The scent of medicinal herbs filled Yangnyeongjungang-ro on Friday, as vendors and booths offering traditional Korean medicine experiences welcomed visitors to the World K-Medicine Culture Festival 2026 in Dongdaemun-gu, northeastern Seoul. “We wanted to experience the medicine market out of curiosity and get an idea of life in Korea,” said Angela, a Belgian visitor who declined to give her surname. She was visiting Seoul for the first time with her husband and three children. “This is so amazin

In the Gaepo Middle School gymnasium, 38 people from 29 households were staying in an emergency shelter Wednesday after a fire swept through nearby Guryong Village, Seoul's last shantytown. Another 50 people from 24 households took refuge at Guryong Middle School, while others were staying with acquaintances or at nearby lodging facilities arranged by the district office. The blaze affected 107 residents from 77 households before firefighters extinguished it early Wednesday, nearly 13 hours afte

YONGIN, Gyeonggi Province — Emerging automakers, particularly Chinese electric vehicle brands, are rapidly expanding their presence in South Korea. But Mercedes-Benz Korea bets on its two decades of technician training and rigorous German certification standards to defend its position in the market. Establishing retail networks may be relatively straightforward, but building a reliable after-sales service infrastructure is a far greater challenge for newcomers. At the HS Hyosung The Class Jukjeo

"This is gochujang, a Korean sauce made with red chili peppers," Kim Ha-jin, a sixth grader at Seoul Beondong Elementary School, said as she scooped a spoonful of the red pepper paste and held it up to her laptop's camera. Although Kim was sitting alongside her classmates, she was speaking to students as far as 5,000 kilometers away at SDIT Al Ihsan Banjarmasin, an Islamic elementary school in South Kalimantan, Indonesia, and Bansei Elementary School in Nara, Japan. Each sixth grader at the Seou

CHANGWON, South Gyeongsang Province — At a sprawling manufacturing complex in South Korea's southeastern industrial heartland, the future of arms exports takes shape in a place built for technologies of the past. Once developed to manufacture conventional military hardware under South Korea's push for self-reliance in the 1970s, Changwon now sits at the center of Hanwha Aerospace's ambitions to build a new defense ecosystem powered by artificial intelligence, robotic production lines and uncrewe

SONGDO, Incheon — Inside a tightly controlled factory in Songdo, German chemicals giant Henkel is producing a critical but often overlooked ingredient in AI chips: semiconductor adhesives. Workers in cleanroom suits operate mixing equipment under strict temperature and humidity controls. Some rooms glow yellow, with ultraviolet light filtered out to prevent unwanted chemical reactions. The materials produced here help hold chips together, protect delicate connections and dissipate heat — increas

JINCHEON, North Chungcheong Province — For three decades, CJ CheilJedang has honed a seemingly simple recipe for instant rice under its Hetbahn brand, which more often than not stands in for microwavable rice itself in Korea. The nation's first aseptic-packaged cooked rice, debuted in 1996, now holds about 65 percent of the domestic market and has grown into a lineup of multigrain bowls, pot-cooked rice, porridge, cup meals and even rice-studded gelato. Innovation continues at CJ’s smart factory

"I ordered Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold8 with my wife, but returned mine unopened when I heard Apple was releasing a foldable." Kim, a Seoul-based game company employee in his mid-40s, was among the first customers collecting Apple's 3.29 million won ($2,300) iPhone Duo at Apple Myeongdong on Friday. His wife kept her Samsung phone. "I seriously considered switching to Android because of the Fold8," he said. But giving up his Apple Watch, AirPods and familiar iPhone software was too much of a barrier

Ten international students from different countries gathered at an animal shelter in Seoul on Monday to participate in a volunteer event to take care of dogs at a Seoul-based animal shelter. “I've been living in Korea for three years, and I've wanted to volunteer for a long time,” Arina Telpukova, 22, a Russian postgraduate student at Soongsil University, said at the event organized by the Seoul Global Center. Animals currently under protection at the center had arrived under various circumstanc

PUNE, India — Yellow robotic arms swing, twist and weld steel car bodies in synchronized movements at Hyundai Motor's new plant in Pune, western India. Nearby, laser scanners sweep across doors and hoods, checking for defects with precision beyond the human eye. The factory floor is a striking departure from what stood here just a few years ago. When General Motors shut down the facility in 2020 and exited India, it left behind a largely manual assembly plant with just six welding robots. The si