12, 2013

The Lincoln Lawyer rides again

“The gods of guilt” is more than a phrase that attorney Mickey Haller ― best known as the Lincoln Lawyer ― likes to use when referring to a jury’s verdict. It refers to the judgments that people make about others on a daily basis, questioning their motives and dissecting their actions. But Mickey also grapples with his personal gods of guilt, knowing that sometimes being a good attorney has a price.Michael Connelly delivers a compelling, suspense-laden plot that accelerates at high speed from th

BooksDec. 12, 2013

Project launched to educate workers on breast cancer

Samsung Medical Center, the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea and Goldman Sachs launched a joint project on Thursday to educate company workers on breast cancer.The medical center developed a support program for breast cancer patients, called “Bravo Project,” with sponsorship from Goldman Sachs, in October 2012. This time, they will extend the program to company workers. Medical professionals at the center will provide special education sessions to a total of 2,000 workers from 20 companies

PeopleDec. 12, 2013