My experience in Jeollabukdo

Friends,Today I am going to introduce you about two places located in Jeollabukdo"a beautiful province of South Korea which is having lots of scenic beauty and nature,the most fertile land in South Korea.

I have passed my precious and unforgettable 9 months.I came here last year in Wonkwang University as a Korean Government Scholarship Student(NIIED).I have to go to Kangwon National University located in "Chuncheon" after this month but Believe me I got so much associated to this place, its culture and its kind and nice hearted people that I have started missing this place before leaving.Being an Indian during my beginning days here I was completely not familiar with Korean food.But right now due to this place's delicious food sometime I go outside and enjoy Korean food.

Anyways, I would like to start with some tourist attractions of this place which I have visited:First of all I am starting with "Gunsan" - the island of heavenly Nature and Rich Culture.

I got the opprtunity to visit this awesome place this month from World Students in Korea,Presidential council on Nation Branding. We visited Hyundai's new plant here and enjoyed the delicious sea food there.After that day too, I visited Geumgang river bank which is very famous for enjoying fishing and bird watching in the wintertime.The field of the reeds along the river's upperstream is also one of the major attraction of this place especially for seekers of romance.
Secondly, It is the turn of "Jeonju"(the home of Korea's top food)which I have visited several times after coming to Korea but among all those times exploring this place with World students in Korea(Presidential council on Nation Branding) was the best experience ever to this place.We shared almost every experience associated with this place including a night stay in Jeonju hanoak village-The traditional Korean House village.

I got very surprised after seeing thea awesome Korean traditional Hanoak village where all the houses are Korean traditional houses in this fast and moribund urbanised era.It was a totally different experience for me to have a night stay in that traditional house.I was feeling the Korean Culture that time.I also had a long talk with a Korean Uncle(아저씨)who explained me many things about this village.That uncle became our friend and he offered us(foreign students)traditional Korean tea too.We enjoyed Korean traditional tea, in a Korean traditional pot, and of course in a Korean traditional house.We felt that we are in different century of Korea i.e the Ancient Korea.The top quality taste and local flavour of Jeonju is represented by Jeonju "Bibimbap"which was counted among the three best foods of Joseon dynasty.It is made of more than 30 ingredients added by Balanced nutrition.

정말 맛있겠다!wow its delicious!

Teachers publish Korean history textbooks in U.S.

Teachers of Korean schools in California have published a textbook on Korean history and culture for second and third generation Korean American and local U.S. students.

The Korean Schools Association of Northern California said on its website on Saturday that it published a textbook titled “Find Korea!” for Korean schools wanting to expand their curriculum from the Korean language to Korean history and culture.

Officials of the association told Yonhap News that it took a group of its teachers a year and a half to publish the textbook since they began to research its themes. The teachers are educating mostly second and third generation Korean American students in Silicon Valley, California.

They previously received media attention for dropping “So Far from the Bamboo Grove,” a controversial textbook adopted by several U.S. public schools, from several schools' curricula.

“So Far from the Bamboo Grove” is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, a Japanese American writer. Critics said that the book makes no mention of Japanese war crimes, including forced labor and forced prostitution, and portrays Koreans as the antagonists.

Textbooks on Korean history and culture, published by the Korean Schools Association of Northern California KSANC/Yonhap News

Korean American teachers had the book taken off the list of U.S. textbooks after making a successful case against it at a California state hearing in late 2008.

“After ‘So Far from the Bamboo Grove’ was expelled from the California reading list, we set out to develop our own textbook on Korean history and culture that Korean and U.S. schools may adopt,” Choi Mi-young, president of the association, told the news agency on Saturday.

“Find Korea!” deals with the geological location of Korea, including the Dokdo islets and the East Sea, the national flag and the national anthem, Korean traditional holidays and foods.

The association will present the textbook to teachers of Korean schools on July 23. VANK (Voluntary Agency Network of Korea), the National Institute for International Education, the Overseas Koreans Foundation and U.S.-based Korean American groups strongly supported the textbook publication. VANK is a Seoul-based private organization of volunteers who provide correct information about Korea to international textbook publishers.

At present, about 8,500 teachers teach the Korean language to about 59,000 students in 1,017 Korean schools across the U.S.

The Korean language was included in the U.S. SAT II in November, 1997. Since then, interest in Korean and necessity for education in Korean history have mounted, an official of the association said.

source:Korea herald

'Seoul’s 2nd Youth Hostel' to open this December

'Seoul’s 2nd Youth Hostel' will be open to the public in December in Yeongdeungpo-gu. With a total area of approximately 9,807 square meters, the hostel is seven floors high (plus, a basement level) and has rooms of different sizes: from single rooms to those sleeping up to 10 people.

Amenities within the building include a cafeteria, café, banquet room, seminar room, and a laundry room.

Situated in central Seoul, the youth hostel provides travelers with easy access to a variety of downtown attractions and popular destinations, including nearby Yeouido. There are a variety of Korean culture experience programs available for guests, as well as a Seoul-themed travel itinerary at the hostel tourist information center.

source:Korea tourism organistaion

Gwangju World Music Festival, August 2010

• 
  

Featuring 30 groups of musicians hailing from 15 countries!

The 2010 Gwangju World Music Festival will be held from Friday, August 27, 2010 to Sunday, August 29, 2010 at the plaza in front of the Asian Culture Complex in Gwangju. The festival will feature both international and local musicians comprising of 30 teams from 15 countries. From France's ‘chanson’ to Brazil's ‘bossa nova’ and Argentina's ‘tango,’ the festival is a prime opportunity to appreciate the history and culture of music from around the world.

Representing Korea’s cultural contributions is a selection of star performers of traditional Korean music, including Kim Deok-soo performing samullori, Ahn Sook-sun performing pansori, and Heo Yoon-jeong performing geomungo. In addition to the array of live musical performances there will also be an international world music forum, folkdance workshops, and a showing of international music videos during the festival period.

"The festival is designed to promote communication through the medium of music by offering a chance for international and local musicians to work together," said a festival official.

Source : Korea Tourism Organization

Korean animation “Metajets” makes its U.S. debut

The Korean animation “Metajets,” a project into which the City of Seoul itself invested, made its U.S. debut on the Cartoon Network on July 4, 2010. It was the first time a Korean animated series was broadcasted across the United States.

Metajets is comprised of forty episodes and each episode is thirty minutes long. When it was aired in Korea in 2009, it recorded the highest viewer ratings of any animation in the country.

American TV channels like CBS have broadcasted several Korean animations before, but it is the first time that the Cartoon Network, the biggest animation channel in the U.S., aired a Korean animation.

Cartoon Network U.S.A. announced that Metajets is scheduled to be aired five times a week, and it will begin with a special five-hour marathon on July 4.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government decided to promote the digital contents industry, and established a sixty billion won investment fund. As of July 2010, about 55% of the fund has been invested in animation, games, movies and new media.

The Cartoon Network was established in the U.S. in October 1992, and it is now the world’s largest around-the-clock animation channel, broadcasting in twenty-one languages in 160 countries.

About 193 million households watch the channel worldwide, and it has more than twenty branches in Britain, Germany, India, Latin America, and so on.

Source : Seoul Metropolitan City,Korea.net

Korean wave

The Korean wave spreads to the world

Kim Tae-hee, who starred in the hit show Iris (Photo: Taewon Entertainment)

In its home country, hallyu — the “Korean Wave” of TV series, movies and pop singers that swept across Asia — was once considered no more than a fad.While its biggest hits, such as Winter Sonata and Dae Jang Geum (aired in the U.S. as Jewel in the Palace), were sensations overseas, the resulting glut of hallyu-prefixed output was often of a vastly inferior quality, leading many to think that its days were numbered. But recently, hallyu has emerged stronger than ever, with its hits sweeping through Asia and onto the world stage.

Turning on the television in his hotel room on a recent business trip to Vietnam, K. from Korea was astonished. Though he had certainly glimpsed the posters of Korean celebrities adorning the shops en route from the airport, he hadn’t expected to see them all again on his TV in a seemingly endless procession of Korean drama shows. Seeing the actors dubbed in Vietnamese was also a source of amusement. On one show, he could swear that one person’s voice was dubbing every single character. Later asking a guide, who confirmed his suspicion, whether it wasn’t offputting to have one actor do all the voices, he was told no it wasn’t, because the dramas are just so addictive.

Actor Lee Jun-ko, heroine Nam Sang-mi and Jung Kyung-ho star in Time between Dog and Wolf

And situations like this aren’t limited to Vietnam. At 9pm, the “golden hour” for viewing figures, Korean dramas are a common sight on Hong Kong’s TV stations. ATV, one of the largest outlets, currently shows Korean programming from 8 to 10:30pm, Monday to Friday. Just a few years ago, Korean dramas were a marginal concern, with only two or three aired per year. Then Dae Jang Geum, a historical tale about a female physician in the Joseon Dynasty, seized a massive 50 percent audience share, taking Korean TV shows into the big time.

China has proved just as susceptible to the Korean wave. Again, the catalyst for success was Dae Jang Geum, which gained an audience share of at least 15 percent in 31 major cities across the country, followed by other big hits such as Full House and Stairway to Heaven. Such has been the success of Korean stars in the country, some are now appearing in homegrown Chinese productions. After gaining popularity in Successful Story of a Bright Girl, about a country girl falling for a big-city business type, Jang Na-ra co-starred in the Chinese drama My Bratty Princess with Taiwanese actor Alec Su. Its sequel, My Bratty Princess 2, featured another Korean actress, Chae Rim, who hit it big in All About Eve, in which two news reporters vie for a top spot in the network they both work for. Alongside Jang Hyuk, who gained popularity with Introducing My Girlfriend, Chae Rim is scheduled to star in the upcoming Chinese remake of All About Eve.

Stills from the drama Iris (Photo: Taewon Entertainment)

From Hong Kong, hallyu has also spread throughout Southeast Asia. Even Myanmar, a country not known for its cultural openness, has fallen for the charms of Korean entertainment, first with Winter Sonata and now Dae Jang Geum and a comedy gangster flick Marrying the Mafia. In cracking Southeast Asian markets, Hong Kong has proved a crucial conduit. Full House, to take one example, garnered a 52 percent rating in Hong Kong with 63 percent in Thailand, 42.3 percent in the Philippines and an astonishing 78 percent rating in Indonesia.

A scene from the drama Boys Over Flowers (Photo: Creative Leaders Group Eight)

Today, proving their remarkably adaptable appeal, hallyu shows have started creeping into Central Asia, Africa and even the Muslim world. Slushy hit Winter Sonata aired in Egypt in 2004, while Tunisia has developed a taste for Korean historical dramas such as Jamyeonggo. In 2007, after joining the long list of countries to fall for Dae Jang Geum, Iran became hooked on Jumong, which recorded a 60 percent audience share. Uzbek viewers saw Painter of the Wind; Mongolians watched Temptation of a Wife. And the recently finished Personal Preference, in which a straight man pretends to be gay in order to room with the female lead, is being exported to Central and South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

By Jeong Deok-hyeon

The international wave

Protagonist Lee Seung-gi from Brilliant Legacy (Photo: Pan Entertainment)

So how is the original market for hallyu, Japan, faring now? Though many believe the Korean wave petered out after Winter Sonata and Dae Jang Geum, the reality is that, though not on the phenomenal scale of those two shows, a string of Korean shows continue to do well there today. Having failed to lure audiences with dramas that mimicked the formula of the big hits, Korean TV producers are finding that homegrown successes are continuing to pull in Japanese viewers. Romantic comedy My Lovely Sam Soon, a huge success in Korea, took a 5.2 percent share in the highly fragmented Japanese market (where even 6 percent is rare), and historical dramas Yi San and Dae Jo Yeong also struck a big chord with Japanese viewers.

At home, the number of Korean dramas is rising steadily. From November 2008 to June 2009, the number of such shows increased from 27 to 42, with each channel raising its own quota of dramas from two to six. And with greater volume has come greater diversity. After Winter Sonata inspired a cult-like following among women throughout Asia, Korean producers saturated the market with sentimental romances with increasingly unfeasible plots. Now, however, subject matter includes noir (Time Between Dog and Wolf), family (Brilliant Legacy), history (Jumong) and even private educational institutes (Boys Over Flowers). By diversifying their output into fast-paced, more action-oriented historical series, producers have managed to lure male viewers into what was once an almost entirely female preserve — and now, viewers are getting younger, too.

Iris's stars Lee So-hyeon, Kim Tae-hee (Photo: Taewon Entertainment)

Iris is a prime example of how hallyu dramas have changed. On April 21, the espionage thriller was the first Korean drama to be aired on Japanese TV in the 9pm golden hour, with the first two episodes (broadcast consecutively) receiving a 10.1 percent overall audience share, a huge number by Japanese standards.

Nor were ratings the sole triumph for Iris. With much of the production and marketing duties shared with TBS, Iris starred Lee Byung-hun, one of Korea’s biggest stars, and TOP, a singer with popular K-pop group Big Bang, and featured a soundtrack by Shin Seung-hun, a fast-rising Korean star in Japan. By bringing such big and varied stars on board, Iris aimed for, and got, not just viewers in their 30s and older, but a younger demographic as well.

As a joint production with Japan, Iris also symbolized hallyu’s growing role as a truly pan-Asian phenomenon. From being made entirely in Korea, and then viewed in Japan and China, newer productions are often harnessing the strengths of all three countries. Kim Hyoo-jong, dean of the Graduate School of Arts Management at Chugye University for the Arts, defines the first phase of hallyu as the “made in” era, the next phase as the “made by” era (when the focus will be on the production company), and the current phase as the “made for” era, where the emphasis is on targeting groups that can receive the most value and enjoyment.

A still from Boys Over Flowers (top), A scene from Personal Preference (bottom) (Photo: Creative Leaders Group Eight, Victory Production)

Hallyu has become an industry where content is no longer restricted by national boundaries. China’s vast market, Japan’s marketing skills and Korea’s excellence in production are now combined to produce a single product. Having expanded its boundaries within Asia, the next stepping stone for hallyu has become the global market. Korean actors and actresses are starring in Chinese and Japanese dramas, and Korean directors and authors are working with Chinese and Japanese actors and actresses. Capital is no longer limited by national boundaries, and TV and movie moguls are searching for new investments throughout the region.

As hallyu aims to consolidate its success in Asia, producers recognize that they, too, have to change. Though not created specifically with the international market in mind, Dae Jang Geum is perhaps the best example of how Korean dramas can succeed across borders: by identifying universal themes that can appeal to viewers everywhere, and can be tweaked to speak to their own lives.


TODAY EUROPE, TOMORROW HOLLYWOOD

Jeon Do-yeon, who previously won the best female actress award at Cannes Film Festival in 2007, recently starred the film The Housemaid (Photo: Mirovision)

The internationalization of Korean TV dramas is every bit as evident in movies. In China, the list of Korean stars appearing in local productions includes Song Hye-kyo in Wong Kar-wai’s The Grand Master, Jun Ji-hyun in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and Kim Heesun in the historical movie Civil Wars. And while the focus for hallyu in Southeast Asia undoubtedly remains TV dramas, in other markets, notably Europe, it is the movies that are catching the critics’ eyes.

Among the films on show at this year’s Cannes Film Festival was Im Sang-soo’s The Housemaid, a remake of a cult Korean classic from the 1960s. Meanwhile, Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry received great acclaim and went on to win the award for best screenplay. Another Korean movie Hong Sang-soo’s Ha Ha Ha received the top prize in the Un Certain Regard category.

A scene from the movie HAHAHA, which starred Moon So-ri and Kim Sang-gyeong - the film received the top prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival (Photo: Sponge Entertainment)

While Cannes itself was, because of Europe’s ongoing economic problems, a somewhat dampened affair, Korean films enjoyed their most successful showing yet. Besides The Housemaid’s tally of 15 countries, Poetry and Lee Joon-ik’s Blades of Blood (which was not officially on show) were sold to four countries apiece. In addition, Kim Ji-woon, of The Good, The Bad, The Weird fame, sold his latest work, I Saw the Devil, to French distributor ARP. Though still unfinished, the movie is receiving a lot of attention thanks to its stellar cast, which includes Lee Byung-hun and Oldboy star Choi Min-sik.

Director of Poetry Lee Chang-dong and The Housemaid's director Im Sang-soo (Photo: Unikorea, Mirovision)

As seen at Cannes, Korean movies are slowly but surely gaining ground in Europe. But what of the movie Holy Grail, Hollywood? So far, hallyu has had considerably less success there. Yet two top stars, Rain and Lee Byung-hun, were cast in big-budget movies — respectively Ninja Assassin and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra — and with the success hallyu continues to enjoy elsewhere, who would bet against a Korean-directed Hollywood film hitting it big in the next 10 years?

source: Korea.net

'Political relationship must be anchored by educational, cultural initiatives

The Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which they expect will serve as a hub for Korean studies in South Asia. The academy has also extended a grant to the university (New Delhi) recently, spoke to Tirna Ray on how the initiative will strengthen the evolving relationship between India and Korea:

Why is 2010 a year of significance for Korea-India relationship?

It is significant because of the conclusion of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between the two countries. Korea and India established their diplomatic ties in 1973. The two countries are bound by close cultural ties, which may be traced back to the ancient past. Buddhism, India's unique gift to the world, facilitated exchange of ideas and served as a bridge connecting the two civilisations (Korea and India). Close cultural ties bound Korea and India in the past. In the modern times, the two nations face the common destiny of colonial oppression and the task of nation-building.

What is the objective of Academy of Korean Studies?

AKS aims to promote Korean studies through in-depth research and innovative teaching of Korean culture. AKS has defined new frontiers of inquiry in Korean studies and fostered competent scholars in Korean humanities and social sciences with global perspectives and values.

What will the MoU between JNU and AKS imply?

First and foremost, it will facilitate exchange of students and faculty between India and Korea. Full-time professors from AKS can visit India and collaborate with teachers here or engage in teaching. Further, hopefully, the grant will enable academicians from JNU to visit Korea, collect material for their research, or start a journal which will publish articles by Indian scholars on Korea, and so on. As of now, the grant money has been awarded for three years and it amounts to about $ 65,000. It is important that we cultivate competent scholars of Korean studies and qualified graduates who understand Korean language, culture and society in its entirety. They in turn will be able to convey the core concerns of Korea adequately to the Indian audience. Only then will this initiative acquire a sustainable dimension. A political relationship or understanding between the two countries can have a future only when it is anchored by education and cultural initiatives.

As a Korean scholar, i am glad to know about the rich history of JNU's Korean Studies programme and of the role of its graduates in projecting and promoting close and comprehensive partnership between Korea and India. I am confident that with the two institutions - AKS and JNU - coming together, we will be able to forge a relationship of strategic partnership and take Asian studies to a new height.

Feb 10, 2010, 12.00am IST

The Times of India

source:Academy of Korean Studies/Kim Jung Be