A woman wearing a traditional Hanbok dress visits the Gyeongbokgung Palace grounds in Seoul on October 23, 2023. A woldae terrace for public rituals and ceremonies in front of Gyeongbok Palace’s Gwanghwamun gate was restored and opened to the public earlier this month, after being removed in 1923, during the 1910-45 Japanese colonial period. (Photo by Anthony Wallace/AFP Photo)

Visitors take photos of Fu Bao, a giant panda, at Everland amusement park in Yongin, south of Seoul, South Korea, 25 February 2024. The panda will be displayed to the public until 03 March, before returning to China in early April. The female panda, which was born to giant panda Ai Bao and her partner, Le Bao, at the Everland amusement park in Yongin, south of Seoul, in 2020, will be returned to China under an international agreement. (Photo by Yonhap/EPA)

A South Korea university student gets her head shaved during a protest against Japan's decision to release contaminated water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, in front of the Japanese embassy, in Seoul, South Korea, April 20, 2021. (Photo by Kim Hong-ji/Reuters)

A street vendor sells Dalgona candy from the Korean Netflix series “Squid Game” at a Dalgona shop in Seoul, South Korea, October 1, 2021. (Photo by Heo Ran/Reuters)

A woman walks by a bank's currency advertisement board in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, September 23, 2022. Asian stocks fell for a third day Friday after more rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and other central banks to control persistent inflation spurred fears of a possible global recession. (Photo by Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo)

Participants prepare kimchi, a traditional Korean dish of spicy fermented cabbage and radish, during a kimchi making festival at the Jogyesa Buddhist temple in Seoul on December 2, 2021, before it is distributed among the less privileged from the local neighbourhood. (Photo by Anthony Wallace/AFP Photo)

At this year’s Venice Bienniale in Italy, the Korean pavilion has a curious exhibit called “Commissions for Utopia”. It includes renderings from North Korea’s top architects and artists (all anonymous), many of whom studied at the Paekho Institute of Architecture, North Korea’s state-run architectural college, and none of whom have ever left the country. They were asked to create a vision of North Korea’s future sustainable architecture for its expanding tourism industry. Their final products are a glimpse into what it would be like to envision the future after being entirely cut off from the present for almost 70 years. (Photo by Nick Bonner/Kyle Vanhemert/Venice Architecture Biennale)

South Korean students pose for a selfie following a traditional coming-of-age ceremony at Namsan hanok village in Seoul on May 15, 2017. The Coming of Age Day is the day to celebrate and encourage the youth who have reached the age of 20, which is considered the beginning of adulthood. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)