Ever since its inception in 2006, South Korea’s state-funded Northeast Asian History Foundation has conducted research and analysis on issues involving Northeast Asian history and the Korean Dokdo islets to develop policies aimed at promoting peace and prosperity in the region. “The foundation has held countless academic seminars with Japan and China, and made constant efforts for reconciliation, but the neighboring countries’ differences on historical issues have only gotten w

Compared to the ancient and medieval history and archaeology of China and Japan, those of Korea have been substantially understudied overseas, with only a small number of scholars interested in the field. But the number has dwindled even more over the past years due to a lack of job opportunities and funding, according to Jack Davey, a US-based scholar of early Korean history and archaeology. A 2019 symposium on the archaeology of Korea, for instance, brought together just 12 scholars -- and s

South Korea's official data on parental spending for their children's education has long faced criticism for overlooking two significant aspects: expenditures prior to the commencement of public education and those occurring after its completion. To address these concerns and better assess the financial burden on parents, the Ministry of Education plans to look into the cost of “private education” of preschool children and high school graduates who are studying to retake th

While a growing number of college students abroad want to learn about Korea thanks to the country’s popular culture, most universities around the world still lack faculty, courses and textbooks for key areas of Korean studies such as pre-modern Korean history. Virtually all the Korean history professors that teach at universities such as Harvard and UCLA specialize in Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) or post-Joseon Korea. There are no faculty specializing in ancient or medieval Korean history, w

Over 70 million Koreans in both South and North Korea learn in school that Gojoseon, founded in 2,333 BC by Dangun, was the first kingdom on the Korean Peninsula. They are taught that from this point on, various early states like Buyeo, Okjeo, Dongye, Goguryeo, Baekje, Silla, Balhae and Goryeo flourished on the peninsula and in the now-Chinese territory of Manchuria, collectively shaping the early part of Korea’s five-millennia-long history. But virtually no universities outside Korea offe

For non-native speakers of the Korean language, even the simple question "Have you eaten?" can be tricky. It is because of the complexity of having to choose different speech levels and honorifics depending on the person being addressed, resulting in distinctly different expressions like “bap meogeosseo (밥 먹었어?)” and “jinji deusyeosseoyo (진지 드셨어요)?” Sanjeev Kumar, who has an M.A. in Buddhist studies from Dongguk University in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Provinc

After Russia dumped radioactive waste in the East Sea in 1993, South Korea continued to measure radioactivity at about 50 different points in its waters, but "no significant changes have been reported as of yet," a senior aide to President Yoon Suk Yeol said earlier this week. Lee Kwan-sup, senior presidential secretary for policy planning, made the statement on Wednesday at the National Assembly, saying that filing a complaint with an international organization against the Japanese go

Peggy Gou is a superstar DJ doing tours around the world year-round. Her shows are always sold out across mostly European cities. Gou’s latest single “(It goes like) Nanana” has been on the UK top 10 singles chart for 10 straight weeks, and topped the charts in the Netherlands and Belgium over the summer. Although she may not be as widely known as BTS in her home country, Gou is a proud South Korean, born and bred in Incheon. “When people see other Asian performers and as

Korean will continue to be a popular choice for language learners around the world if it leads to ample job opportunities, said a professor and two lecturers at Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany. “There exists a ‘language hierarchy’ where learners prioritize learning languages that offer economic advantages. In other words, if an environment is created where Korean language learners can obtain economic benefits through their Korean proficiency, it will sustain a continuous inte

In the US, the focus of foreign language learning is laid on enabling students to actually speak, understand and perform different tasks in the target language. Under the guidelines of ACTFL, an organization of language education professionals that provides testing for the US government, learners are tested on such real-life language skills. South Korea’s state-run Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK), on the other hand, has often been criticized for measuring students' memorization

Moving forward from South Korea's dynamic seven decades, The Korea Herald identifies the seven most crucial challenges the nation must overcome for a sustainable and prosperous future. – Ed. Climate crisis becomes irreversible reality Climate change has long been considered a future disaster rather than a present threat by many Koreans. However, it has now become a largely irreversible reality, manifesting as a series of extreme weather events that significantly affect people'

Mariela Rodriguez Aguilar studied Korean mostly on her own for three years since high school in South Carolina. But she learned much more Korean in the last two months she spent in Seoul. She is here with 14 other students of Harvard University for a summer program at Ewha Womans University. “The opportunity to be surrounded by Koreans and getting to speak Korean everyday has been really helpful. I’ve learned so much,” Mariela told The Korea Herald on Wednesday. The linguistics

Koreans seek comfort from a wide variety of foods in each season. In the summer, when it's either sizzling hot or rainy, people naturally look for something cold or refreshing to keep exhaustion from the high temperatures and humidity at bay. Patbingsu, a milk-based Korean shaved ice dessert with various toppings, including red beans, is a summertime favorite. If you see coffee shops starting to sell patbingsu, that means summer has arrived. "Pat" means red beans, and "bing

Eleven people died of heat-related illnesses and four people drowned to death over the weekend in South Korea, authorities said Sunday. The death toll from heat-related illnesses included mostly people in their 70s and older found dead inside greenhouses or on farms in regions where temperatures shot up to daily highs of between 33 and 36 degrees Celsius. Seven people died due to the heat on Saturday alone, the Ministry of Interior and Safety said Sunday. Four more deaths were reported Sunday. T

Four days after two cats were confirmed to have been infected with avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, at an animal shelter in Seoul, three more suspected bird flu cases in cats were reported in the city on Saturday. The three suspected cases of H5N1 virus infections were found at a cat shelter in Gwanak-gu, Seoul, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said, adding that it will take two or three days to find out if the infections were highly pathogenic, resulting in sev

A kidnapping murder case in Seoul's Gangnam district in March that sent shockwaves through the nation took a twist on Monday when it was revealed that one of the main suspects had claimed to be a special operative trained for missions in North Korea. Seven people including 36-year-old Lee Kyung-woo -- who is accused of masterminding the crime -- are on trial for conspiring to abduct and murder the victim in her 40s. During a hearing at the Seoul Central District Court on Monday, a prosecuto

Police investigating allegations that a fortuneteller, Cheongong, interfered in selecting the location of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s official residence said that the man who visited a candidate site early last year was a different person with a similar beard, according to KBS reports last week. A former Justice Party lawmaker first raised the allegation last December that Cheongong, who claimed to be a personal mentor to Yoon, paid a visit to the official residence of the Army Chief of Staf

Of the nearly 18,000 people who evacuated their homes due to torrential rains that caused landslides and flash floods from last week, some 2,200 remained in temporary shelters like community halls, schools and senior centers or with relatives, as of Friday morning. Out of the nationwide total of 11,691 households that have evacuated, 1,426 were yet to return to their homes, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said Friday. The death toll from the floods and landslides sto

The English version of a book about K-pop sensation BTS released earlier this month by the band's agency to mark the septet's 10 year anniversary is taking US bookstores by storm. The book, titled “Beyond the Story: 10-year Record of BTS,” by BTS and Myeongseok Kang, translated by Anton Hur and Claire Richards, topped the New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover nonfiction on Wednesday. Rankings on the newspaper’s weekly list reflect sales including pre-orders for the week

In 1992, South Korea and China embarked on a new chapter in their millennia-old relationship. The East Asian neighbors with deep historical and cultural connections were enemies during the 1950-53 Korean War and adversaries throughout the Cold War era, but on Aug. 24 of that year, they normalized ties. The joint statement on the establishment of diplomatic ties, signed by their foreign ministers, said South Korea recognizes “the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal governme