Lecturer rubbishes reports of out of control competition at top science college A professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has rubbished claims that competition at the college is out of control, revealing that the then-dean of academic affairs sent a memo to lecturers last year asking them to bump up the average GPA of freshman. The memo, which was seen by The Korea Heral...

When Alvaro Neil told his boss he wanted to leave his job at a notary’s office in Madrid six years ago, he had more than a career change in mind. The part-time clown hopped on his bicycle and began a trans-continental journey with a mission: to bring smiles to those in despair wherever he went. Sixty-two countries and almost 90,000 km later, 44-year-old “Biciclown” last week arrived in South Ko...

Getting savvy with Korean cooking early on helps vegetarians adapt to Korea With a homely interior, featuring upside down teacups strung as lamp shades, Itaewon’s Honest Loving Hut is the perfect place to tuck into that hearty meal synonymous with Western comfort food ― a burger. But this one comes served guilt-free: it’s vegan. Atop the wholegrain bun sits lettuce, a slathering of vegan mayonn...

Star of one-woman play to perform in front of birth parents in first Asian production Read from within the audience, a letter begins: “Dear ….” Following hesitantly, as the 20-year-old struggles to find the term for someone who should be so close, but is as yet unknown, comes the title ― “mother.” Written, adapted and performed by Amy Mihyang, “between” explores growing up as a Korean-American...

Charles Montgomery thinks Korean literature could be on the brink of a popularity breakthrough. But when he looked on Wikipedia he was disappointed to find a dearth of information about it. Major authors were overlooked: Gong Ji-young’s page was a 60-word stub; Park Wan-suh had no page at all. That’s a disastrous situation in an age when if something isn’t on Wikipedia it doesn’t exist. “Suppo...

The number of native-speaking English teachers hired at public schools rose slightly this year, a telephone survey by the Korea Herald has found. Provincial and metropolitan education boards reported that the number of teachers rose 2.9 percent in March from a year before. The increase was mainly due to a 134 percent increase in Daegu to 567 teachers. The city government said that of the 325 st...

Founders of Speakeasy magazine for creative people launch urban exploration blog With over 2 billion passenger rides per year, Seoul’s metropolitan subway system is one of the busiest in the world. But how many people venture beyond the stations they use for work, school or home? This is the question that drives Seoul Sub-Urban, a blog aiming to explore the less-traveled stops on the sprawlin...