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Find a picture connected to Korean culture. e.g. food, clothing, people, music, film and drama.

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Find a picture connected to Korean culture. e.g. food, clothing, people, music, film and drama.

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Record your voice, saying "I'm most looking forward to learning about OOO and XXX" because I like ~~~.  

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Record your voice, saying "I'm most looking forward to learning about OOO and XXX" because I like ~~~.  

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I chose this 2018 MMA scene because it is THE legendary performance of BTS.

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Find a news article in English about Korean culture or society that interests you. 

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Find a news article in English about Korean culture or society that interests you. 

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I chose this article because I'm interested in businesses in Korea.

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DAEJEON, South Korea (Reuters) - When the South Korea government unveiled an expanded semiconductor material testing facility last month, the centrepiece was a towering white machine given by Samsung Electronics at a fraction of its market price.

The facility, aimed at motivating local suppliers to make and test sophisticated chipmaking materials like photoresist, comes as South Korea pushes for self-sufficiency after Japan last year imposed export curbs on high-tech chip materials. here

While industry sources warn Korea has a long way to go to achieve this, the need for self-reliance in chip technology has become more critical with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and U.S.-China tensions threatening to accelerate supply chain shifts.

Large chip-making companies like Samsung would previously source the best components at the cheapest price "no matter where the material was from", said Lee Jo-won, president of the National Nanofab Center, home to the testing facility.

"But due to Japan's export curbs and COVID-19, they have begun to ... foster local suppliers and to create a system where they can be supplied without disruptions," Lee told Reuters at the centre in Daejeon city, 150 km (93.21 miles) south of Seoul.

The equipment that Samsung sold to the lab, the ArF immersion lithography machine made by ASML , will help local suppliers test chip material.

The machine, which the world's top memory-chip maker had been using in its production line, costs up to 100 billion won ($84 million) when new, experts said.

A National Nanofab Center official said about 20 billion won had been budgeted to buy and refurbish the machine, without giving details on the final price.

"This would never have been imaginable in the past, to provide such an expensive device to a public lab," said Lee Jong-ho, a professor at Seoul National University.

"It took a decision from pretty high up."

SHORING UP BUSINESSES

Samsung has decided to invest in firms that need cooperation to develop next-generation chip technologies, a company spokesman told Reuters in an email.

It recently invested a total of about $113 billion won in two local makers of chip components and testing equipment, S&S Tech Corp and YIK Corp , its first such investments in three years.

S&S makes mask blanks, a chipmaking component that is currently more than 90% sourced from Japanese firms like Hoya but not included in export curbs.

"Samsung seems to be securing various options so they're not too dependent on any one source", said an official at a Samsung-backed chip material supplier.

With no sign of a thaw in South Korea-Japan tensions, rooted in wartime history here, Seoul is pushing to diversify supply sources of 100 items it still mainly gets from Japan and has pledged to invest 5 trillion won by 2022 to that end.

South Korea has already diversified sourcing for the three materials targeted by Japan in the curbs last year here and now gets supplies locally and from Belgium, Taiwan and China.

SCEPTICISM

But there is scepticism about whether it makes economic sense for Korea's small domestic chip material market to pour money into developing sophisticated technology in which Japan has a competitive edge, industry experts said.

Also, Seoul wants big corporations to use local suppliers, "but this is not an easy option unless quality is guaranteed", said Kwon Hyeok-min, leader of an industrial policy team at Korean business lobby group, Federation of Korean Industries.

The chip sector accounts for 20% of exports for South Korea, Asia's fourth-largest economy.

It will take time to localise high-tech materials like EUV photoresist, former Hynix engineer Kim Sang-yong said. Japan accounts for 90% of the global photoresist production.

Photoresists, which Japan targeted in its curbs that it later partially reversed here, are thin layers of material used to transfer circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers.

Kim, now a professor at Korea Polytechnics University, also cautioned South Korea could be hit hard should Japan expand curbs to chipmaking equipment.

Out of South Korea's 100 import items heavily dependent on Japan, 14 are semiconductor-making equipment that are not subject to any restrictions, according to the Seoul-based Institute for International Trade.

If Japan extends curbs to these 14, South Korea's "chip production will stop", Kim said.

"What is more vulnerable than materials are the equipment and parts that manufacture semiconductors."

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specialty chemicals (nec) (trbc level 5)

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supplies & distribution (nec) (trbc level 5)

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phones & handheld devices (nec) (trbc level 5)

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semiconductor equipment & testing (trbc level 4)

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semiconductor equipment & testing (nec) (trbc level 5)

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South Korea government, Samsung team up for self-sufficiency after Japan export curbs on chip material

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DAEJEON, South Korea (Reuters) - When the South Korea government unveiled an expanded semiconductor material testing facility last month, the centrepiece was a towering white machine given by Samsung Electronics at a fraction of its market price.

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I chose this photo because I love Korean food.

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I choose the photo from Hotel Del Luna because I recently watched this drama.

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I chose this because they broke the new record of Korean Artist ranking in Billboard and let more people from all around the world know more about K-Pop.

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[SBS연예뉴스 | 강선애 기자] 그룹 방탄소년단(BTS)이 미국 빌보드 '핫 100' 차트에서 2위에 오르며 3주 연속 최상위권을 유지했다.

미국 음악 전문 매체 빌보드는 14일(현지시각) "방탄소년단이 'Dynamite(다이너마이트)'로 2주 연속 '핫 100' 차트 1위를 유지한 뒤 최신 차트(9월 19일 자)에서 2위를 차지했다"고 밝혔다.

빌보드에 따르면 'Dynamite'는 발매 3주 차에 13만 6000회의 다운로드 수를 기록, '톱 디지털 송 세일즈' 차트에서 1위를 차지했다. 3주 연속 13만 6000회 이상 다운로드 된 곡은 2016년 9월~10월 체인스모커스(The Chainsmokers)의 '클로저(Closer)' 이후 약 4년 만이다.

방탄소년단은 지난달 21일 발매한 'Dynamite'로 전 세계에서 폭발적인 반응을 얻고 있다. 빌보드의 메인 차트 중 하나인 '핫 100' 차트(9월 5일 자)에 신규 진입하며 곧바로 1위를 거머쥐었고, 9월 12일 자 '핫 100' 차트에서도 정상을 수성하며 '2주 연속 1위'라는 대기록을 세웠다. 빌보드는 "역대 '핫 100' 차트에 신규 진입하며 1위에 오른 43곡 중, 2주 연속 정상을 지킨 곡은 'Dynamite'가 20번째"라고 설명하며 방탄소년단의 성과를 집중 조명했다.

또한 방탄소년단은 9월 19일 자 차트부터 신설된 '빌보드 글로벌 200'과 '빌보드 글로벌(미국 제외)' 차트에서도 모두 2위에 올랐다. 두 차트는 닐슨뮤직 데이터를 기반으로, 200개 이상 지역의 스트리밍과 판매량을 집계해 순위를 매긴다. 빌보드에 따르면, 'Dynamite'는 집계 기간 내 전 세계에서 가장 많이 판매된 곡이다.

방탄소년단은 세계 최대 음악 스트리밍 업체 스포티파이(Spotify)에서도 꾸준히 최상위권에 이름을 올려 뜨거운 인기를 입증하고 있다. 'Dynamite'는 스포티파이의 최신 차트(9월 13일 자) '글로벌 톱 50'에서 4위에 올랐다. 'Dynamite'는 발매와 동시에 한국 가수 최초로 스포티파이의 '글로벌 톱 50'에서 1위를 차지했고, 22일~24일 자 차트에서 2위, 25일~30일 자에서 3위, 이후 9월 13일까지 줄곧 4위를 지키고 있다.

한편, 방탄소년단은 오는 17일(이하 한국시각) NBC '아메리카 갓 탤런트(America's Got Talent)'와 19일 대규모 음악 축제 '아이하트라디오 뮤직 페스티벌(iHeartRadio Music Festival)'에 차례로 출연해 'Dynamite' 무대를 선보인다.

강선애 기자 sakang@sbs.co.kr

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방탄소년단, 美 빌보드 '핫 100' 1위→1위→2위...3주 연속 최상위권 | SBS연예뉴스

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SBS연예뉴스 | 강선애 기자] 그룹 방탄소년단(BTS)이 미국 빌보드 '핫 100' 차트에서 2위에 오르며 3주 연속 최상위권을 유지했다. 미국 음악 전문 매체 빌보드는 14일(현지시각) "방탄소년단이 'Dynamite(다이너마이트)'로 2주 연속 '핫 100' 차트 1위를 유지한 뒤 최신 차트(9월 19일 자)에서 2위를 차지했다"고 밝혔다. 빌보드에 따르면 'Dynamite'는 발매 3주 차에 13만 6000회의 다운로드 수를 기록, '톱 디지털 송 세일즈' 차트에서 1위를 차지했다.

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I choose the picture of the album 'Oneiric diary' (of Iz*one) because I love this idol group so much. All of the members are so pretty.

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I choose this photo because I like his song 걱정말아요 그대 of 들국화 band. He is 전인권

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I choose this picture because it,s one of the favourite food of Korean,I like it too.

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I choose this concert(season of gfriend 2018) because this concert in my first Time watch concert in Hong Kong

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I chose this image because Running Man aroused my interest to Korea.

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I choose this photo because the idol who I know joins this group.

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I choose this picture because Yoona is my first and best idol in Korea and I started follow the trend about kpop stars,food and beauty when I was 7 years old.

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I choose the photo of BLACKPINK because they are my favoriete idol group.

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I choose Korean food because I like eating.

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I choose this photo because i love EXO’s songs

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I choose this article because the military expansion of North Korea is one of the most hot political topic in the world, and I pay attention to this issue as well.

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North Korea may soon conduct its first underwater-launched ballistic missile test in about a year, a top South Korean military official said Wednesday, amid long-stalled nuclear talks between the North and the United States. In written remarks to lawmakers ahead of a confirmation hearing, Won In-choul, the nominee for chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said North Korea has been repairing recent typhoon damage at its northeastern Sinpo shipyard, a place where it builds submarines. Shortly after the repairs are complete, there is a chance it will carry out a submarine-launched ballistic missile test, Won said. He said South Korea's military is keeping a close watch on developments there, according to a copy of his remarks provided by a lawmaker, Kang Dae-sik.In recent years, North Korea has been pushing hard to acquire the ability to launch missiles from submarines in what experts say is a worrying development because such weapons are difficult to detect before launch. A test of an underwater-launched missile by North Korea last October was the first of its kind in three years, and the most provocative weapons test since North Korea entered nuclear negotiations with the U.S. in 2018. The nuclear talks have made little headway since the second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam in early 2019 collapsed due to disputes over U.S.-led sanctions against North Korea.Jung Changwook, head of the private Korea Defense Study Forum in Seoul, said North Korea could perform a submarine-launched ballistic missile, or SLBM, test to upgrade its nuclear attack capability and put pressure on Washington after the U.S. presidential election in early November. There has been speculation that North Korea may test such a missile before the anniversary of the founding of its ruling Workers' Party on Oct. 10. Jung said that is possible, but stressed that North Korea is aiming more at pressuring the U.S. rather than celebrating its state anniversary. Some experts say it's unlikely that North Korea will conduct any major weapons test soon because it is grappling with multiple crises, including typhoon damage, the coronavirus pandemic that led to the closure of its border with China _ its biggest trading partner _ and harsh U.S.-led sanctions. Foreign experts say past North Korean underwater-launched missile tests were conducted from a submersible barge with a single launch tube, not a functioning submarine. In July 2019, North Korean state media said Kim inspected a newly built submarine which observers said appeared to be the North's most sophisticated model with several launch tubes.Jung said the possible upcoming test would also be made from the barge, not the new submarine, to not provoke the United States too much.According to 38 North, a website specializing in North Korea studies, recent satellite images of the Sinpo shipyard show the repositioning or departure of the submersible test barge. It said the barge's location ''may signal an impending SLBM test though conducting such a launch on the heels of a destructive typhoon seems unlikely.'' It said the barge may have been moved somewhere for repairs. Jung said a missile fired from the barge would have a potential range of 300-500 kilometers (185-310 miles), thus posing no direct threat to the U.S. mainland. Despite the deadlocked nuclear talks, North Korea hasn't conducted nuclear or long-range missile tests in an apparent bid to keep chances for a resumption of diplomacy alive. (AP)

North Korea may soon conduct its first underwater-launched ballistic missile test in about a year, a top South Korean military official said Wednesday, amid long-stalled nuclear talks between the North and the United States. In written remarks to lawmakers ahead of a confirmation hearing, Won In-choul, the nominee for chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said North Korea has been repairing recent typhoon damage at its northeastern Sinpo shipyard, a place where it builds submarines. Shortly after the repairs are complete, there is a chance it will carry out a submarine-launched ballistic missile test, Won said. He said South Korea's military is keeping a close watch on developments there, according to a copy of his remarks provided by a lawmaker, Kang Dae-sik.In recent years, North Korea has been pushing hard to acquire the ability to launch missiles from submarines in what experts say is a worrying development because such weapons are difficult to detect before launch. A test of an underwater-launched missile by North Korea last October was the first of its kind in three years, and the most provocative weapons test since North Korea entered nuclear negotiations with the U.S. in 2018. The nuclear talks have made little headway since the second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam in early 2019 collapsed due to disputes over U.S.-led sanctions against North Korea.Jung Changwook, head of the private Korea Defense Study Forum in Seoul, said North Korea could perform a submarine-launched ballistic missile, or SLBM, test to upgrade its nuclear attack capability and put pressure on Washington after the U.S. presidential election in early November. There has been speculation that North Korea may test such a missile before the anniversary of the founding of its ruling Workers' Party on Oct. 10. Jung said that is possible, but stressed that North Korea is aiming more at pressuring the U.S. rather than celebrating its state anniversary. Some experts say it's unlikely that North Korea will conduct any major weapons test soon because it is grappling with multiple crises, including typhoon damage, the coronavirus pandemic that led to the closure of its border with China _ its biggest trading partner _ and harsh U.S.-led sanctions. Foreign experts say past North Korean underwater-launched missile tests were conducted from a submersible barge with a single launch tube, not a functioning submarine. In July 2019, North Korean state media said Kim inspected a newly built submarine which observers said appeared to be the North's most sophisticated model with several launch tubes.Jung said the possible upcoming test would also be made from the barge, not the new submarine, to not provoke the United States too much.According to 38 North, a website specializing in North Korea studies, recent satellite images of the Sinpo shipyard show the repositioning or departure of the submersible test barge. It said the barge's location ''may signal an impending SLBM test though conducting such a launch on the heels of a destructive typhoon seems unlikely.'' It said the barge may have been moved somewhere for repairs. Jung said a missile fired from the barge would have a potential range of 300-500 kilometers (185-310 miles), thus posing no direct threat to the U.S. mainland. Despite the deadlocked nuclear talks, North Korea hasn't conducted nuclear or long-range missile tests in an apparent bid to keep chances for a resumption of diplomacy alive. (AP)

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North Korea may conduct underwater-launched missile test

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North Korea may soon conduct its first underwater-launched ballistic missile test in about a year, a top South Korean military official said Wednesday, amid long-stalled nuclear talks between the North and the United States.

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I choose this picture because it taste so good

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This is my favorite food in Korea

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I choose this article because I love Korean food for example kimchi , Bibimbap.

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I choose this picture because she is my favourite idols.

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I choose this photo because I like the shoes and everything about the brand

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I choose this piece of news article because I have the enthusiasm in studying the diplomatic relationship between South Korea and the DPRK. Don't launch the missiles to Seoul !!!!

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea may soon conduct its first underwater-launched ballistic missile test in about a year, a top South Korean military official said Wednesday, amid long-stalled nuclear talks between the North and the United States.

In written remarks to lawmakers ahead of a confirmation hearing, Won In-choul, the nominee for chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said North Korea has been repairing recent typhoon damage at its northeastern Sinpo shipyard, a place where it builds submarines.

Shortly after the repairs are complete, there is a chance it will carry out a submarine-launched ballistic missile test, Won said. He said South Korea's military is keeping a close watch on developments there, according to a copy of his remarks provided by a lawmaker, Kang Dae-sik.

In recent years, North Korea has been pushing hard to acquire the ability to launch missiles from submarines in what experts say is a worrying development because such weapons are difficult to detect before launch. A test of an underwater-launched missile by North Korea last October was the first of its kind in three years, and the most provocative weapons test since North Korea entered nuclear negotiations with the U.S. in 2018.

The nuclear talks have made little headway since the second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam in early 2019 collapsed due to disputes over U.S.-led sanctions against North Korea.

Jung Changwook, head of the private Korea Defense Study Forum in Seoul, said North Korea could perform a submarine-launched ballistic missile, or SLBM, test to upgrade its nuclear attack capability and put pressure on Washington after the U.S. presidential election in early November.

There has been speculation that North Korea may test such a missile before the anniversary of the founding of its ruling Workers' Party on Oct. 10. Jung said that is possible, but stressed that North Korea is aiming more at pressuring the U.S. rather than celebrating its state anniversary.

Some experts say it's unlikely that North Korea will conduct any major weapons test soon because it is grappling with multiple crises, including typhoon damage, the coronavirus pandemic that led to the closure of its border with China - its biggest trading partner - and harsh U.S.-led sanctions.

Foreign experts say past North Korean underwater-launched missile tests were conducted from a submersible barge with a single launch tube, not a functioning submarine. In July 2019, North Korean state media said Kim inspected a newly built submarine which observers said appeared to be the North's most sophisticated model with several launch tubes.

Jung said the possible upcoming test would also be made from the barge, not the new submarine, to not provoke the United States too much.

According to 38 North, a website specializing in North Korea studies, recent satellite images of the Sinpo shipyard show the repositioning or departure of the submersible test barge. It said the barge's location "may signal an impending SLBM test though conducting such a launch on the heels of a destructive typhoon seems unlikely." It said the barge may have been moved somewhere for repairs.

Jung said a missile fired from the barge would have a potential range of 300-500 kilometers (185-310 miles), thus posing no direct threat to the U.S. mainland. Despite the deadlocked nuclear talks, North Korea hasn't conducted nuclear or long-range missile tests in an apparent bid to keep chances for a resumption of diplomacy alive.

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Seoul: N. Korea may conduct underwater-launched missile test

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea may soon conduct its first underwater-launched ballistic missile test in about a year, a top South Korean military official said Wednesday, amid long-stalled nuclear talks between the North and the United States.

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I choose new article, because •In 2018, the famous male group “BTS” has Speak in United Nations of UNICEF’s

This can show the Korean K-pop group has influences in the worldwide

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Popular South Korean boyband BTS has received the 2020 UNICEF Inspire Award in the Integrated Campaigns and Events category for its global initiative "Love Myself".

Since November 2017, BTS has joined hands with UNICEF for the initiative that aims to end violence against children and teenagers worldwide.

According to , the award honors the most influential UNICEF campaigns internationally and the awardees were selected based on online voting by the organization's staff worldwide and assessment by a panel of judges.

Read also: Completing 'Love Yourself' saga, BTS shares how it has grown up

UNICEF Korea secretary general Lee Ki-cheol said that the message conveyed by the campaign had generated a positive impact across the globe. "I believe this award is the result of BTS' positive influence as they give children and youth across the earth both courage and comfort," Lee said.

Managed under South Korea-based Big Hit Entertainment, the septet has engaged in numerous activities to support young people. In September 2018, BTS encouraged the younger generation to "listen to their inner voice and resist pressure to conform" at the United Nations headquarters in New York, the United States.

"No matter who you are, where you're from, your skin color, your gender identity, just speak yourself," the boyband's leader Kim Nam-jun, also known as RM, said at the time. (wir/wng)

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BTS' 'Love Myself' campaign wins 2020 UNICEF Inspire Award

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Popular South Korean boyband BTS has received the 2020 UNICEF Inspire Award in the Integrated Campaigns and Events category for its global initiative "Love Myself". Since November 2017, BTS has joined hands with UNICEF for the initiative that aims to end violence against children and teenagers worldwide.

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I just want to post some cute girls here :)

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I choose this because this may also happen in the future of Hong Kong and I am a bit interested.

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -

A burger shop in the South Korean capital is a bit different from typical fast food restaurants: Its key staff are robots.

From order to pick-up, customers don't need a single face-to-face interaction. All they need to do is to click the menu they want on a kiosk touchscreen, pay and wait for a serving robot to bring their takeout bag to the pick-up spot.

While waiting for their food, customers take photos or stare with curiosity at the capsule-shaped robots, reminiscent of the popular minions characters from the animated film "Despicable Me." The yellow and black accent colors of the No Brand Burger restaurant also give the place the look of a toy shop.

"This is the first time I've actually seen such robots, so they are really amazing and fun," said Shin Hyun Soo, a 31-year-old office worker trying out the service.

The restaurant's human manager, Bae Eunyoung, explained the process: When a customer orders at the kiosk, it is automatically sent to the kitchen. There, an automated cooking machine kicks in and heats the buns and patties.

The human staff do have a role to play, Bae explained, adding toppings to the cooked ingredients before wrapping them and passing them over to a robot to serve.

"The customer can take the food without any direct contact with the staff," Bae said.

That's been seen as a selling point amid the coronavirus pandemic and its restrictions.

Before it eased them on Monday, South Korea had for the last few weeks allowed restaurants to provide only deliveries and takeout meals after 9 p.m. and franchised coffee shops like Starbucks to provide only takeout drinks.

The number of new reported coronavirus cases in South Korea almost doubled from 56 to 103 over two days in mid-August and continued to spike until it reached a peak of 441 daily cases on August 26. Since then the resurgence has slowed down but still climbs by at least 100 each day.

In August, takeout orders accounted for 58% of No Brand Burger's total sales, up by 16% from July, according to Shinsegae Food, the South Korean food company that operates No Brand Burger.

No Brand Burger isn't the only local restaurant using robots to serve customers.

South Korea's major IT company KT has partnered with the family restaurant chain Mad for Garlic to provide AI serving robots.

Using 3D space mapping and other technology, the robot can freely move through the narrow lanes between tables and avoid obstacles to reach its destination, said Lee Youngjin, team leader of AI Platform Business Team at KT.

The robot can serve up to four tables per trip.

"Children customers often like to see the robot. Also, customers in general feel it is fresher to receive their food through the robot because of the coronavirus," said Lee Young-ho, the manager of one Mad for Garlic restaurant using the robots.

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AI Robots serve restaurant customers in South Korea

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A burger shop in the South Korean capital is a bit different from typical fast food restaurants: Its key staff are robots. From order to pick-up, customers don't need a single face-to-face interaction.

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For me, running man is the first TV show that made by Korean. Also, I liked watching it in childhood.

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I choose this article because those food sounds really delicious.

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(CNN) - The fact that there are over 100 different types of kimchi should tell you something about the pride Koreans have in their food.

Korean cuisine has evolved over time because of cultural changes, but it remains a major aspect of the national identity.

Here are 40 dishes which are essential to the Korean heart, soul and digestive tract.

Michelin-starred chef Jun Lee gives us a taste of both the past and future of Korean food in the largest fish market in Seoul.

Given South Korea's dedicated drinking culture, it's not surprising that its hangover-curing culture is equally as developed, from pre-drinking drinks to post-drinking drinks to a glorious array of spicy and steamy stews and soups.

Made from a beef broth, with cabbage, bean sprouts, radish and chunks of congealed ox blood, the deeply satisfying taste does wonders to kick-start your sluggish brain in the morning.

Dating to the Silla Dynasty (around 2,000 years ago), kimchi is the beloved spicy sidekick at every Korean table. It's made by salting and preserving fermented cabbage in a bed of pepper, garlic, ginger and scallion.

Feeling adventurous? Exchange your regular red cabbage kimchi for ggakdugi (chopped radish kimchi), a popular side at gimbap restaurants. Yeolmumul kimchi is a less spicy kimchi made with young radish stalks floating in a tangy soup.

For a selection of handmade kimchi, try online kimchi sellers Real Kimchi.

Soft tofu, clams and an egg in spicy broth? This popular stew is a classic example of unexpected flavor combinations yielding delightful sensations.

The soft tofu -- which breaks into fluffy chunks in the stew -- holds the flavor of the clam and serves as a relief from the overall spiciness.

Proper sundubu-jjigae comes in a traditional earthenware pot designed to retain heat. The egg is cracked into the stew after serving, and cooks inside the bowl.

The best part of eating in a samgyeopsal restaurant is the atmosphere -- a rollicking party punctuated by soju shots, pork strips sizzling on a grill and shouts for "one more serving, please!"

Served with lettuce, perilla leaves, sliced onions and raw garlic kimchi, it's smudged in ssamjang (a mix of soybean paste called 'doenjang' and chili paste called 'gochujang') or salt and pepper in sesame oil.

Although originally a Chinese dish, Koreans have taken the noodles and created a thicker, yummier version that holds only a vague resemblance to its Chinese predecessor. (Think of New Yorkers and the wonders they've done with pizza.)

It would not be an understatement to say Korean diets would not be the same without this dish -- most Koreans eat it at least once a week, and have their favorite jjajangmyeon delivery shop on speed dial.

Chimaek, short for "chicken, maekju (beer)" is actually not a dish, but an institution. This glorious pairing features two surprisingly mundane foods: fried chicken and beer.

Neither half, chicken nor beer, is particularly remarkable on its own. But their popularity as a joint entity demonstrates a glorious combination devoured by millions of Koreans every weekend.

Anyone can follow the directions on the back of the ramyeon package to boil water and sprinkle in the spice packet, but connoisseurs will add extras like canned tuna, eggs, and cheese for enhanced flavor.

A lesser-known fact about kimchi is its versatility as an ingredient in a whole slew of derivative dishes, which comprise a category of their own.

In kimchi-jjigae, red cabbage kimchi is chopped, sauteed in oil, and cooked with tofu, cellophane noodles, pork (sometimes tuna), and other vegetables.

Despite the stew's debt to kimchi, you know it has come into its own when it's served with kimchi as a side dish.

This hodgepodge stew of sausages, Spam, American cheese, instant noodles, tteok, and assorted vegetables dates back to the aftermath of the Korean War.

Because meat was scarce, cooks found creative replacements in the surplus foods from the American army base stationed in Seoul, hence the stew's name.

Although meat has since then become plentiful, a buddae jjigae without Spam is unimaginable.

Ganjang gejang, or crab marinated in soy sauce, can be so addictive that it's often affectionately called "rice thief," the joke being that you keep eating more rice just so that you can have more gejang since it's just that good.

Slightly tangy, tantalizingly bitter, pungent and cold, the taste may come as a shock for first-timers. But among South Koreans, gejang has been carving out a niche for itself as more of a centerpiece than a sideshow to other seafoods.

This iconic red-orange street food is so popular there's an entire part of Seoul just devoted to the steamed and sliced rice cakes (tteok), cooked with fish cakes (oden) and scallions in a sweet and spicy sauce made of chili paste.

Chefs have been known to put all sorts of things inside the sauce, from the black soybean paste to plain old ketchup. Call us masochists, but one thing is certain: the more pepper, the better.

Gopchang refers to the small intestines from pork or cattle, which, chopped into rounded sections, can be cooked into soups, stir-fried, or grilled.

Grilled, gopchang is yet another important aspect of Korean barbecue culture. Chewy without being rubbery, it's a bit more festive than samgyeopsal, although it's still a staunchly earthy food.

And as most office workers in South Korea can tell you, it's divine with soju.

Continuing along the masochistic strain, Koreans have a saying that goes, "fight heat with heat." What that means is they love to eat boiling hot dishes on the hottest summer days.

The most representative of these is samgyetang, a thick, glutinous soup with a whole stuffed chicken floating in its boiling depths.

The cooking process tones down the ginseng's signature bitterness and leaves an oddly appealing, aromatic flavor in its stead -- a flavor that permeates an entire bird boiled down to a juicy softness.

This Korean lunch-in-a-bowl mixes together a simple salad of rice, mixed vegetables, rice, beef, and egg, with sesame oil and a dollop of chili paste for seasoning.

Although Korean kings from yesteryear would probably be shocked at how the royal dish has become so ingrained into the palate of the masses, we love how cheaply and quickly we can devour our favorite lunch.

The process of making gimbap resembles the Italian glasswork technique of millefiori, and indeed, the finished gimbap often looks too pretty too eat.

Sauteed vegetables, ground beef, sweet pickled radish, and rice, rolled and tightly wrapped in a sheet of laver seaweed (gim), and then sliced into bite-sized circles.

When people think Asian cuisine, they often think soy sauce. But soy sauce is actually a byproduct of this soybean product, a paste made from dried and fermented soybeans in a process too complicated to describe here.

This brown, textured paste is not the prettiest food in the world, and like Australian vegemite, the taste takes some getting used to. But once that taste is acquired, good luck trying to make do without it.

Most gamjatang places are open 24 hours, because South Koreans tend to crave this stew in the early hours of the morning as an alternative to hangover stew.

This hearty dish features potatoes (gamja), scallions, ground perilla seed, and bits of pork cooked in a pork bone broth. The real appeal of this stew lies in the unique taste of the perilla seed, which is perhaps more important to the flavor than the meat.

Crunchy and filling, Korean pancake tastes best when it comes studded with shellfish, cuttlefish, and other varieties of seafood, to make haemul (seafood) pajeon.

And with its traditional companion of Korean rice wine, makgeolli, pajeon makes the perfect meal for a rainy day.

This dish is the soupier, spicier counterpart to jjajangmyeon and together they form the core of Korean Chinese home delivery cuisine.

But although noodles dominate in terms of sheer quantity, the onions and chili oil that flavor the soup are what really demand your attention. With copious amounts of chili oil-saturated onions and other vegetables on top of the noodles, few are able to finish this dish in its entirety, but many try.

Another street food, sundae is a type of sausage, similar in content to blood pudding, with roots in Mongolian cuisine. "Real" sundae is pig intestine with a stuffing of cellophane noodles, vegetables, and meat, but even if you eat the street vendor version, which uses a synthetic replacement for the pig intestine, you will still be able to enjoy the lungs and liver on the side. Yum.

This seasonal dish might taste bland to some, but once you learn to enjoy the subtle flavor of the bean, you will acquire a taste for this cold, creamy, textured noodle dish that no other dish will be able to satisfy in the summer.

And if the pale, spring green julienne cucumbers placed on the hand-ground, snow-white soybean doesn't tip you off, kongguksu is a highly nutritious dish that also happens to be vegetarian-friendly.

Bad kalguksu can be very bad. But good kalguksu is divine.

Although most kalguksu places will add mushrooms, sliced pumpkin, and seafood or chicken to the basic ingredients of noodles and broth, at the end of the day kalguksu is about the pleasure of the plain.

This ox bone soup is easily recognizable by its milky white color and sparse ingredients. At most, seolleongtang broth will contain noodles, finely chopped scallions, and a few strips of meat.

Yet for such a frugal investment, the results are rewarding. There is nothing like a steaming bowl of seolleongtang on a cold winter day, salted and peppered to your taste, and complemented by nothing more than rice and kkakdugi kimchi.

Originally tteokguk was strictly eaten on the first day of the Korean New Year to signify good luck and the gaining of another year in age. The custom makes more sense if you think in Korean: idiomatically, growing a year older is expressed as "eating another year."

But this dish of oval rice cake slices, egg, dried laver seaweed, and occasionally dumplings in a meat-based broth is now eaten all year round, regardless of age or season.

This humble, instantly recognizable stew is one of Korea's most beloved foods.

The ingredients are simple: doenjang, tofu, mushrooms, green peppers, scallions, and an anchovy or two for added flavor. Add rice and kimchi on the side and you have a meal -- no other side dishes necessary.

While its distinctive piquancy might throw some off, that very taste is what keeps it on the South Korean table week after week.

Galbi, which means "rib," can technically come from pork and even chicken, but when you just say "galbi" sans modifiers, you're talking about thick slabs of meat marinated in a mixture of soy sauce, chopped garlic, and sugar and grilled over a proper fire.

Of course, beef galbi can be used to make soup (galbitang) and steamed galbi (galbijjim). But these dishes, while excellent in their own right, are overshadowed by their grilled leader.

With diners working together to cook the ingredients on an iron plate, this fiery South Korean chicken dish was designed for sharing.

On the other end of the galbi spectrum is the low-budget student favorite Chuncheon dakgalbi.

In this dish, chunks of chicken are marinated in a sauce of chili paste and other spices, and stir-fried in a large pan with tteok, cabbage, carrots, and slices of sweet potato.

Because of the tendency of the red dakgalbi sauce to splatter, it's common to see many diners wearing aprons over their clothes as they cook and eat.

As is frequently the case with many South Korean meat dishes, Bossam at its core is simple: steamed pork.

But key to this dish is that the steamed pork is sliced into squares slightly larger than a bite, lovingly wrapped in a leaf of lettuce, perilla, or kimchi, and daubed with a dipping sauce. There are two traditional options: ssamjang, made of chili paste and soybean paste (doenjang), or saeujeot, a painfully salty pink sauce made of tiny pickled shrimp.

Wrapping and dipping are essential.

Agujjim, also known as agwijjim, is a seafood dish that consists of anglerfish braised on a bed of dropwort and bean sprout. It is as spicy as it looks: the entire dish is a bright reddish color, from the chili powder, chili paste, and chili peppers used in the seasoning.

The white, firm flesh of the anglerfish, which is quite rightly called the "beef of the sea," is meaty and filling. And the tangle of dropwort and bean sprout that make up the majority of the dish aren't just there for decoration: the dropwort is tart and the bean sprouts crunchy.

Japchae, a side dish of cellophane noodles, pork, and assorted vegetables sauteed in soy sauce, makes its most frequent appearances at feasts and potlucks.

There are no precise rules governing the precise assortment of vegetables in japchae, but most recipes won't stray far from the standard collection of mushrooms, carrots, spinach, onions, and leeks.

This appropriate combination of blanched dubu (tofu), sauteed kimchi, and stir-fried pork is a threesome made in heaven. The dubu, which has the potential to be bland on its own, has the pork to add substance and the kimchi to add flavor.

Another stalwart companion to alcohol, especially at more traditional bars and restaurants, dubu kimchi makes soju almost palatable.

This viscous, yellow-orange juk, or porridge, gets its distinctive color and flavor from the pumpkin, its namesake and its main ingredient. The pumpkin is peeled, boiled, and blended with glutinous rice flour, and the result is a bowl of porridge so creamy, golden, and sweet that in some ways it seems more pudding than porridge.

Hobakjuk is often served as an appetizer to meals, or as a health food: it is supposedly beneficial to those suffering from intestinal problems. The specifics of medicinal science aside, it's not difficult to imagine that this mellow, mildly flavored meal can heal.

This side dish, in which an egg is beaten into a bowl, lightly salted and steamed into a spongy, pale yellow cake, is absolutely essential when eating spicy food.

Similar in consistency to soft tofu (sundubu), but with more flavor, gyeranjjim is sometimes made with diced mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, leeks, and sesame seeds sprinkled on top.

In South Korea we wait for summer just so we can start eating naengmyeon every week. The cold buckwheat noodles are great as a lightweight lunch option or after Korean barbecue, as a way to cleanse the palate.

Mul naengmyeon, or "water" naengmyeon, hailing from North Korea's Pyongyang, consists of buckwheat noodles in a tangy meat or kimchi broth, topped with slivers of radish, cucumber, and egg, and seasoned with vinegar and Korean mustard (gyeoja).

Bibim naengmyeon, or "mix" naengmyeon, generally contains the same ingredients, but minus the broth. The noodles are instead covered in a sauce made from chili paste.

This light brown jello, made of acorn starch, is served cold, frequently with a topping of chopped leeks and soy sauce as a side dish, or as an ingredient in Dotorimuk salads and dotorimukbap (dotorimuk with rice).

Like tofu, dotorimuk, while nutritious and vegan-friendly, can taste bland on its own. The flavor, which is unique, can only be described as acorn -- bitter rather than nutty. But although dotorimuk may be an acquired taste, most dotorimuk dishes have a host of appetizing spices and condiments to help the process along.

This spicy soup has a consistency closer to that of stew. Although mashed and boiled to the point where it is unrecognizable, chueotang is named for the freshwater mudfish (chueo) that constitutes the main ingredient.

But the selling point of this soup is the coarse yet satisfying texture of the mudfish and the vegetables -- mung bean sprouts, dried radish greens, sweet potato stems, and most of all the thin, delicate outer cabbage leaves.

If galbi represents Korean barbecue, then bulgogi's playing field is Korean cuisine as a whole. This well-known sweet meat dish, which has existed in some form for over a thousand years, was haute cuisine during the Joseon Dynasty.

The dish is also a fusion favorite: bulgogi-flavored burgers are part of the menu at fast food franchise Lotteria, and there have also been sightings of other adaptations like the bulgogi panini.

If you've ever been lucky enough to get stuck in daytime Seoul traffic, you will see the ppeongtwigi sellers emerge from nowhere and park themselves in the center of the highway. Their fearlessness is a sure sign that your car won't be budging for a while yet.

Ppeongtwiti is onomatopoeic. The ppeong represents the sound that rice makes as it pops, and there really isn't much else to the snack but that -- popping.

If you're feeling tired of all the greasy, barbecue-flavored, chocolate-covered, and over-packaged snacks that most stores stock today, try a handful of this relatively Spartan treat. It's unexpectedly addictive.

The best places to find it are at the local seller down the street.

In this enduring favorite, octopus is stir-fried with vegetables in a sauce of chili paste, chili powder, green peppers, and chili peppers -- ingredients that would be spicy enough on their own, but which all congregate to create one extra fiery dish.

When it's done right, the chewy, tender octopus swims in a thick, dark red, caramelized sauce, so good that you can ignore the fact that it sets your mouth aflame to keep eating.

In this delectable summer dessert, sweetened red beans (pat) and tteok are served on a bed of shaved ice (bingsu). Variations will include condensed milk, misutgaru, syrup, ice cream, and corn flakes.

Then there are, of course, the variations on the bingsu, where the pat is sometimes entirely replaced by ice cream or fruit.

Classic patbingsu, however, is too beloved to lose ground to the newcomers -- come summer, every bakery and fast food restaurant in Seoul will have patbingsu on its dessert menu.

Editor's note: This article was previously published in 2012. It was reformatted and republished in 2018.

Violet Kim is a freelance writer. Find her online @pomography.

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korean food: 40 best dishes we can't live without - cnn

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Korean food: 40 best dishes we can't live without

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(CNN) - The fact that there are over 100 different types of kimchi should tell you something about the pride Koreans have in their food. Korean cuisine has evolved over time because of cultural changes, but it remains a major aspect of the national identity.

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I choose this news because my favourite k-pop idol get marry soon. ㅜㅜ

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When K-pop stars find love: why fuss over EXO member's wedding?

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K-pop fan clubs are more powerful than in other musical genres and the internet is making them more powerful still. Puncturing their fantasies has a price.

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I chose this photo because I miss Big BANG SO MUCH and their concert in Hk...

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I chose this picture because Apink was the only Korean group I followed.

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I chose this because it detailed description the Korean food.

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Some dishes have been enjoyed throughout the Korean peninsula since days forgotten, but others were only found in certain areas.

If you get the chance to travel in Korea, make sure to refer to this list. Maybe the place you are going to can boast of having the authentic version of a certain dish!

Most people would agree that Dwaeji Gukbap (Pork Rice Soup) is the most representative food of Busan. When I was down in Busan, I asked the locals where to find the best soup, but everyone would give me different answers.

The origin of Dwaeji Gukbab dates back to the Korean War, when refugees who fled to Busan used ingredients discarded by the US military, such as pork bones, minced meat, etc., and made a soup of it. This was the start of Busan Dwaeji Gukbap, and both memory of past times as well as the dish have been passed down to this day.

Although they are both milky white beef soups, Gomtang is different from Seolleongtang. The latter uses mainly beef bones, while Gomtang is made with more meat, simmered at a low heat. The result is a slightly opaque and rich soup. Personally, I prefer Gomtang.

The story behind Naju Gomtang goes that during the Japanese colonial period, Naju was an area with plenty of livestock, including cattle. The cattle were used for food and leather products, with leftover meat and offal given to local workers so they could make stew out of it.

However, being leftovers, the ingredients were not the best. To remove impurities and the bad smell, the workers would cook the stew for hours on end, and the result became the Gomtang as we know today!

Supposedly, the best rice in Korea is the one that grows in Icheon, Gyeonggi-do.

As early as the Joseon Dynasty, the rice from Icheon was sent to the King's Palace. Common people were not allowed to eat it without permission. Nowadays, this white rice has become the most iconic rice in Korea.

The fame of Daegu Gopchang (beef, sometimes pork intestines) can be traced back to the 1970s and 80s. Several gopchang stalls opened in Daegu's Anjirang Market, and more would follow.

During the Korean financial crisis, many Koreans who had lost their jobs opened up restaurants or stalls in order to support themselves and their families. The same happened in Daegu, where Anjirang Gopchang Street gradually began to take the shape it has today.

Outside of Daegu, you can also find Wangsimni Gopchang Street in Seoul. These two streets are probably the two places in Korea with the highest density of gopchang restaurants!

Jjimdak, or Korean Braised Chicken, is a favorite dish of many. Many ingredients are mixed and simmered. The slightly spicy taste goes great with rice. And everyone knows about the birthplace of the dish - Andong.

One theory is that in the Joseon Dynasty, the scholar-officials (Yangban) who lived within Andong's city walls would make a kind of braised chicken dish on special days, and eventually it became Andong Jjimdak.

Another theory is that it developed from a garlic chicken dish popular in Andong Market in the late 1970s. Starting in the 1980s, noodles, potato, radish, soy sauce, sugar, and more ingredients were added to create the Jjimdak we know today.

Bibimbap is one of the most classic Korean dishes, and the one served in Jeonju is the most famous.

Jeonju Bibimbap is mentioned in the 19 th century cookbook "Siuijeonseo", which claims that Jeonju's version of bibimbap is the most famous in Korea. Second most famous is the recipe from Jinju.

It's not an overstatement to say that bibimbap is one of top 3 dishes in Korea. The famous Jeonju Royal Court Bibimbap is a nutritious meal which offers a balanced intake of carbs, fats, protein, and vitamins.

In addition to being a dish served to the Royal Court, the dish also reflects a Korean mindset that nothing should be wasted; bibimbap can be made with leftovers from other dishes.

Records tell us that bibimbap appeared in Jeonju about 200 years ago.

The most famous pork on Jeju Island is the "black pork" which is endemic to Jeju Island. The name comes from the black hair which covers its body. Smaller than other domestic pigs, you only find it on Jeju Island.

It is a delicacy that is often named as a must-eat food when going to Jeju Island.In addition to black pork, Jeju is famous for its orange, the hallabong orange. Popular souvenir gifts such as chocolate often have a hallabong flavor, and most Koreans who go to Jeju will come back with a bunch of these oranges.

Rice and wheat are difficult to grow in barren areas, but buckwheat production is still possible, which is why buckwheat dishes are common in the northern areas of Korea.

Buckweat noodles from Chuncheon as well as Pyongyang cold noodles are popular dishes enjoyed by all Koreans.

The workers who built Chuncheon's Soyang River Dam in the past enjoyed the cheap and easy-to-digest buckwheat noodles in the area, and eventually it became the representative dish of Chuncheon.

Jokbal, or pork trotters, is a dish that is enjoyed throughout Korea, but it is in Busan you will find the Naengchae Jokbal. Served chilled with jellyfish slices, vegetables and more, it is a dish worth trying out when you go to the southern city.

The Naengchae Jokbal originated in the Jokbal Street in Bupyeong-dong, Busan, and it is still a beloved dish among locals. Put this on the list together with Busan Pork Soup for things to eat in Busan!

Korean style Jajangmyeon (also spelled Jjajangmyeon) was created by Chinese who came to Incheon during the Qing dynasty (late 19th century - early 20th century), missing the taste of their home land. Different from the one you find in China, the Korean jajang sauce is black, a color created by fermented beans and added caramel.

The changes to the original recipe were mainly due to cost-saving measures, so the not so well-off laborers could afford it. But the resulting sweet sauce was very appealing to Korean taste buds, and it is now a very popular dish throughout Korea.

If you have questions or comments about the blog post, please leave a comment below or email us at support@creatrip.com.

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Creatrip | Regional Cuisines Of Korea | Where Each Dish Comes From

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Some dishes have been enjoyed throughout the Korean peninsula since days forgotten, but others were only found in certain areas. If you get the chance to travel in Korea, make sure to refer to this list. Maybe the place you are going to can boast of having the authentic version of a certain dish!

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I choose this because this is the most impressive news to me which is about Shincheonji Church of Jesus.

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Even before the coronavirus scourge, the Shincheonji Church of Jesus was viewed suspiciously. Now it has become the most vilified church in South Korea.

Doo Song-ja, at her home in Goyang, South Korea, last week, wept while talking about her daughter, whom she tried and failed to persuade to leave the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. Credit... Woohae Cho for The New York Times

SEOUL, South Korea - More than 1.2 million citizens have called for the secretive church to be disbanded. One province asked the public to report church members to a hotline for coronavirus testing. Smartphone apps help identify the church's 1,100 once-obscure facilities in South Korea, most already plastered with "off-limits" signs by disease-control officials.

Even before the coronavirus scourge, South Korea's Shincheonji Church of Jesus had faced increased suspicion over its tactics to attract tens of thousands of recruits. But in the month since the church was identified as the epicenter of infections in the country, it has become the target of scorn, vilification and open hatred.

The founder, Lee Man-hee, 88, who has promised its 240,000 members entry to the "new heaven and new earth," is now the potential subject of a prosecutor investigation into possible murder charges.

Parents of recruits accuse him of "brainwashed slavery." Former members describe him as another in a long-line of spiritual snake-oil salesmen in South Korea, a fertile ground for untraditional religious sects.

A large majority of the country's more than 7,500 coronavirus patients are Shincheonji members in Daegu, a city in the southeast, or people who had come into contact with them. An additional cluster of cases has emerged in Cheongdo, a county near Daegu that is Mr. Lee's birthplace and a regular pilgrimage destination for his followers.

The church has protested what it called "scapegoating" by South Koreans eager to discredit what had been the fastest-growing religious sect in the country, as other big churches worry about declining membership.

"The entire society has gone berserk against our church since the virus outbreak," said Lee Young-Soo, 54, a Shincheonji member whose sister, a fellow church member, died after having fallen from her seventh-floor apartment in the southern city of Ulsan last month. Ms. Lee said her sister had confided that her husband's long-running abuse over her churchhad intensified after the virus outbreak.

Another Shincheonji member who church officials said had suffered spousal abuse, a 42-year-old mother of two, died after having fallen from her 11th floor apartment on Monday night. The police are investigating both cases.

"The society is so wrong, and I am so saddened," Ms. Lee said.

Still, the church is inextricably linked to the spread of the affliction in South Korea, one of the largest outbreaks outside China.

The church's clandestine nature is part of what made it a focal point for the country's anger and fear. Officials have struggled to locate and screen church members for the virus.

Kwon Jun-Wook, a senior disease-control official, said last month that when officials had tried to reach church members, they found many incommunicado. Daegu's mayor said Tuesday that dozens of Shincheonji members must be immediately tested for the coronavirus or face fines. The city of Seoul has accused Mr. Lee and his disciples of failing to provide full membership lists.

"Lee Man-hee is a psychopath who has lied and lied until he believed his own lie that he was the true messiah," said Jeong Ji-su, a former disciple who left last July.

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Lee Man-hee, the founder and leader of the Shincheonji church, holding a news conference last week in South Korea. Credit... Pool photo

Mr. Lee is far from the first person claiming to be a messiah in South Korea.

Shamanism - worshiping a multitude of deities including dead parents, ancient warriors and mountain spirits - has infused society for millenniums, interacting with new arrivals like Christianity and making some Koreans amenable to embracing new belief systems, said Koo Se-woong, a scholar who has researched Korean religions.

"Promising a new world and a 'New Jerusalem' in Korea is nothing new among Christian churches in South Korea," Dr. Koo said.

As the country has suffered war and deprivation in the past century, 120 self-styled messiahs promising a new world of peace have emerged, 70 commanding sizable followings. The best known is the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, who died in 2012.

Some ended up in jail on fraud or rape charges or lived in disgrace after the rapture they had promised never came. But their apostles split and spread, rebranding themselves into new sects. Mr. Lee was one of them.

On the day she first encountered the church in September 2016, Ms. Jeong, 25, recalled in an interview, she had been hurrying through a Seoul subway station. Two friendly looking women and a young man about her age asked if she could spare a few minutes to give feedback on a movie script.

They entered a fast-food restaurant, where her initiation began. She became a full member in July 2017. Ms. Jeong said she had been brainwashed and spent the next two years recruiting fellow young people just as she had been.

Shincheonji recruiters seek converts who might be vulnerable, first uncovering personal problems, like low self-esteem in Ms. Jeong's case. They offer counseling, building friendship and persuading recruits that Bible studies can help, former members said.

"The entire church was a con job," Ms. Jeong said. "When they targeted you for proselytizing, everyone who approached you in the cloak of chance encounter was a member of Shincheonji - only that you didn't know it."

Other former members report proselytizers approached with free tarot card readings, personality tests and foreign-language classes.

"Young people are attracted to Shincheonji at times like this when opportunities dwindle because the church raises hopes of jobs as pastors and preachers and promises a spiritually fulfilling life, even promising eternal life and high priestship when the new world comes," said Kim Seong-Ja, 58, a former member.

Young converts often lived together in cheap crowded rooms, former members said. Dating, or any distraction from the goal of winning converts, was discouraged.

"We were nothing but proselytizing robots," said Lee Ho-yeon, 24, a former member. "I spent as little as possible on food and used what little money I left in my pocket to buy Starbucks coffee for people I wanted to convert."

Because of Shincheonji's suspect image, proselytizers would delay revealing their affiliation until confident that their recruits were ready, former members said.

Once they ​passed written tests after months of Bible studies, converts ​became participants in a spectacular commencement ceremony. Life as a church member included meetings, proselytizing missions on the streets and daily progress reports on how many people they had tried to recruit and how their recruits were doing in Bible studies, former members said.

Worshipers were told to keep their membership secret from relatives. Ifparents became suspicious, former members said, handlers had told them to lie.

When parents tried to stop worshipers from attending the church, many left home. Ms. Lee said she ate as little as possible at home in case her parents mixed her food with sleeping pills to get her away from the church.

"They said it was OK to lie to our parents, as it was OK for moms to call bitter medicine a chocolate when feeding it to a sick baby," said Stella Seo, 29, who was in Shincheonji for seven years until late 2018.

Lee Ho-yeon, center, left Shincheonji in 2015. Credit... Woohae Cho for The New York Times

The practice of disavowing membership carried over to how at least some church members responded to the coronavirus outbreak. South Koreans were outraged when it was revealed last month that church members had received a message telling them to deny their affiliation with Shincheonji and to keep proselytizing even after the outbreak was reported among its congregation.

Shincheonji said that the instruction was not church policy and that it had punished the official who issued it.

While Shincheonji's recruitment methods have drawn recent condemnation for helping spread the virus, its approach has long galled more mainstream churches, which have accused it of sending undercover proselytizers, known as harvesters, into their congregations and stealing members.

Sometimes, the harvesters were accused of sowing internal discord in a church and taking it over, a feat celebrated as "moving a mountain" among Shincheonji members.

Shincheonji said that disgruntled former members and traditional churches alarmed over their shrinking congregations had spread false rumors to discredit the church.

But in video footage of internal lecturing viewed by The New York Times, a proselytizing instructor said that the old way of founding a church and then building a congregation "is too expensive, takes too much manpower and is too time-consuming."

"It's better to swallow existing churches," she said to a chorus of amens. "But you must keep this strategy to yourself."

Mr. Lee has defended the church's response to the outbreak, and Shincheonji has issued statements through a spokesman repeating that the church was cooperating with the government and demanding an end to "scapegoating."

Eo Kwang-il, 38, a Shincheonji member, said that because of overwhelming bias against their church, members hid their affiliation and used ruses to win converts. But he said the church never forced members to abandon school or jobs for the sake of proselytizing.

How the church conducts gatherings, however, has drawn scrutiny as a spreader of the disease. Worshipers sit packed tightly on the floor and attend even when sick, former members say.

"We were taught not to be afraid of illness," said Lee Ho-yeon, who left the church in 2015. A church leader boasted to followers on Feb. 9 that although hundreds of people had died in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began, no Shincheonji worshipers there became sick, according to the audio file of the sermon released by Yoon Jae-Deok, an expert on religious groups like Shincheonji.

The crowded conditions of Shincheonji churches did make them more vulnerable to contagious diseases, said Hwang Gui-hag, the editor in chief of the Seoul-based Law Times, which specializes in church news.

But he said that in his view, the central and regional governments, caught off-guard by the virus, had found a convenient point of blame in the church. He said mainstream churches had a vested interest in disparaging Shincheonji, as did the "cult hunters" who demonize the church so that families hire them to remove relatives.

Shincheonji's followers call ​Mr. ​Lee, the founder, by biblical references like "the Promised Pastor​." He once gathered his 12 deputies and re-created the scene from the Last Supper.

"It's embarrassing now to admit this," said Ms. Seo. "But when I first saw him, I was so overwhelmed with emotions that I wept."

Ms. Seo said she had felt proud when she and thousands of other church members gathered under a scorching summer sun to practice for the "​ world ​​​peace festivals" that Mr. Lee and Kim Nam-hee, a former deputy, organized. Tens of thousands were mobilized to dance, sing and perform.

Ms. Kim, the former deputy, split with Mr. Lee in 2017 and has since called him "no messiah but just a plain old religious con man." The church called her "an apostate."

Public officials in Gyeonggi Province sealing one of the 10 Shincheonji facilities in the city of Guri on Sunday. Credit... Woohae Cho for The New York Times

Distressed parents have taken children to"cult hunters" - activist pastors affiliated with mainstream churches who offer "reconversion" services. In some cases, Shincheonji representatives file a missing person's report with the police and visit the homes or work sites of relatives to protest.

Both of Ms. Seo's parents and her brother quit their jobs to stay with her as she violently resisted a reconversion program. Ms. Seo said she had refused to eat for eight days and slashed her wrist and thigh with a razor blade.

"As far as I was concerned, it was a fight against Satan," she said.

After two months in the program, Ms. Seo rejected the church.

Other families said their efforts to persuade a relative to leave the church had failed.

Doo Song-ja, 64, took her 33-year-old daughter, Hong Eun-hwa, twice to a reconversion program, but she refused to leave the church.

"The only thing left for me is to erase her from my memory," Ms. Doo said. "But how can I?"

Shincheonji has said thatsocial bias against it has intensified lately, with members reporting taunting at work and death threats.

"Many church members were afraid to come out and reveal their church membership, given the overwhelming blaming coming from politicians and news media that called Shincheonji the originator of the virus outbreak," Kim Si-mon, a church spokesman, said in a statement.

The government has repeatedly warned that the battle against the coronavirus depends on how quickly infected church members can be isolated. Mr. Lee has urged them to "follow the government's instructions," avoid gatherings and proselytize only online.

Some parents, like Choi Mi-sook, 56, mother of Shincheonji member Kim Yoo-jeong, 25,remain distraught.

"I don't even know where she lives, whether she is tested for the coronavirus, whether she is well or even alive," the mother said.

Photos of Ms. Doo's daughter, Hong Eun-hwa. Credit... Woohae Cho for The New York Times

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'Proselytizing Robots': Inside South Korean Church at Outbreak's Center

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Even before the coronavirus scourge, the Shincheonji Church of Jesus was viewed suspiciously. Now it has become the most vilified church in South Korea. SEOUL, South Korea - More than 1.2 million citizens have called for the secretive church to be disbanded. One province asked the public to report church members to a hotline for coronavirus testing.

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I chose this article because the fact that there are many cult organisations in Korea shocked me the most.

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South Korea has arrested the leader of a religious sect linked to the country's largest coronavirus outbreak.

Lee Man-hee, 88, heads the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. More than 5,000 of its members became infected, making up 36% of all Covid-19 cases in the country.

The authorities accuse him of hiding information about the group's members and gatherings from contact tracers.

The church says Mr Lee was concerned for his members' privacy, but never hid information from the authorities.

South Korea currently has 14,336 coronavirus cases, and 300 deaths.

Mr Lee was arrested early on Saturday, following an investigation. A judge said there were signs that evidence related to the case was being destroyed.

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Mr Lee is also accused of embezzling 5.6bn won ($4.7m; £3.6m) and holding unapproved religious events.

In a statement, the Shincheonji Church said Mr Lee had been concerned about "excessive requests" for personal details of members, but never attempted to obstruct the investigation.

"The court's issuance of an arrest warrant doesn't mean a guilty verdict," it added. "All possible efforts will be made to unveil the truth in the upcoming court trials."

Who is Lee Man-hee?

Lee Man-hee founded the Shincheonji Church in 1984. In Korean, Shincheonji means "new heaven and earth".

The group, which has 230,000 members, is considered a cult by many. Mr Lee identifies as "the promised pastor" mentioned in the Bible, and his followers believe he will take 144,000 people to heaven with him after Christ's Second Coming.

The church says it has more than 20,000 followers outside of South Korea including in China, Japan and areas of Southeast Asia.

The group is known for packing its followers tightly together during services. Glasses, necklaces and earrings are reportedly banned from services.

Members of the fringe Christian group are believed to have infected one another and then travelled around the country, apparently undetected, in February.

In March, Mr Lee apologised for the virus's spread.

"Although it was not intentional, many people have been infected," he said at the time. "We put our utmost efforts, but were unable to prevent it all."

A SIMPLE GUIDE: How do I protect myself?

AVOIDING CONTACT: The rules on self-isolation and exercise

HOPE AND LOSS: Your coronavirus stories

LOOK-UP TOOL: Check cases in your area

STRESS: How to look after your mental health

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S Korea arrests sect leader over Covid-19 outbreak

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South Korea has arrested the leader of a religious sect linked to the country's largest coronavirus outbreak. Lee Man-hee, 88, heads the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. More than 5,000 of its members became infected, making up 36% of all Covid-19 cases in the country.

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i choose this news article since i love Korean barbeque. i want to know more about the food of kroean.

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It was Tuesday at lunchtime at Joseonok, a Korean barbecue restaurant in downtown Seoul's Euljiro neighbourhood that serves galbi - marinated beef short ribs grilled over smoking coals. Through an open window into the kitchen, I could see flames leaping off the grill as strips of meat were laid on, the marinade sizzling violently and unleashing aromas that tormented my grumbling stomach. I realised that in 11 years of visiting Seoul, I had never seen a Korean barbecue restaurant this busy at lunchtime.

Waitresses in jet-black aprons flitted back and forth from the kitchen carrying steaming-hot trays past framed scrolls of Korean calligraphy to tables full of locals-only diners. Once tableside, the servers cut the meat into bite-sized pieces using kitchen scissors, leaving some attached to the bones with chewy connective tissue. The challenge, so I'd been told, is to hold the bones with your chopsticks and pick them clean using only your teeth.

As I bit in, the meat's smoky, flame-grilled sear filled my mouth, before being quickly followed by a rich sweetness from the marinade. Each piece of the galbi seemed to have a slightly different texture: some were meltingly tender while others required more jaw work. Whether the meat was eaten alone or paired with any one of the vegetable side dishes on the table, the flavours were bold, memorable and mouth-wateringly delicious.

Many Seoulites believe that Joseonok is the epitome of what Korean barbecue should be

Today, the sprawling, neon-lit megacity of Seoul has hundreds of Korean barbecue restaurants, and Joseonok is by no means the most famous or trendy of them. For the best modern, grilled-at-the-table take on Korean barbecue, many locals head south of the Han River to Saebyukjib ("House of Dawn") in Seoul's Gangnam District. As its name implies, the buzzing restaurant is open 24/7 and is famous for serving high-quality hanwoo - beef from a Korean cattle breed that's akin to Japan's famed wagyu breed for its richly marbled cuts and high prices. And for samgyeopsal (pork belly, or literally "three-layer meat"), one of the most popular types of barbecue in Korea, there is Palsaik Samgyeopsal, which is known for its eight different marinade ingredients, including ginseng, pine leaves and wine.

Yet, many Seoulites believe that Joseonok is the epitome of what Korean barbecue should be. The restaurant opened in 1937, making it one of the city's oldest restaurants still in operation. Newspaper clippings and black-and-white photographs from the eatery's 83 years of existence line the walls, but it's not just the palpable sense of history that makes Joseonok unique. Whereas most Korean barbecue restaurants place a grill in the middle of each table and let diners cook their own meat, Joseonok has shunned this relatively recent trend and stuck to the traditional way of serving galbi: having just one chef in the kitchen who cooks for everyone. This means a smoke-free dining room, a consistent level of doneness (lightly seared on the outside and pink but juicy on the inside) and an intense depth of smoky umami flavour from a well-seasoned grill.

Manning the kitchen is 80-year-old chef Park Jung-gyu, who has worked at the restaurant since 1960. "The recipe for our galbi marinade has not changed in 80 years," Park told me as two waitresses laden with trays darted past us. "Actually, that's not entirely true," he corrected himself. "As Koreans have become more concerned with healthy eating over the decades, we've tweaked it to have less sugar."

Park's heavenly marinade has just four ingredients: soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and sugar. Park buys a large cow's rib cage and arrives at the restaurant each day at 08:30 to butcher it into individual cuts from which the barbecued meat and the menu's three soups are created. The meat is always fresh, never frozen, and the ribs are marinated for two to three days before being barbecued over flaming coals. "The key to great galbi is to keep smothering it in marinade when it's on the grill," Park said.

Korean barbecue is an umbrella term used by English speakers for a whole host of grilled meat cuts. These are usually pork or beef, although I once had ostrich at a Korean barbecue restaurant deep in the countryside of Gyeonggi-do, the province that hugs Seoul like a backwards letter C. The two most common types of beef barbecue are galbi (literally: "rib") and bulgogi (thin slices of sirloin or rib-eye). Whereas galbi is often marinated and cooked on a coal-fired grill, bulgogi is generally heated on a butane grill and has become one of Korea's most popular home-cooked dishes.

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According to Kim Jin-young, Joseonok's third-generation owner and manager, the first barbecue restaurants in Seoul were established during the Joseon dynasty that ruled the Korean peninsula from 1392 until 1910 and located in a neighbourhood near the royal palaces of Gyeongbokgung and Changdeokgung. "They were so popular that people who lived inside the palace grounds would leave and come to eat in them," said Kim. Galbi and bulgogi evolved from the same ancestor, maekjeok, a simple dish of marinated beef grilled on skewers dating back almost 2,000 years. Galbi remains more reminiscent of maekjeok, and as such can be considered closer to the original Korean barbecue.

Joseonok was one of the first restaurants in Korea to popularise the dish for the masses

Despite galbi's royal roots, Joseonok was one of the first restaurants in Korea to popularise the dish for the masses. When Korea was under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945, meat shortages were very common for all but the ruling Japanese elite. Joseonok was founded by Kim's grandmother as a place run by Koreans for Koreans at a time when very few Korean-run restaurants existed in Seoul.

Joseonok was initially a drinking establishment that also served food and, according to Park, it employed females to serve drinks to a mostly older, male clientele. Later, as meat production became more commercialised in the 1940s, the popularity of galbi skyrocketed in Seoul and Kim's grandmother decided that the restaurant should only serve beef short ribs. Many decades later, Joseonok's menu is still small: it only serves beef ribs, three soups and naengmyeon, a cold noodle dish originating in Pyongyang, North Korea, that many diners order to finish their meals.

According to Kim and Park, it's this meticulous adherence to tradition that keeps their devoted local fanbase coming back. "Our older customers tell us that eating our galbi reminds them of the food they used to eat in their childhood," Park said. "It transports them back in time."

The next evening, I returned with an empty stomach for dinner. As the tantalising waft of freshly barbecued galbi floated out from the kitchen, a waitress arranged a series of shiny metal bowls on my table, which contained the banchan (side dishes) that no Korean barbecue meal would be complete without. While the banchan at many galbi restaurants in Seoul change based on the season or what the chef can find at the market, at Joseonok, they have not changed since Kim's grandmother worked there.

The first one I tried was kimchi, Korea's ubiquitous and spicy fermented cabbage dish and one of the country's most famous culinary exports. I used flat metal chopsticks to pick up and taste a piece; it was crisp, sour and packed a spicy kick.

The second and third banchan were two other varieties of kimchi: one was long, spaghetti-like strips of mu (white radish) in a lightly spiced dressing; and the other was doraji (a Korean bellflower). The other five plates and dishes (banchan are numerous and refilled for free) contained shredded spring onions in vinegar and chilli; white radish floating in a cold vinegar-based broth; raw garlic cloves; lettuce leaves to wrap the meat; and whole green chillies for the brave. Finally, there was the king of Korean condiments: ssamjang, an exquisite savoury dipping sauce based on red chilli and fermented soybean paste with an intense umami flavour.

Somehow the galbi tasted even better during my second visit. Each of the layers of flavour seemed intensified - smokier, sweeter, juicier - but it could just be that I had been salivating over the short ribs since the previous day. Perhaps this hankering is what's kept Joseonok's regulars returning for so many decades.

Before I left the restaurant, I bid Park farewell and asked him lightheartedly whether there were any retirement plans on the horizon. The old master chuckled. "I believe the fastest way to lose my good health would be to stop working and sit around at home with nothing to do." He looked through the dining room and into the kitchen where he has worked all these years. "This place really is my life," he said.

Quintessential City is a BBC Travel series that examines some of the world's greatest cultural experiences, and then offers our take on the single-most memorable and true-to-the-local-spirit one you can have.
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Is this the most authentic Korean barbecue?

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It was Tuesday at lunchtime at Joseonok, a Korean barbecue restaurant in downtown Seoul's Euljiro neighbourhood that serves galbi - marinated beef short ribs grilled over smoking coals. Through an open window into the kitchen, I could see flames leaping off the grill as strips of meat were laid on, the marinade sizzling violently and unleashing aromas that tormented my grumbling stomach.

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I choose ths news article because I like Korean movie. Also, it is my latest movie I saw.
#Alive

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Korean zombie thriller "#Alive," by director Cho Il-hyung, continues to be one of the most streamed movies on Netflix in many countries around the globe, currently standing at No. 2 in global Netflix movie rankings worldwide, according to streaming analytics firm FlixPatrol.

"#Alive," starring Yoo Ah-in and Park Shin-hye, is a story about two survivors trapped in an apartment complex during a zombie apocalypse. It was the first movie released since March to sell more than 1 million movie tickets in Korea when it came out in June, temporarily reviving the Korean cinema scene struck by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Released on Netflix on Sept. 8, the movie reached the top spot as the most streamed movie worldwide in just two days, according to Lotte Entertainment, ranking at the top of charts in 35 countries. It is the first Korean movie to place atop the Europe and US Netflix rankings.

Critics and foreign media have pointed out several factors that allowed the movie to succeed on the online platform, including viewers who could empathize with the characters' predicament, as they themselves were going through similar isolation in their homes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"While #Alive does not take place in a COVID-19 world, its way of featuring a lockdown situation eerily resembles the beginning stages of the global pandemic that began in March of 2020," said online movie website Screen Rant.

Many critics said the movie was the best zombie flick Netflix had to offer that people had not yet seen.

Another factor that contributed to the global success of "#Alive" is that the film was subtitled in 31 languages, according to critics, allowing more access to people around the world. Most movies are available in less than 20 languages.

Also, there aren't many characters to keep an eye on, with the story revolving around just the two main characters' survival, which worked to its advantage.

"Who knew that zombie films could be as inventive and nerve-wracking as this, despite there not being a dozen characters with backstories to care about?" said the Strait Times of Singapore on the movie's Netflix success.

"For his feature debut, the director Cho Il never takes his foot off the gas pedal: minimal exposition, no back stories, little dialogue, a plot that's cut to the bone -- this is a fat-free but full-flavored treat," said the New York Times.

On Monday, "#Alive" held the No. 1 spot on Netflix in Korea, Japan, Spain and Vietnam, among others.

By Lim Jang-won ( ljw@heraldcorp.com)

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'#Alive' captures global Netflix audience

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Korean zombie thriller "#Alive," by director Cho Il-hyung, continues to be one of the most streamed movies on Netflix in many countries around the globe, currently standing at No. 2 in global Netflix movie rankings worldwide, according to streaming analytics firm FlixPatrol.

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There are some problem of my microphone so I cannot do the recording right now TT

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I choose this news because Gochujang can make Hansik more tasty

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I sat at the long wooden table in Moolmaru Traditional Soybean Paste School on Jeju island, South Korea, adjusting my apron and catching side-eye from a toddler. Apparently I'd misread the demographic for this class; most of my fellow students looked like they were cutting nursery school to be there. Chalk it up to my questionable Korean skills - but at least I'd be able to keep up with the class. Probably.

Gochujang is a slow fuse to sudden ignition

I was there to learn how to make gochujang, my current favourite food. Gochu is the Korean word for chilli; jang means fermented paste or sauce. This dangerously red chilli paste is the backbone of South Korea's spicy-sweet flavours, and it brings heat to famous dishes like barbecue, bibimbap, budae-jjigae, yangnyeom fried chicken and the tongue-blistering rice cake dish tteokbokki. Gochujang is a slow fuse to sudden ignition - used correctly, the heat never reaches your mouth but amplifies surrounding flavours to surreal levels. Of course, sometimes it's fun to go for the burn.

At first, my obsession was just ego: me against the persistent Korean myth that Westerners don't like spicy food. Historically speaking, they have a point. One of the first Westerners to write about Korea was Victorian adventuress Isabella Bird back in the 1890s. She was horrified by the "sauces of pungent and objectionable odours, the basis of most of them being capsicums and fermented rotten beans!"

Thankfully, tastes - and attitudes - have changed. Today, gochujang is a hot item in the UK and US, popping up on flavour trend forecasts by everyone from food wholesaler Bidfood to the National Restaurant Association. Often billed as the "new sriracha", it's made the leap from specialty stores to big-box supermarkets and fast food joints.

This is no accident. Gochujang companies have spent the last decade developing their export strategy. Within South Korea, gochujang is sold in its raw form, a base ingredient for sauces, marinades and stews. But the dense, sticky paste was reimagined as a squeeze-bottle condiment for the Western market, often combined with other sauces like mayonnaise to make it more familiar. The heat was scaled back too. Gochujang manufacturers even teamed up with the Korean Food Research Institute to create a new measure of spiciness called the GHU (Gochujang Hot-taste Unit). It worked: in 2018, South Korean gochujang exports were worth $36.81 million - up 15% on the previous year - with much of it going to the UK and US.

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Yet the true attraction isn't heat, but complexity. Gochujang hits several different flavours at once - spicy, yes, but also sweet and salty with an underlying umami note called gamchilmat in Korean. It's an irreplaceable taste; maybe that's why 21% of South Koreans pack gochujang when travelling abroad, according to Yonhap News Agency.

While gochujang is distinctly Korean, chillies are not. They arrived in the late 1500s, having hitched a ride out of the Americas with early European explorers 100 years earlier and worked their way around the world. Scientifically they are of the species Capsicum annuum L., which is the largest of the five species of domesticated chillies and also includes jalapeños.

The first written record of gochujang was recorded by royal physician Si-pil Yi in the 1720s in a compendium of foods eaten at court. It's a recipe for Sunchang gochjang, referencing a region still famous for the chilli paste today.

Roughly 230km south of Seoul, Sunchang celebrates its culinary heritage with an annual festival at the Gochujang Village. There's also the Sunchang Traditional Paste Museum, located at 43 Jangnyu-ro, which translates as "Fermented Pastes Road". There, cultural tour guide Won-jun Yang filled me in on why Sunchang gochujang was considered fit for a king.

"There are three reasons Sunchang gochujang is so good," explained Yang, who also writes about gochujang for Sunchang County's website. "First, most regions make gochujang in the spring, but Sunchang gochujang is made during the 8th and 9th lunar months and ferments through the winter. Second, the water in this region is delicious. Third, Sunchang has more than 77 foggy days every year - the air holds water like a sponge which is good for bacteria and fermentation."

And those bacteria are good for us. From the start, gochujang was used as a medicinal food, especially for digestive problems. It was even credited with saving King Yeongjo's life in 1748 - perhaps a bit of an oversell, but those ancient doctors were on the right track. Today, we know naturally fermented foods are great for your gut, and soy-based Korean jangs are associated with a range of benefits from lowering cholesterol to fighting cancer.

But gochujang quickly moved beyond medicine to become a defining flavour of Korean cuisine. Throughout the 18th Century, it appeared in imperial records, home management books and even poetry. By the end of the 19th Century, it was a universal staple - Isabella Bird reported that gochujang was consumed by all ages, even babies.

I thought about this as a pre-schooler helped me sound out the ingredient list in our cooking class. With our matching brown aprons and elementary reading levels, I seemed to be fitting in just fine.

A large window looked out on the school courtyard, which was filled with massive clay fermentation pots called onggi. When Moolmaru's founder Jeong-seon Bu was growing up, most families had onggis of homemade soy and chilli pastes in their gardens. Nowadays, Koreans generally live in apartments and buy their gochujang in plastic tubs that slide easily into the fridge. That's one of the reasons Bu, who holds three patents for her jang-making process, founded Moolmaru in 2005. She worries the homemade taste is disappearing from the Korean palate.

"Education is important to preserving this heritage," she said, adding that while she teaches all age groups, she likes to focus on preschool-aged kids. "Children are very sensitive to taste. It's the perfect time to teach the taste of really well-fermented jang."

Education is important to preserving this heritage

Bu clearly knew her audience. The first step to making gochujang is mashing boiled soybeans, the base ingredient of all Korean jang. She insisted we do this the old-fashioned way, and the kids joyously stomped the beans to mush under snowy white galoshes. This was patted into rounded bricks called meju and laid to rest on a bed of rice straw.

It takes 40 days for meju to ferment and dry, absorbing good fungi and bacteria rather like sourdough starter on a kitchen counter. Then the bricks are ground down and combined with gochugaru, a chili powder made from sun-dried red peppers. The only other ingredients in Bu's recipe are vegetable stock, salt, barley powder for sweetness, a bit of fruit enzyme to aid fermentation, and a starch that determines the final product's name: Bu uses ssal (rice), so hers is ssal gochujang.

Then the paste goes in an onggi to ferment. "Onggis are alive. They breathe," said Bu, referencing the porous clay that allows airflow. "It's the perfect environment for good microorganisms." The gochujang is ready to eat after one year, but Bu recommends two for a mature taste. More and the paste becomes bitter.

My squirmy classmates were definitely not going to wait that long, so we whipped up a zingy quick-mix version with garlic, fresh ginger and pickled cucumber. Bu also demonstrated a chilli dipping sauce that included beetroot, broccoli powder and kiwi compote - not the ingredients I expected from a traditionalist.

I asked Bu's opinion of the squeezable gochujangs and spicy mayo blends trending in the West, which promote Korean cuisine while moving further away from that original homemade taste. To my surprise, she's all for it. She has even been developing a few fusion mixes herself, like a gochujang-ketchup spread that incorporates local black pork.

"It's a good opportunity to create new food culture," she said with a smile. And a new generation of gochujang lovers, I thought, glancing at my diminutive fellow cooks. I guess this was the class for me after all.

Culinary Roots is a BBC Travel series that looks at trending recipes and traces their origins, offering the story behind the dish as well as easy tips on how to make them.

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Gochujang: The trendy Korean food that burns

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I sat at the long wooden table in Moolmaru Traditional Soybean Paste School on Jeju island, South Korea, adjusting my apron and catching side-eye from a toddler. Apparently I'd misread the demographic for this class; most of my fellow students looked like they were cutting nursery school to be there.

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This is the latest news of Korea

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea may soon conduct its first underwater-launched ballistic missile test in about a year, a top South Korean military official said Wednesday, amid long-stalled nuclear talks between the North and the United States.

In written remarks to lawmakers ahead of a confirmation hearing, Won In-choul, the nominee for chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said North Korea has been repairing recent typhoon damage at its northeastern Sinpo shipyard, a place where it builds submarines.

Shortly after the repairs are complete, there is a chance it will carry out a submarine-launched ballistic missile test, Won said. He said South Korea's military is keeping a close watch on developments there, according to a copy of his remarks provided by a lawmaker, Kang Dae-sik.

In recent years, North Korea has been pushing hard to acquire the ability to launch missiles from submarines in what experts say is a worrying development because such weapons are difficult to detect before launch. A test of an underwater-launched missile by North Korea last October was the first of its kind in three years, and the most provocative weapons test since North Korea entered nuclear negotiations with the U.S. in 2018.

The nuclear talks have made little headway since the second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam in early 2019 collapsed due to disputes over U.S.-led sanctions against North Korea.

Jung Changwook, head of the private Korea Defense Study Forum in Seoul, said North Korea could perform a submarine-launched ballistic missile, or SLBM, test to upgrade its nuclear attack capability and put pressure on Washington after the U.S. presidential election in early November.

There has been speculation that North Korea may test such a missile before the anniversary of the founding of its ruling Workers' Party on Oct. 10. Jung said that is possible, but stressed that North Korea is aiming more at pressuring the U.S. rather than celebrating its state anniversary.

Some experts say it's unlikely that North Korea will conduct any major weapons test soon because it is grappling with multiple crises, including typhoon damage, the coronavirus pandemic that led to the closure of its border with China - its biggest trading partner - and harsh U.S.-led sanctions.

Foreign experts say past North Korean underwater-launched missile tests were conducted from a submersible barge with a single launch tube, not a functioning submarine. In July 2019, North Korean state media said Kim inspected a newly built submarine which observers said appeared to be the North's most sophisticated model with several launch tubes.

Jung said the possible upcoming test would also be made from the barge, not the new submarine, to not provoke the United States too much.

According to 38 North, a website specializing in North Korea studies, recent satellite images of the Sinpo shipyard show the repositioning or departure of the submersible test barge. It said the barge's location "may signal an impending SLBM test though conducting such a launch on the heels of a destructive typhoon seems unlikely." It said the barge may have been moved somewhere for repairs.

Jung said a missile fired from the barge would have a potential range of 300-500 kilometers (185-310 miles), thus posing no direct threat to the U.S. mainland. Despite the deadlocked nuclear talks, North Korea hasn't conducted nuclear or long-range missile tests in an apparent bid to keep chances for a resumption of diplomacy alive.

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Seoul: N. Korea may conduct underwater-launched missile test | Taiwan News

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea may soon conduct its first underwater-launched ballistic missile test in about a year, a top South Korean military official said Wednesday, amid long-stalled nuclear talks between the North and the United States.

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I choose this news, it is because K-pop is the most representative in Korea.

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The music video of South Korean girl group BLACKPINK's hit song "How You Like That" exceeded 500 million YouTube views in the shortest time in K-pop history, the band's agency said Tuesday.

The music video surpassed the 500 million mark around 3:50 a.m.

Tuesday, 73 days after its release in June, according to BLACKPINK's management agency, YG Entertainment. The feat was achieved some 40 days earlier than the previous record of 111 days held by the quartet's 2019 megahit song "Kill This Love."

The girl group's latest single, "Ice Cream," also topped 200 million YouTube views earlier in the morning, slightly more than 10 days after it was dropped. It became the second-fastest K-pop video to reach the 200 million threshold after "How You Like That," which achieved the milestone in just seven days after its release.

"Ice Cream," with Selena Gomez as a guest singer, and "How You Like That" are prerelease singles from the band's inaugural studio album, titled "The Album," to be released in October.

Last week, the aggregated number of pre-orders for the album reached 800,000 copies, including 530,000 copies in South Korea and 270,000 units from the United States and Europe, according to YG Entertainment, heightening expectations for the potential biggest album debut for a K-pop girl group. (Yonhap)

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BLACKPINK's 'How You Like That' tops 500m YouTube views at record speed

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The music video of South Korean girl group BLACKPINK's hit song "How You Like That" exceeded 500 million YouTube views in the shortest time in K-pop history, the band's agency said Tuesday. The music video surpassed the 500 million mark around 3:50 a.m.

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I chose the news article because it is my favorite Korean movie.

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Welcome to The Queue - your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we're watching a video that explores a scene from Train to Busan.
If you haven't seen Train to Busan, now is the time to close this window and open your home video provider of choice. This is one of the best zombie films of the 21st century, a rare blend of action and horror that delivers on thrills and chills in equal measure. It also answers the question "what if a bad dad became a better person while zombies invaded a train?"

It rules. Watch it.

I'm being insistent because we're going to talk about character death. Which means spoilers abound from here on out. Death, and more specifically the death of characters we care about, is a constant in zombie movies. Loss is the implied threat and emotional backbone of the genre. Ragtag survivors, be they loved ones or newly allied strangers, are not all going to make it out alive.

Which brings us to Train to Busan, a zombie movie with character deaths that are emotional, satisfying, and, more to the point, meaningful. These aren't deaths for death's sake. After all, killing a character doesn't mean anything if we don't care about them. Train to Busan knows this and presents us with people, good and evil, who resonate and feel real, from soft, strong martyrs to selfish survivalists.

As the video essay below explains, if characters don't feel alive, to begin with, then their deaths will be of little consequence. Looking at Train to Busan as a narrative cause study, the essay focuses on the character arcs and deaths of three main characters, ultimately arguing that the latter informs the former, underscoring morals, beliefs, and whether they've weathered or succumbed to the pressures of catastrophe.

Watch "Train to Busan: How to Kill a Character":

Who made this?

This video was created by Accented Cinema, a Canadian-based YouTube video essay series with a focus on foreign cinema. You can subscribe to Accented on Cinema for bi-weekly uploads here. You can follow them on Twitter here.

More Videos Like This

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'Train to Busan' is a Case Study in Meaningful Character Death

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Welcome to The Queue - your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we're watching a video that explores a scene from Train to Busan. If you haven't seen Train to Busan, now is the time to close this window and open your home video provider of choice.

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it says my mic my mic is not supported.
I'm most looking forward to learning about Korean language and culture because I like to talk with local people when I travel and the local customs.

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I choose the news because samsung is one of the top semiconductor company in the world. And I am looking forward to try their 8nm in the latest nvidia display card.

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When the South Korea government unveiled an expanded semiconductor material testing facility last month, the centerpiece was a towering white machine given by Samsung Electronics at a fraction of its market price.

The facility, aimed at motivating local suppliers to make and test sophisticated chipmaking materials like photoresist, comes as South Korea pushes for self-sufficiency after Japan last year imposed export curbs on high-tech chip materials.

While industry sources warn Korea has a long way to go to achieve this, the need for self-reliance in chip technology has become more critical with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and U.S.-China tensions threatening to accelerate supply chain shifts.

Large chip-making companies like Samsung would previously source the best components at the cheapest price "no matter where the material was from", said Lee Jo-won, president of the National Nanofab Center, home to the testing facility.

"But due to Japan's export curbs and COVID-19, they have begun to... foster local suppliers and to create a system where they can be supplied without disruptions," Lee told Reuters at the center in Daejeon city, 150 km (93.21 miles) south of Seoul.

The equipment that Samsung sold to the lab, the ArF immersion lithography machine made by ASML, will help local suppliers test chip material.

The machine, which the world's top memory-chip maker had been using in its production line, costs up to 100 billion won ($84 million) when new, experts said.

A National Nanofab Center official said about 20 billion won had been budgeted to buy and refurbish the machine, without giving details on the final price.

"This would never have been imaginable in the past, to provide such an expensive device to a public lab," said Lee Jong-ho, a professor at Seoul National University.

"It took a decision from pretty high up."

Samsung has decided to invest in firms that need cooperation to develop next-generation chip technologies, a company spokesman told Reuters in an email.

It recently invested a total of about $113 billion won in two local makers of chip components and testing equipment, S&S Tech Corp and YIK Corp, its first such investments in three years.

S&S makes mask blanks, a chipmaking component that is currently more than 90% sourced from Japanese firms like Hoya but not included in export curbs.

"Samsung seems to be securing various options so they're not too dependent on any one source", said an official at a Samsung-backed chip material supplier.

With no sign of a thaw in South Korea-Japan tensions, rooted in wartime history, Seoul is pushing to diversify supply sources of 100 items it still mainly gets from Japan and has pledged to invest 5 trillion won by 2022 to that end.

South Korea has already diversified sourcing for the three materials targeted by Japan in the curbs last year and now gets supplies locally and from Belgium, Taiwan and China.

But there is skepticism about whether it makes economic sense for Korea's small domestic chip material market to pour money into developing sophisticated technology in which Japan has a competitive edge, industry experts said.

Also, Seoul wants big corporations to use local suppliers, "but this is not an easy option unless quality is guaranteed", said Kwon Hyeok-min, leader of an industrial policy team at Korean business lobby group, Federation of Korean Industries.

Samsung, SK Hynix and LG Display supply chips and displays to tech giants like Apple, Qualcomm and Huawei.

The chip sector accounts for 20% of exports for South Korea, Asia's fourth-largest economy.

It will take time to localize high-tech materials like EUV photoresist, former Hynix engineer Kim Sang-yong said. Japan accounts for 90% of the global photoresist production.

Photoresists, which Japan targeted in its curbs that it later partially reversed, are thin layers of material used to transfer circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers.

Kim, now a professor at Korea Polytechnics University, also cautioned South Korea could be hit hard should Japan expand curbs to chipmaking equipment.

Out of South Korea's 100 import items heavily dependent on Japan, 14 are semiconductor-making equipment that are not subject to any restrictions, according to the Seoul-based Institute for International Trade.

If Japan extends curbs to these 14, South Korea's "chip production will stop", Kim said.

"What is more vulnerable than materials are the equipment and parts that manufacture semiconductors."

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South Korea government, Samsung team up after Japan's export curbs on chip material

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When the South Korea government unveiled an expanded semiconductor material testing facility last month, the centerpiece was a towering white machine given by Samsung Electronics at a fraction of its market price. The facility, aimed at motivating local suppliers to make and test sophisticated chipmaking materials like photoresist, comes as South Korea pushes for self-sufficiency after Japan last year imposed export curbs on high-tech chip materials.

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I'm most looking forward to learning about Korean hist and Korean culture, because this two is my favorite section in this course

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I chose this news because I think the government of Korea should take action to reduce producing too much carbon dioxide. We have to know protecting the earth is important than anything.

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South Korea's carbon dioxide concentration rate exceeded the global average last year, a report showed Thursday, raising concerns over climate change.The annual carbon dioxide concentration rate in South Korea averaged 417.9 parts per million (ppm) last year, compared with the global average of 409.8 ppm, according to the report by the National Institute of Meteorological Sciences. The global average came from figures analyzed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States.The figure, which was measured at Anmyeon Island off the west coast in South Chungcheong Province, was also higher than 415.2 ppm measured in 2018.The report also showed that the figure increased by 2.4 ppm each year between 2009 and 2018, which is slightly higher than the global average of 2.3 ppm during the 10-year period.This indicates that the level increased more quickly in South Korea. (Yonhap)

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Korea's carbon dioxide level rose above global average in 2019: report

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South Korea's carbon dioxide concentration rate exceeded the global average last year, a report showed Thursday, raising concerns over climate change.The annual carbon dioxide concentration rate in South Korea averaged 417.9 parts per million (ppm) last year, compared with the global average of 409.8 ppm, according to the report by the National Institute of Meteorological Sciences.