20/03/2026

LYFE FRIDAY | MAR 20, 2026

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‘East meets West’

self-reliance and personal growth. It was the first K-pop song to win the category. In the movie, Naksan Park is where the main character, the half human Rumi, meets clandestinely with a star-crossed love interest. Nguyen was thrilled to be high above the city of 9.3 million at the site of special segment of the film that is set to a thumping soundtrack. “It was a scene in KPop Demon Hunters where they sung Free . The wall I feel... is very iconic,” she enthused. She was not the only one who had the idea to make the trip on Tuesday, just days after the movie’s Academy Award triumph. “We came to Korea for a family vacation but we really liked KPop Demon Hunters . So with the kids, we wanted to come and see this place,“ said Emily Han from Florida in the US. The movie had helped add “interest to different places that we can go and see”, said Han, who was adopted from South Korea as a child. K-crazy The movie was seen as the latest example of the “K-syndrome” – the world’s irresistible appetite for movies, music, books, fashion and cuisine showcasing Korean life and experiences. Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 Palme d’Or and Oscar best picture winning film Parasite , and the hugely popular television series Squid Game are just

o KPop Demon Hunters brings global fans to Seoul’s sites A USTRALIAN visitor Nhung Nguyen made the hike up steep steps to a stunning Seoul park precisely because of its star turn in mega-hit KPop Demon Hunters . The real-life settings of the animated film, fresh off a double Oscars win, have become a pilgrimage site for fans of Netflix’s most-watched original film of all time. Naksan Park sits on a ridge high above the South Korean metropolis that includes parts of an 18.6km fortress wall built to surround the capital hundreds of years ago. “I thought the location was very beautiful and I found out that it’s a real location so I came here,” said 29-year-old Nguyen, who said she grew up listening to K-pop. The movie tells the tale of Huntr/x, a popular K-pop girl group whose members live double lives as weapons-wielding demon slayers. Their songs help create a magical barrier called the Honmoon that protects humanity. It won best animated feature and an Academy Award for best original song for Golden , the film’s infectious anthem about empowerment,

A glass wall displays animal characters from Kpop Demon Hunters at a bakery in Seoul.

“This is for Korea and Koreans everywhere,” Kang said in her emotional acceptance speech. “It’s a good kind of East meets West kind of movie. It was a good representation of that,” said Nguyen, an Asian-Australian of Vietnamese descent. – AFP

millions worldwide. But KPop Demon Hunters is not strictly speaking South Korean. It was made by Sony, directed by a Korean-Canadian and an American – Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans – and it is originally mostly in English.

some of the other examples of productions out of South Korea that have made a global splash. This will be further in evidence tomorrow when boy band BTS perform for their first concert in almost four years – an extravaganza likely to be watched by

People walk along the fortress wall at Naksan Park in Seoul.

Nguyen says she grew up listening to K-pop. – ALL PICS FROM AFP

Nepal’s ‘icefall doctors’ fix Everest route

Iran says museums, historic sites damaged in war

HIGHLY skilled mountaineers known in Nepal as “icefall doctors” have begun fixing ropes and ladders on Mount Everest to prepare for the coming spring climbing season, officials said earlier in the week. The team has reached the base camp before starting work on the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, a constantly shifting maze of crevasses and ice blocks that forms the gateway to the world’s highest peak. “Our team of eight have reached the base camp and begun their work,” Lama Kazi Sherpa, chair of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, which oversees route-setting, told AFP. As tradition dictates, the group began with a sacred ceremony at base camp to seek divine blessings before

“Flight disruption may affect some of the climbers but we don’t expect a big impact,” said Dambar Parajuli, president of the Expedition Operators Association. Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 10 highest peaks and attracts hundreds of climbers each spring, when temperatures are warmer and winds calmer. A climbing boom has made mountaineering a lucrative business since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa made the first ascent in 1953. Around 700 people reached Everest’s summit last year, according to Nepal’s tourism department, with another 100 climbers believed to have reached the peak from the northern Tibet side.

stepping onto the mountain. This year, authorities increased the permit fee for the spring season from US$11,000 (RM43,337) to US$15,000 for climbers aiming to scale the 8,849m summit. Authorities also tightened rules to reduce pollution, requiring each climber to bring back at least 2kg of waste to Camp 2 and enforcing the use of “poo bags”. Camp 2 is a broad glacial valley above the Khumbu Icefall where climbers often spend several days to acclimatise for higher altitudes. Expedition operators in Kathmandu are also gearing up for the season, although they anticipate some impact from the travel chaos caused by the Middle East war.

IRAN’S cultural heritage and tourism ministry recently said at least 56 museums and historic sites across the country have been damaged, as the Middle East war rages on. In Tehran, US-Israeli strikes damaged the Unesco-listed Golestan Palace in the early days of the conflict, local media reported. The palace complex is one of the oldest sites in the Iranian capital and once served as the residence of the Qajar dynasty. The ministry said Tehran has recorded the highest number of damaged monuments, with 19

suffering varying levels of harm. The vast Naghsh-e Jahan Square, a 17th-century architectural jewel in the heart of the central Iranian city of Isfahan, has also been damaged. In the port of Siraf, in Bushehr province, several houses were hit in the historic quarter, home to many century old buildings. Unesco, the UN’s culture agency, said it was concerned about hundreds of historic sites in Iran, Israel and Lebanon that have been damaged or threatened by the war. – AFP