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Jung Kil-hwa, president of the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE), poses at KOFICE headquarters in Mapo District, western Seoul, Oct. 4. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk |
KOFICE president underlines significance of cultural exchange
By Dong Sun-hwa
Hardly anyone doubts that the K-pop and K-drama industries are enjoying their heyday at the moment, with boy band BTS earning nominations at the prestigious Grammy Awards and Lee Jung-jae ― the lead actor of Netflix's 2021 dystopian series "Squid Game" ― becoming the first Korean to win an Emmy. Their feats are meaningful themselves, but Jung Kil-hwa, the president of the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE), believes they have a positive spillover effect on Korea's lesser-known cultural assets such as food and beauty, too.
"Korean dramas featuring Korean dishes have motivated a large global audience to try these foods, as evidenced by the cases of 'dalgona' in 'Squid Game' and 'gimbap' in 'Extraordinary Attorney Woo,'" Jung said during a recent interview with The Korea Times at KOFICE headquarters in Mapo District, western Seoul. "They are like an introduction to Korean culture."
Dalgona is a Korean-style sugar candy and gimbap is a seaweed rice roll with various fillings. A legion of viewers either made or tried them after seeing them on popular dramas, and shared their experiences on social media platforms.
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A scene from Netflix's 2021 series "Squid Game" features actor Lee Jung-jae holding a dalgona. / Courtesy of Netflix |
"Once these people fall under the spell of dalgona and gimbap, they will become more interested in other Korean foods like samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly) and kimchi jjigae (spicy kimchi stew)," he added. "This is the same for K-beauty as well. People often fall in love with Korean fashion and beauty after watching beautiful celebrities in K-pop music videos and dramas. But I want to stress that the quality of our foods and beauty products is on par with their growing popularity, so that they can expand their global presence in the true sense."
Established in 2003, KOFICE is a subsidiary agency under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, aiming to promote Korean culture globally and connect the country to the world through cultural exchanges. Jung, who has been helming this institution since 2021, believes its major role is to build infrastructure and systems for content creators in the private sector, while organizing cultural events that private companies are unwilling to do due to a lack of funds.
"I think KOFICE should be in charge of more corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to appease negative sentiment toward hallyu (Korean wave) and seek its sustainability," said Jung, who used to work as a producer at territorial broadcaster MBC. "From our recent research on the current status of hallyu, we discovered that in countries like Thailand and Mongolia, the index of negative sentiment against Korean culture is as high as that of positive sentiment."
He elaborated, "The fact that we promote our own culture unilaterally seems to have disappointed some people there, making them believe that Korea only cares about selling tickets and making money. Therefore, to avoid being too commercial and facilitate cultural exchanges that are truly mutual, we need to host more events like the Culture Bridge Festa and the Grow Together Project."
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Jung Kil-hwa, president of the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE), speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at KOFICE headquarters in Mapo District, western Seoul, Oct. 4. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk |
According to Jung, the former is an annual event held in Korea that gives a taste of food, music and local products of different Asian countries. It introduces the cultures of these countries to Koreans and gives them a chance to mingle with foreign nationals. This year's Culture Bridge Festa will highlight Vietnam and Kazakhstan.
The Grow Together Project invites singers from other countries to train under the K-pop system for about four months. Then, they get to premiere their new song in Korea. This year, KOFICE invited the Thai girl group RoseBerry, which performed its new song "Butterfly" at the Asia Song Festival in Seoul, Oct. 14.
"As part of our CSR activities last year, we also set up a dance academy in Buri Ram in Thailand, the hometown of BLACKPINK member Lisa," Jung revealed. "KOFICE and Lisa's management company YG Entertainment worked together to build an academy where teenagers can learn dance for about a month. Maybe another big-name K-pop star would emerge from there."
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K-pop boy group NCT DREAM performs during The-K Concert at the Main Stadium of Jamsil Sports Complex in southeastern Seoul, Oct. 7. Courtesy of KOFICE |
K-Culture Festival ends with a bang
Jung has had a hectic time lately, with KOFICE hosting the 2022 K-Culture Festival in the largest-ever scale in Seoul from Sept. 30 to Oct. 8 under the slogan "Into the-K."
The festival included a range of programs such as a K-pop concert attend by some 35,000 spectators featuring high-profile stars like NCT DREAM and IVE, a music awards ceremony held in cooperation with U.S. music magazine Billboard, showcases by musicians and bands from diverse music genres, as well as other activities giving visitors a chance to enjoy Korean traditional culture to the fullest.
"The major goals of this year's festival were to showcase a full package of Korean content and to make it an international festival like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland," Jung said. "We know we have just taken a baby step, but we want to expand our festival so that people around the world would visit Korea just to enjoy our event. If we demonstrate that our festival is a feast for the eyes, it will naturally become a word-of-mouth event that can attract many tourists. We hope it becomes a springboard to make hallyu more durable and sustainable."
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Audience members enjoy The-K Concert at the Main Stadium of the Jamsil Sports Complex in southeastern Seoul, Oct. 7. Courtesy of KOFICE |
With the KOFICE celebrating the 20th anniversary of its launch next year, the organization has a lot of things in its pipeline.
"We also organize events celebrating diplomatic relations between Korea and its partners," Jung said. "Right now, Korea is participating in Festival Internacional Cervantino in Mexico ― a flagship culture festival with 50 years of history ― to show off its cultural content in front of global audiences. On top of this, I want to revive local towns in Korea by helping them develop their representative cultural content. A lot of cities and towns are facing extinction as their populations plummet, and I think cultural content can help them make a breakthrough. For instance, we are working hard to promote martial arts as the game of Chungju in Northern Chungcheong Province and calligraphy as the core activity of Boryeong in South Chungcheong Province."