Opening a communicative space

between Korea and the world

Nurturing the Spirit

With a Temple Stay
UNESCO Honors
Royal Tombs

8
August
ISSN: 2005-2162

2009

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  AUGUST 2009
CONTENTS  VOL. 12 / NO. 8

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 News in Focus

UNESCO Recognizes
Royal Resting Places
40 storied tomb sites epitomize the ingenuity
and social principles of the Joseon Dynasty
Courtesy of the Cultural Heritage Administration

Mist fills the air near a tomb in Hyeolleung in

Guri, Gyeonggi Province.

6 korea August 2009 August 2009 korea 7


Fall foliage surrounds a royal tomb in
Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province.
S
eonjeongneung, a combination
of the ancient royal tombs Seol-
leung and Jeongneung, sits like
an oasis in the midst of the
busy, commercial district of Samseong-
dong, southern Seoul. On weekends,
families stroll around the area, push
baby carriages or lie down on the wide
green lawn radiating around it. For
casual visitors, it is more park than his-
toric site.
But in fact these and 38 other Joseon
Dynasty (1392-1910) tombs have just
been named a UNESCO World Heri-
tage site.
The decision to list the tombs came
at the 33rd session of the World Heri-
tage Committee in Seville, Spain on
June 26, Spanish time.
“The committee concluded that the
sites along with the beautiful scenery
surrounding them create a solemn
atmosphere and reveal an important
step in the development of tombs and
ancestral rituals in East Asia,” the Kore-
an National Commission for UNESCO
said in a statement.
8 korea August 2009
The 40 tombs are scattered across 18
locations in Seoul and Gyeonggi and
Gangwon provinces. There are eight
such tombs in Seoul. Guri in Gyeonggi,
has the most with nine, including the
tomb of King Taejo, the dynasty’s found-
er. Two Joseon tombs in North Korea
were not included on the list.
According to the Cultural Heritage
Administration, the grave sites satisfy
four of the 10 reasons to be placed on
the World Heritage list. First, they reflect
steps in the development of a single cul-
ture; second, they are rare and date back
hundreds of years; third, they represent
an architectural style that grew out of
philosophical, cultural, social, artistic
and scientific progress, and fourth, they
represent historic and abstract ideas
and beliefs.
The UNESCO committee singled
out for attention the harmony of the
tombs with their natural surroundings
as well as the rituals accompanying
them that have been passed down
through the generations, Korea’s Cul-
tural Heritage Administration said.
They were deliberately placed on
hills or mountains, designed to follow
the contours of the land around them,
unlike counterparts in other Confucian
countries. In China, for example, many
such tombs were built on flat land.
The tombs symbolize the royal fam-
ily’s authority and the values of the time.
Their locations were determined based
on Confucian principles and feng shui,
usually with one side protected by a hill
and the other overlooking a body of
water or a distant mountain ridge.
They were also placed close to the
capital to make it easy for kings to hold
ancestral rituals on site, though they
were situated away from residential
areas or farms to maintain the solem-
nity of the surrounding atmosphere.
With the exception of Hureung in
North Korea, Yeongnyeongneung in
Yeoju and Jangneung in Yeongwol
County, all of the tombs are located
within between 4 kilometers (2.5 miles)
and 40 kilometers of central Seoul,
which was once the Joseon capital, as
stipulated in the Gyeonggukdaejeon,
Joseon’s code of law.
For a monarchy that ruled for over
500 years to have maintained the tombs
so well for so long is remarkable. “It was
because the dynasty endured for so long
that the tombs have been so well pre-
served,” said Lee Chang-hwan, a profes-
sor of landscape architecture at Sangji
Yeongseo College who was involved in
the UNESCO application process.
“Joseon was a Confucian state, and
paying tribute to one’s ancestors was
very important,” Lee said. “Ancestral
ceremonies were held at the tombs twice
a year, so the tombs had to be well main-
tained.”
The typical royal Joseon tomb con-
sists of a ceremonial area and a burial
mound. A red gate called a hongsalmun
leads into the ceremonial area, at the
center of which stands a T-shaped
wooden shrine. The sites also usually
include a place for stone memorial tab-
lets, a guard house and a kitchen, used
to prepare food for the rituals.
The shrine sits facing the burial
mound, which is typically located high-
er up on the hillside.
“The burial mounds for ancestors
and the shrines for descendants are dis-
tinguished by the difference in the levels
of the ground on which they sit, indicat-
ing [the degree of] respect that should
Mongneung in Guri, Gyeonggi,
is occupied by King Seonjo,
Queen Uijin and Queen Inmok.
News in Focus
be given to those buried,” Lee said.
Twelve stone animal guardians —
four tigers, four sheep and four horses
— keep a vigil over the tombs and their
occupants. In front of the horses stand
two stone ministers, each holding a
document, and two generals bearing
swords, their solemn expressions meant
to show their loyalty.
“Like the Taj Mahal in India and the
pyramids in Egypt, the tombs were rep-
resentative of the architecture and land-
scape design of the time,” Lee said.
“In most cultures, humans place the
utmost importance on the places where
their ancestors are buried.”
As many tombs around the world
are considered architectural monu-
ments, many of them are also listed as
World Heritage sites, he added.
Over the years And the Joseon tombs have been
preserved so well partly because they
many have were too difficult to loot. They are made
tried to loot of stones bound in concrete, making
forced entry virtually impossible. In
the tombs, but fact, many of the grave mounds have
their thick lay- still not been excavated.
Ernest Jacob Oppert, a German
ers of concrete merchant in China, tried to dig up the
thwart would- tomb of Prince Namyeon in 1868.
Namyeon was the father of Heungseon
be grave Daewongun (1820-1898), who was the
robbers. father of King Gojong. Oppert wanted
August 2009 korea 9

to steal the prince’s body and relics and
use them to pressure Heungseon Dae-
wongun, who then ruled the country on
behalf of his son as regent, to open Korea
up to the Western world. But eventually
Oppert gave up because he could not
penetrate the stone chamber.
In January 2006, a vertical hole was
found in Seoreung, a site with five tombs
in Goyang, Gyeonggi. It was 2.7 meters
(8.9 feet) deep, according to the Cultural
Heritage Administration. But the tomb’s
secrets stayed hidden.
“Someone attempted a robbery, but
could not dig further because of the
10 korea August 2009
stone wall,” the administration said.
According to the Joseon Wangjo Sil-
lok, the dynasty’s royal history, the stone
chambers where kings and queens were
laid to rest were covered with concrete,
then coated with a layer of charcoal 15
centimeters (5.9 inch) thick, protecting
the tombs from insects and humidity.
But even if looters had forced their
way into the tombs, they might have
been disappointed. What makes these
sites unique compared to their predeces-
sors is that they didn’t contain actual rel-
ics from the ruler’s life. Everything in the
tombs (except the bodies themselves)
It’s a long and rigorous process. The
addition of the tombs to the list began
with a recommendation by the Interna-
tional Council on Monuments and Sites,
or ICOMOS, in April after an extensive
evaluation in September 2008. ICOMOS
advises UNESCO on global cultural
sites, and its judgment has a major influ-
ence on the World Heritage Committee’s
decisions.
Of the 29 sites in the world seeking
the committee’s recommendation at the
time, only 10, including the Joseon
tombs, received it. All 10 of those places
were put on the World Heritage list at the
33rd session of the committee in June.
Not all the efforts to win interna-
tional recognition for Korea’s historic
sites have been as successful. The Inter-
national Union for Conservation of
Nature, or IUCN, ICOMOS’s counter-
part in evaluating natural world heritage
sites, declined to recommend a Creta-
ceous Period dinosaur fossil site on the
coast of South Jeolla and South Gyeong-
sang, and Korea withdrew its applica-
tion, since a second review is not consid-
ered feasible.
But Korea’s Cultural Heritage
Administration is already gearing up to
recommend more locations as World
Heritage sites. Next on the agenda are
the Hahoe Folk Village in Andong,
was a contemporary imitation.
“Silla Dynasty [57 B.C.-A.D. 935]
tombs contain precious items such as
crowns, but imitations were placed in
the Joseon tombs to protect them from
theft,” said Chung Jae-hoon, a professor
of traditional landscape architecture at
the Korean National University of Cul-
tural Heritage.
More heritage sites to come?
These 40 royal tombs are just one
part of a push to include more of Korea’s
cultural and natural assets on the World
Heritage list.
[Press Q]
News in Focus
The CHA North Gyeongsang and Yangdong Vil-
lage in Wolseong, Gyeongju, North
hopes Hahoe Gyeongsang. The two villages have
and Yangdong already undergone preliminary review
by ICOMOS in March and May, and
villages, home now await official review to take place in
to two Joseon September.
At a meeting of the advisory body to
clans, will be discuss historic villages from June 22 to
next on the 24, located, appropriately, in a village
north of Rome, Italy, Lee Sang-hae, pro-
UNESCO list. fessor of architecture at Sungkyunkwan
University and Korean representative to
ICOMOS, made presentations about
Hahoe and Yangdong.
Lee spoke about the historical value
and preservation status of the villages,
stressing that they are examples of Con-
fucian one-clan communities, with a
shrine to the family ancestors in each.
The Korean Cultural Heritage
Administration already sent an applica-
tion to the World Heritage Committee
for the two sites Jan. 16. Though it is not
certain where the next meeting will be
held, the agency hopes the two villages
will be listed at the 34th session of the
World Heritage Committee, to be con-
vened next year.
Families of the Pungsan Yu clan set-
tled in Hahoe starting in the 16th cen-
tury, during the Joseon Dynasty.Local
clan heritage is well preserved, with resi-
Visitors look around Seolleung, occupied by King Seongjong and
August 2009 korea 11
Queen Jeonghyeon, in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul.

dences of clan heads, a Confucian school
and many ancient buildings still extant,
and local folk arts including the Byeols-
ingut mask drama and shamanist rites
still being practiced.
Hahoe Folk Village is located on a
bend in the Hwacheon Stream, a tribu-
tary of the Nakdong River. The site for
the village was chosen carefully accord-
ing to feng shui. A mountain, Mount
Nam, is located to the south of the vil-
lage, while a cliff overlooks it from the
north. The topographical setting of the
village has the shape of “a lotus flower
floating on water,” a most auspicious
image.
Floating atop the flower are a num-
Interview Yi Kun-moo
Faithful Custodians of World
N ow that the 40 royal tombs
have won World Heritage sta-
tus, it’s time to return focus to the
restoration and preservation of
Korea’s cultural assets, says Yi Kun-
moo, head of the Cultural Heritage
Administration.
“The world has finally recog-
nized the true value of the Joseon
Dynasty’s heritage,” Yi said at the
World Heritage Committee meet-
ing in Spain in late June, according
to Yonhap.
Yi is proud of Korea’s World
Heritage sites, with Jongmyo Shrine,
Changdeok Palace Complex and
the Joseon royal tombs all listed
within a 14-year period.
“Ceremonial, living spaces and
tombs of the dynasty have all
become World Heritage sites,” Yi
said.
“Since they have become the
cultural heritage of all humankind,
we now have a bigger duty to pre-
serve and manage the sites.”
Yi discussed the three factors
that convinced UNESCO to list the
tombs: their unique landscape
architecture based on Confucian-
ism and feng shui, the intangible
12 korea August 2009
ber of magnificent mansions owned by
aristocrats and thatched-roof houses
that belonged to servants, as well as
Wonjijong Temple and Byeongsan Con-
fucian School.
Yangdong Village in northern Gyeo-
ngju, the ancient capital of the Silla King-
dom located along the Hyeongsang
River, dates back to the 15th century, and
it has already been designated Impor-
tant Folklore Material No. 189.
The village has prospered since its
founding, home to the Wolseong Son
and Yeogang Yi clans. Manors, pavilions,
Confucian schools and thatched-roof
houses of commoners are still preserved
there, as well as folk customs. Some of
assets such as rituals that have been
passed down through the genera-
tions and their careful preservation
by the government.
The UNESCO inscription on
the tombs, like the ones at Jongmyo
Shrine and Changdeok Palace, will
be a big draw for tourists to learn
more about Joseon heritage, Yi
said.
According to Yi, after the Jeju
Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes
became a World Heritage site in
2008, the number of tourists visiting
the area increased 20 percent, while
Ha Long Bay in northern Vietnam
saw exponential growth in the num-
ber of tourists after it was listed in
1996.
Yi said he would try to add more
Korean assets to World Heritage list,
with the next targets for listing
Hahoe Folk Village in Andong,
North Gyeongsang, and Yangdong
Village in Gyeongju in the same
province.
Before the official ICOMOS
review of Hahoe and Yangdong,
scheduled for September, Yi said,
“We’ll address the problems that
surfaced during the preliminary
the mansions are listed as national trea-
sures.
The homes of the main Son and Yi
families, along with the residences of
their descendants, are located on high
ground near the mountain ridges, while
those of commoners sit further down.
This spatial differentiation clearly illus-
trates the highly stratified society of
Joseon. The village has even maintained
its tradition of yangban scholarship.
But whether these sites are accepted
by the World Heritage Committee or
not, they will remain valuable evidence
of the ingenuity and lifestyle of Korea’s
past, and are worthy of our study and
protection.  By Limb Jae-un
[YONHAP]
review [by ICOMOS, which took
place in March and May] and thor-
oughly prepare for the official
review.”
Yi also said he would make sure
the tombs were never in danger of
being delisted, citing the example of
Dresden Elbe Valley.
During the 33rd session in June,
the committee decided to remove
Germany’s Dresden Elbe Valley
from the list due to the construction
of a bridge in the heart of its natural
landscape.
“We will continue restoration of
the tombs and complete the remov-
al of military facilities and a sports
complex in Taereung, as we prom-
ised UNESCO,” Yi said.
World
Haein Temple, the depository
heritage of the Tripitaka Koreana wood-
blocks (1995)
sites in
Korea T he temple of Haein on Mount Gaya
is home to the Tripitaka Koreana, Ko-
rea’s most complete collection of Buddhist
texts, engraved on 80,000 woodblocks
produced between 1237 and 1248. The
buildings at Haein Temple, dating back
In addition to the to the 15th century, were constructed to
tombs, Korea has eight house this masterpiece.
other World Heritage The Tripitaka Koreana was compiled over
sites: Jongmyo Shrine,
a period of 15 years under the command
of King Gojong of the Goryeo Dynasty
listed in 1995; Seok- (918-1392), who sought to solicit the
guram Grotto and mercy of the Buddha to expel the Mongol
Bulguksa Temple invaders. Goryeo adopted Buddhism as
(1995); Haein Temple,
the state religion, giving rise to a flower-
ing culture.
the depository for the Known in Korean as Palman Daejang-
Tripitaka Koreana gyeong (“the great collection of scriptures
woodblocks (1995); the in 80,000 blocks”), the Tripitaka Koreana
Changdeok Palace
is recognized as the finest of some 30 East
Asian versions of the Buddhist canon in
Complex (1997); Chinese script in terms of comprehensive-
Hwaseong Fortress ness, accuracy, beauty of calligraphic style
(1997); Gochang, Hwa- and carving.
sun and the Ganghwa
The woodblocks of the Tripitaka Koreana
have defied time, surviving the ravages
Dolmen Sites (2000); of war and internal turmoil over the last
the Gyeongju Historic seven centuries.
Areas (2000); Jeju Vol- Its religious significance aside, the massive
canic Island and Lava
canon preserved in impeccable condition
is a testimony to the outstanding achieve-
Tubes (2007). ments of medieval Koreans in printing and
preservation technology.
News in Focus
Jongmyo Shrine (1995)
J ongmyo is the oldest and most
authentic of Korea’s Confucian royal
shrines to survive to this day. Dedicated
to the forefathers of the Joseon Dynasty
(1392-1910), the shrine has existed in its
present form since the 16th century and
houses tablets bearing the teachings of
members of the former royal family. Ritual
ceremonies linking music, song and dance
still take place there, perpetuating a tradi-
tion that goes back to the 14th century.
Throughout much of traditional East Asian
culture, including China and Korea, ritual
has been highly important. In Korean
society, preserving these rites was seen
as vital to maintaining basic social order.
Two of the most important in protecting
the strict hierarchies of Joseon were the
Jongmyo and the Sajik rituals. Jongmyo
is a term used for a place where memo-
rial services are performed for deceased
kings, while Sajik refers to a place where
services for the gods of earth and crops
are performed.
The Jongmyo ritual itself has been des-
ignated a Korean Important Intangible
Cultural Property not only for its historical
importance but for the splendor of its
music and dance.
August 2009 korea 13

Seokguram Grotto and Bulguk-
sa Temple (1995)
A small but noble pantheon of divini-
ties from Buddhist philosophy and
aestheticism inhabits Seokguram Grotto,
a structure of sublime beauty combining
influences from religious belief, science
and the fine arts.
Seokguram is located near the summit of
Mount Toham, east of historic Gyeongju,
North Gyeongsang, old capital of the Silla
Dynasty (57 B.C.-A.D. 935). Facing the
East Sea, past the mountain ridges of the
southeastern tip of the Korean Peninsula,
Seokguram stands as proud testimony
to Korea’s tradition of classical Buddhist
sculpture.
After Silla unified the peninsula in the
mid-seventh century, conquering its rival
states of Goguryeo and Baekje, Buddhism
not only served a religious function but
was also looked upon as a protective
force. Temples of magnificent scale were
erected in and around Gyeongju and were
regarded as supernatural defense against
external threats and vessels of the national
consciousness. Both Seokguram Grotto
and Bulguksa Temple, the two supreme
accomplishments of Silla Buddhist archi-
tecture, were built when Silla was at the
peak of its strength in the 8th century.
14 korea August 2009
Changdeok Palace Complex
(1997)
L ocated in Seoul, the grounds of
Changdeok Palace, built during the
Joseon Dynasty, contain more original
buildings than any other palace from that
period. Designated as Historical Site No.
122, Changdeok covers a total area of
580,000 square meters (143 acres).
The capital of Joseon was moved south
from Kaesong, now in North Korea, in
1392, but construction of this palace
didn’t begin until October 1404, during
the fourth year of the reign of King Tae-
jong, the third Joseon king. Construction
of the main building, Jeongjeon, started
in February 1405 and was completed in
October.
That was when the palace was given its
current name, meaning “Palace of Pros-
pering Virtue.” Since it was located east
of the existing palace, Gyeongbok, it was
often referred to as the “East Palace.”
Changdeok was a favorite of Joseon rulers
even though Gyeongbok Palace, where all
the official functions of the government
took place, was larger.
Uniquely, Changdeok Palace was built
to have a minimal impact on the natural
environment. Its buildings were designed
and constructed to blend easily with their
surroundings, and the directions they
faced were given careful consideration.
The palace was often used as a private
sanctuary from court life, as can be seen
from the limited number of entrances.
Hwaseong Fortress (1997)
E mbracing the busy downtown area of
Suwon, 30 kilometers (18 miles) south
of Seoul, Hwaseong Fortress embod-
ies King Jeongjo’s devotion to his father
and his ambition to create a new, more
defensible administrative and commercial
capital. It’s the epitome of the achieve-
ments of Jeongjo, who led a political and
cultural renaissance and often accepted
the counsel of young scholars seeking
institutional reforms and the practical ap-
plication of academic theories.
Deeply affected by the tragic death of his
father Crown Prince Sado, King Jeongjo
reinstated his father’s title of crown
prince in 1777, the year after he came
to the throne to succeed his grandfather,
Yeongjo. Out of extraordinary filial devo-
tion, the king ordered his father’s tomb
be moved from the eastern suburbs of
Seoul to Mount Hwa, or Hwasan, about 8
kilometers from the city of Suwon. Then
the king ordered the construction of the
fortress, which continued from 1794 to
1796.
With a fortified 5.7-kilometer wall, the
fortress stretches over changing terrain
from high mountain ridges, overlooking
a crowded urban center and a bustling
marketplace. It stands out among ancient
fortress walls in this country not only for
its diverse functions but for the aesthetic
novelty and technical innovation involved
in its planning and construction.
Gochang, Hwasun and Ganghwa
Dolmen Sites (2000)
T he prehistoric cemeteries at Gochang,
North Jeolla; Hwasun, South Jeolla,
and Gangwha Island, Gyeonggi, contain
many hundreds of examples of dolmens,
mysterious tombs from the 1st millennium
B.C. constructed of large stone slabs. They
form part of the Megalithic culture found
in many parts of the world, but rarely in
such a concentrated form. Dolmens are
thought to be funerary monuments and
are spread throughout Asia, Europe and
North Africa.
The massive slabs are of great archaeo-
logical value for the information that they
provide about the prehistoric peoples who
built them and their social and political
systems, beliefs, arts and ceremonies.
The Gochang, Hwasun, and Ganghwa
sites contain the highest density and
greatest variety of dolmens in Korea, and
indeed of any country. They also preserve
important evidence of how the stones
were quarried, transported and raised
and of how dolmen types changed over
time in Northeast Asia. Dolmens appear
to have arrived on the Korean Peninsula in
the Bronze Age, usually consisting of two
or more undressed stone slabs supporting
a huge capstone. It is generally accepted
that they were simple burial chambers,
erected over the bodies or bones of im-
portant Neolithic and Bronze Age figures.
Gyeongju Historic Areas (2000)
T he ancient capital of Gyeongju is
home to many outstanding examples
of Korean Buddhist art — sculptures, re-
liefs, pagodas, temples and palaces. Traces
of the glory that flowered during the Silla
Kingdom (57 BC-AD 935). still remain in
the ruins of Wolseong (“the moon pal-
ace”), huge royal burial mounds, ancient
wells, bridges and temple and fortress
sites, including Hwangnyong Temple.
An outdoor museum surrounding Mount
Nam, Gyeongju is divided into four main
parts: the mountain itself, the Wolseong
area, the ruins of Hwangnyong Temple
and the Tumuli Park area, which has a
group of three royal tombs.
Mount Nam, which lies to the north of
Gyeongju, covers 2,650 hectares and
is home to a large number of relics and
ruins from history and prehistory. Buddhist
monuments that have been excavated
include the ruins of 122 temples, 53
stone statues, 64 pagodas and 16 stone
lanterns.
Wolseong is home not just to the ruined
palace but also to Anapji Pond, near the
remains of Imhaejeon Palace, as well as
the Cheomseongdae Observatory and the
Gyerim woodlands, which legend says
were the birthplace of the founder of the
Gyeongju Kim clan.
News in Focus
[JoongAng Ilbo]
Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes
(2007)
J eju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes
together comprise three sites that
make up 18,846 hectares. It includes
Geomunoreum, regarded as the finest
system of lava tube caves anywhere,
with its multicolored carbonate roofs
and floors and dark-colored lava walls;
the fortress-like Seongsan Ilchulbong
tuff cone, rising out of the ocean and
creating a dramatic landscape; and
Mount Halla, the highest mountain in
Korea, with its waterfalls, multi-faceted
rock formations and lake-filled crater.
Jeju has distinct value as one of the
few large shield volcanoes in the
world to rise over a hot spot on a
stationary continental crust plate. The
Geomunoreum lava tube system, the
most impressive and significant series
of protected lava tube caves in the
world, includes a spectacular array
of secondary carbonate speleothems
(stalactites and other formations), with
an abundance and diversity unknown
elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Seongsan
Ilchulbong tuff cone has exceptional
structural and sedimentological char-
acteristics, making it one of the best
locations to understand Surtseyan-type
volcanic eruptions.
Of course, Jeju isn’t just heaven for the
geologist — it’s also a site of stunning
natural beauty for any curious trekker.
August 2009 korea 15
 Diplomacy

A
recent eight-day visit to Europe by Korea’s
President Lee Myung-bak was a fruitful
one, leading to the conclusion of free trade
negotiations with the EU that had gone on
for more than two years.
President Lee announced the end of negotiations
on July 13 at a joint press conference with Swedish
Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. Lee met with the
leader of Sweden, which holds the six-month rotating
EU presidency until the end of this year, at a summit
earlier in the day in Stockholm.
“We welcome the final agreement on the Korea-
EU FTA,” Lee said at the joint conference, announcing
the breakthrough for the free trade deal, expected to
boost bilateral exchange by more than $98 billion.
The two leaders “expressed their hope [the agree-
ment] will quickly be signed,” a press release from
President Lee’s office at Cheong Wa Dae read.
The announcement of the trade deal between
Korea and its second-largest trading partner came on
the last day of Lee’s European trip. Lee departed Seoul
on July 7 and returned home July 14.
The deal is expected to open the two markets rad-
ically once it is fully implemented. According to the
Korea International Trade Association, duties on 96
percent of Korea’s imports and 99 percent of imports
from the EU are expected to be eliminated over three
years under the pact. Korea was the EU’s eighth-largest
trading partner last year, with it also Korea’s largest
supplier of foreign direct investment.
The EU’s Article 133 Committee, in charge of the
bloc’s trade policies, approved the final draft of the
FTA in its meeting in Brussels July 10.

[Yonhap]
Officials at Lee’s office said his European destina-
tions were carefully planned to accomplish the conclu-
sion of the free trade deal.
“We carefully designed the president’s trip to

Lee Announces Close to FTA

President Lee Myung-bak
prepares for the final session, include Poland and Sweden on the sidelines of attend-
focused on food security, of ing the extended G8 summit in Italy after we learned
the extended Group of Eight of the reluctance of Poland and Italy to back the FTA

Negotiations on Europe Trip summit in Italy, July 10. in early July,” a senior South Korean official said. “The
strategy was for Lee to directly persuade the Polish and
Italian leaders, and it worked.”
In his meeting with journalists, Lee explained in
On Korean president’s 8-day visit, he personally convinced holdouts candid detail his efforts to persuade European leaders
to support the free trade agreement.
The first destination on Lee’s three-country trip
was Poland, and he met with Polish President Lech
Kaczynski on July 8.
16 korea August 2009 August 2009 korea 17
 Diplomacy

mate change.
The president urged the leaders to
make the bold political decisions to
conclude the moribund Doha Round of
world trade negotiations and spur trade
liberalization.
Lee also called on global leaders to
take immediate action on climate
change and vowed to spearhead the
efforts through what he called “early
action.”
At the Major Economies Forum on

Energy and Climate, Korea was also
named the lead country in the develop-
ment and promotion of an energy-effi-
cient “smart grid.” Lee said South Korea
will offer a detailed plan for the new
technology before the end of Novem-
ber.
The MEF, established last year, con-
sists of the world’s 16 largest economies,
which account for more than 80 percent
of greenhouse gas emissions. In a joint
declaration, member countries agreed
that “the increase in global average tem-
perature above pre-industrial levels
ought not to exceed 2 degrees Celsius.”
Taking up a proposal by Lee, the
leaders agreed to begin working-level
dialogue between their finance minis-
[Yonhap]
President Lee Myung-bak and Polish President Lech Kaczyński, left, inspect the Polish honor
guard at the presidential palace in Warsaw during an official welcoming ceremony July 8.
Lee also promoted Korea’s low-car- cooperation on energy security and
bon, green-growth policy to the world fight climate change, while also strength-
leaders, according to his spokeswom- ening their cooperation in the energy
an. sector, including on liquefied natural
On the sidelines of the global sum- gas [LNG] and nuclear and renewable
mit, Lee also held a series of bilateral energy,” according to Cheong Wa Dae.
meetings with participating leaders. Lee specifically asked Poland to
During his stay in Italy, Lee spoke sepa- grant Korean companies the opportu-
rately with Canadian Prime Minister nity to take part in the construction of a
Stephen Harper and Russian President 440 million euro ($611 million) LNG
Dmitry Medvedev. Lee also met with terminal and nuclear power plants in
Australian Prime Minister Kevin the country. The Polish leader said he
Rudd. would consider the request.

During his visit to Sweden, President Lee
Myung-bak announces the conclusion of ne-
gotiations on the Korea-EU free trade agree-
ment July 13 at a joint press conference with
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
President Lee Myung-bak meets with Pope
Benedict XVI at the Vatican July 9.
18 korea August 2009
“After long dialogue, Kaczynski con-
cluded that the Korea-EU FTA would be
positive for the two nations’ economic
development,” said Kim Eun-hye, Lee’s
deputy spokeswoman. “Officials of the
two countries were very surprised by
the changed position of the Polish lead-
er. It was an important outcome,
although we still have to put more effort
into concluding the deal.”
In his next destination, Italy,
Lee again pushed the FTA issue,
seeking the support of Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Lat-
er, Lee told journalists that his
discussions with the Italian
leader were “dramatic.”
Italy had been reluctant to
back the liberalization deal
because it feared the impact on
the country’s auto industry,
particularly its production of
[Yonhap]
compact vehicles, but Lee managed to
persuade Berlusconi, the Korean gov-
ernment officials said.
During his biweekly radio address
aired July 13 in Korea, the president told
the nation that he was pleased with the
breakthrough.
“When the Korea-EU FTA is imple-
mented, the impact on Korea’s trade will
be significant because the agreement
will liberalize trade with each and every
one of the 27 members of the EU,” Lee
said.
In addition to the Korea-EU free
trade agreement, Lee also promoted
Korea’s position in the international
community at the Group of Eight
extended summit.
At the meeting of top economic
powers, Lee called for renewed efforts to
fight trade protectionism and promote
Korea’s role in global programs on cli-
ters on ways to fund emissions reduc- Another accomplishment of the trip Lee also promoted Korea’s trainer
tion projects that could cost billions of was an agreement with Polish President jets during his meeting with Kaczynski,
dollars over the years to come, accord- Kaczynski to widen bilateral coopera- since the eastern European nation will
ing to Lee’s spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye. tion in energy and the economy, offi- be in the market for 16 such aircraft at
U.S. President Barack Obama particu- cials in Seoul and Warsaw said. the end of this year or next year.
larly hailed Lee’s proposal, Kim said. “The two countries agreed to boost  By Ser Myo-ja
Aso Agrees to Unity Against Nuclear North
Agreeing that North Korea will never be accepted as a Resolution 1874 that urges North Korea to cease all its pro-
nuclear power, President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese vocative activities related to nuclear and missile programs.
Prime Minister Taro Aso reaffirmed their willingness to The resolution was adopted earlier in June to impose finan-
take coordinated action against Pyongyang over its atomic cial sanctions and an arms embargo on North Korea follow-
weapons programs in their latest meeting. ing its nuclear test in May.
At the Korea-Japan summit held in Tokyo on June 28, During the summit, the two leaders agreed to push for
Lee and Aso also agreed to push forward a meeting among positive discussions for a free trade agreement. Lee said they
the five nations in the six-party talks other than North expected “the FTA talks to be moving forward in a mutual-
Korea. Lee said it is important to have the five dialogue ly-beneficial direction” in the future.
partners of the six-party denuclearization talks other than The June 28 summit was the eighth meeting between Lee
North Korea — South Korea, Japan, the United States, Rus- and Aso. After Lee took office, South Korea and Japan
sia and China — on the same page. restored their frequent presidential diplomacy program,
The two leaders also urged the international community and for the latest summit, Lee flew to Tokyo for a one-day
to effectively implement United Nations Security Council visit.
August 2009 korea 19

Han Extends a Green Hand
G
overnments around the
world must work together
for a new “green growth”
paradigm based on low-
carbon economic development, declared
Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo
at the 10th anniversary celebration of the
OECD Forum on June 23 in Paris.
“I believe that low-carbon green
growth can be a paradigm not only for
Korea, but for the international commu-
nity as a whole. In order to achieve syn-
ergy between energy security, climate
change mitigation and sustainable devel-
opment, we need to strengthen mecha-
nisms for greater collaboration and
cooperation,” he said in his keynote
Prime Minister Han, second from right, was the first Korean top official to chair an OECD coun-
cil meeting since Korea entered the organization in 1996.
20 korea August 2009
speech. “I am convinced that investment
in a low-carbon green growth policy will
yield a ‘double dividend’ effect.”
Han is chair of the Ministerial Coun-
cil Meeting of the Organization for Eco-
nomic Cooperation and Development
this year, the first time a top Korean offi-
cial has chaired an OECD council meet-
ing since the country became a member
in 1996.
With the world facing two major
challenges – a global financial crisis and
climate change - the green growth dec-
laration by Han called for eco-friendly
investment incentives, sustainable man-
agement of natural resources and greater
protection of biodiversity. The declara-
tion was officially adopted by the coun-
cil meeting after unanimous agreement
by all participating states.
The meeting’s participants included
ministers from the 30 OECD member
states, five candidates for membership -
Chile, Estonia, Israel, Russia and Slove-
nia - and five emerging economies that
partner with the OECD: Brazil, China,
India, Indonesia and South Africa.
Together, these countries represent 80
percent of the world’s economy. The
meeting took place from June 23 to 25.
Aiming to discuss ways to strength-
en the international financial system
and reverse the course of global eco-
nomic stagnation, the governments of
the world's major economies came
together at G-20 summits, first in Wash-
ington, D.C., in November and again in
London in April. They are scheduled to
meet again in Pittsburg in September.
The ministers at the council meeting
in Paris discussed how to encourage
investment in safe and sustainable low-
carbon growth and how to foster inter-
national cooperation for the develop-
ment of clean technologies and an inter-
national market for green goods.
“We have recognized the importance
of well-targeted policy instruments
encouraging green investment in con-
tributing to both a short-term economic
recovery and a long-term green infra-
structure,” said OECD Secretary-Gener-
al Angel Gurría following the declara-
tion. “This is a significant signal and
staging post on the road to what we hope
will be an ambitious agreement on cli-
Diplomacy
mate change in Copenhagen at the end of the year.”
“It is meaningful that both OECD member states
and non-member countries support green growth,
which Korea has promoted as new paradigm for eco-
nomic growth,” Han told the press in Paris.
On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the
founding of the Republic of Korea on Aug. 15, 2008,
President Lee Myung-bak proclaimed "low-carbon
green growth" as the new national vision for the econ-
omy. The president hopes to shift industry from its
focus on quantity and dependence on fossil fuels to a
quality-oriented approach based on renewable energy.
‘I believe that In January, the administration announced a 50-tril-
lion-won ($40 billion) project to develop low-carbon
low-carbon green growth industries, through which it aims to cre-
green growth ate over 900,000 jobs. The plan includes a multi-tril-
lion-won scheme to clean up the country's four major
can be a par- rivers, the Han, Yeongsan, Nakdong and Geum. The
adigm... for scheme is the largest ever conceived by any single coun-
try.
the entire Although Han’s declaration did not include specific
world.’ limits on carbon dioxide emissions or other mandatory
guidelines for members, Han said it was “more than
law.”
“The green growth declaration will be as meaning-
ful as the likes of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, since it is backed up by OECD members. Mem-
ber states will definitely feel obliged to follow what was
accorded,” he said.
After the council meeting, Han hosted a dinner
party dubbed “Korea Night” to mark his acceptance of
the chairmanship. Top chefs from Korea’s five-star
hotels presented traditional royal cuisine along with
everyday dishes made with ingredients brought direct-
ly from Korea. During the dinner, Korea’s top soprano
Jo Sumi and pianist Kim Sun-wook, who won the pres-
tigious Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006,
performed. As many as 250 high-profile figures includ-
ing the OECD secretary general and ambassadors from
40 countries were present at the event and “marveled at
the taste of Korean food,” Han said.
The extravaganza was co-hosted by the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade; the Ministry for Agricul-
ture, Fisheries and Food; the Ministry of Culture, Sports
and Tourism; the Korea Foundation, and the Corea
Image Communication Institute.
“I realized from the event it would be wiser to mod-
ify the serving styles of Korean food to match the taste
of each country. Serving the menu as a prearranged
course seemed much more refined than serving a buf-
fet on the occasion of this opportunity to introduce
[KPPA]
Korean food to Westerners.” 
By Seo Ji-eun
August 2009 korea 21

D
Government ouglas Binns, who came to Korea from
Los Angeles six years ago, is lucky enough
to hold one of Korea’s most stable jobs —
Douglas Binns teaches
English to fellow civil
servants in Gwacheon,
Servants in a
civil servant.
Binns is among the growing number of foreigners
working in the Korean public sector. And they aren’t
Strange Land
simply proofreading English-language documents or
helping with translations. Increasingly, they’re taking
on more hands-on tasks.
Binns, for instance, teaches English to Korean civ-
il servants and other bureaucrats at the Central Offi-
Expats from across the world take cials Training Institute in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi. The
school is an agency under the Ministry of Public
a bigger hand in Korean state affairs Administration. His students include those who plan
to study at overseas schools for their master’s degrees
and officials who take part in negotiations with foreign
counterparts. Binns said he tends to focus on English
speaking because Koreans are typically already well-
versed in grammar.
Binns pointed to the “energy and enthusiasm” of
his students as the best part of his job and said he is
“fairly happy” to be doing what he is doing.
According to the Ministry of Public Administra-
tion, there were 23 foreign civil servants employed by
the central Korean government and regional authori-
ties in August last year, the latest data available. The
Busan municipal government and Jeju provincial gov-
22 korea August 2009
ernment each added one foreigner to their staff
in 2009.
And expatriate civil servants are having an
impact in other ways. For example, the city of
Andong, North Gyeongsang, has welcomed a
growing number of Japanese and Chinese tour-
ists recently. Keiko Ogata from Japan and her
colleague Wang Yu from China both work for
the city, and have played a key role in promot-
ing its virtues to prospective visitors.
Working for the city’s tourism department,
Ogata essentially handles all Japan-related
tasks: putting out tourists’ guides, scheduling
tours, editing documents and interpreting. She
writes periodically for the Yomiuri Shimbun
and appears on a radio show every week. An
official at Andong City Hall said, “She’s done an
outstanding job hosting Japanese tourists.”
Ogata started working for Andong in
August 2003. She came to Korea in 2000 and
studied Japanese literature at the Hankuk Uni-
versity of Foreign Studies. At the beginning, she
mostly did translation work, but she gradually
[Press Q]
moved to more active tasks.
Ogata said her strength is that she knows
what the Japanese want.
“Japanese tourists are more likely to take
their time and stay in one place,” she said. “But
Koreans tend to squeeze their stops into a tight-
er time frame. That’s why I set the schedule for
Gyeonggi. Japanese visitors if possible.”
Wang believes foreign civil servants work-
ing in tourism create a built-in advantage.
“Chinese want to experience something
new, not just get dressed in hanbok [traditional
Korean costume] all the time,” Wang said. “And
Chinese best know what Chinese tourists want
to do when they come here.”
As Korea hosts an increasing number of
international events and as more regional gov-
ernments develop ties overseas, foreign nation-
als are moving into new areas. Take Andrew
Paul Johnston of the Busan city government,
for instance.
In 2003, Johnston and four others became
the first foreigners to be employed by a local
Korean government. His early tasks included
helping with the publication of pamphlets,
speeches and notices in English. Johnston’s
background in Korea included teaching at a
government-run English education program
in 1999 and volunteering in Busan during the
Asian Games and the FIFA World Cup in 2002.
In 2001, he even wrote a letter to then-Busan
Global Korea
Mayor Ahn Sang-young urging him to employ
more foreigners at the city government to help
with English-language publications and teach-
ing.
Johnston said it was only last year, during
the bidding for the 2012 International Water
Association Congress, that his opinions were
considered by the city and reflected in its deci-
sion-making for the first time. He was produc-
ing promotional material and video clips for
the bid at the time.
“It’d be beneficial for Korea to use foreign
public servants for more practical tasks, not
just for English help,” Johnston said.
Paul Lanari, who works at the investment
promotion headquarters of the Busan-Jinhae
Free Economic Zone Authority, agreed.
“Foreign public servants have different per-
spectives than Koreans, and they can offer use-
ful advice or information to Korea.”
The current law on public servants stipu-
lates that government agencies and regional
governments employ foreign nationals in
capacities not related to policy making or to
national security or intelligence. Foreigners,
whether part- or full-time can only be hired on
contracts, which can be signed for up to five
years at maximum.
After the contract runs out, foreign civil
servants must go through the hiring process
once again, even when they’re returning to the
same post—in other words, there is relatively
little job security even in a field known for it.
Ogata at the Andong City Government said she
had to do another interview last year and com-
pete with other applicants for her position after
her five-year contract expired. She said she is
currently on a two-year deal. Foreign civil ser-
vants are assigned staff levels from the sixth to
ninth rank, with salaries comparable to Kore-
ans at the same level. Jobs are periodically
announced by government agencies online,
and candidates can apply online.
Today, foreigners are still mostly working in
the trenches rather than helping set foreign or
trade policies, for instance. Another area in
which foreigners could provide help would be
in aiding biracial families. While the debate
continues on whether to bring in more expatri-
ates to provide more specialized services, the
number of foreigners in tourism, translation
and interpretation and English teaching will
keep rising. 
By Yoo Jee-ho
August 2009 korea 23

Younghoon David Kim, third from left, helps
plant a tree near the Green Eco Energy Park
in Mongolia.
In the Desert, a Solar Oasis
I
n a meadow 50 kilometers south-
east of the Mongolian capital of
Ulaanbaatar, three wind turbines
with blades 3.5 meters in length
harness a particularly strong gust. These
machines are changing the way local
people live - and it’s partly thanks to the
Korean Daesung Institute for Clean
Energy.
“Because of the strong wind we can
draw water from underground and use
it to grow potatoes and trees,” says Park
Moon-hee, Daesung’s head.
Forty percent of the land in Mongo-
lia is sandy and arid. The desertification
of the country is proceeding at an alarm-
24 korea August 2009
ing rate due to continuing droughts and
burgeoning populations of livestock.
And this isn’t an issue limited to
Mongolia. The growing deserts affect its
neighbors, too.
That’s where Daesung Group, the
Korean energy conglomerate, comes
in.
In June, Daesung opened its first
Green Eco Energy Park, or GEEP, in the
country after two years of work. The
project is the world’s first attempt to pre-
vent desertification through use of
renewable energy.
The GEEP is located on 3.3 million
square meters of land, leased from the
Provided by the company
Mongolian government for free for the
next 60 years. Inside the park Daesung
will build a solar-wind hybrid power
generator to bring to the surface the
water flowing 120 meters underground.
That water will be used for irrigation,
which will prevent the spread of deser-
tification.
A total of 2.7 billion won ($2 mil-
lion) has been invested in the project,
led by Daesung Group and cosponsored
by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy
and the Korea Institute of Energy Tech-
nology Evaluation and Planning. Two-
thirds of the investment comes from the
Korean government, with the rest
financed by the energy conglomerate.
Other participants include Junma
Engineering, a wind turbine supplier; BJ
PNS, a security company, and Hoseo
University.
A single wind turbine generates 10
kilowatts of electricity per hour, while a
set of eight 10-meter solar panels gener-
ates 80 kilowatts. That electricity is used
to pump eight tons of water each hour
into reservoirs, which will later irrigate
120,000 square meters of orchards and
potato farms.
The Daesung Institute for Clean
Energy said that in the past Japan and a
few other countries had built diesel-
powered generators for developing
countries, but these power plants proved
difficult to keep running because of the
difficulty of delivering fuel, and now
many are no longer operating.
The system developed by Daesung,
on the other hand, doesn’t require a con-
stant fuel supply, since it relies entirely
on the environment — sunlight and
wind — to supply electricity and water.
At the opening ceremony for the
eco-park, Younghoon David Kim, chair-
man of Daesung Group, said the GEEP
would help humanity find solutions to
the three impending resource crises:
water, food and energy.
Kim called Mongolia the perfect site
to test the business viability of renew-
able energy technology. Though cur-
rently the project is operating as foreign
aid, Kim said Daesung would use it to
develop profitable businesses in coming
years.
After the first GEEP in Mongolia,
Daesung plans to supply renewable
energy solutions to countries struggling
with electricity and water shortages in
Central Asia, Africa and South Ameri-
ca.
Kim said there are still small villages
with only a few households set in large
meadows that have no electricity, and
that Daesung will continue to offer sys-
tems to help them generate their own.
The chairman acknowledged that
solar and wind generators are still rela-
tively inefficient from a cost perspec-
tive. To set up a single wind turbine costs
roughly 50 million won, a huge financial
burden.
Global Korea
In rural areas, However, Kim stressed that renewable energy is
over time more economical than being forced to main-
it’s cheaper to tain high-tension wires to deliver electricity to remote
build small areas. In Mongolia, a country of 2.5 million people, the
only place with a population exceeding 1 million is the
generators capital. The rest of the people are spread across the
country in small villages of 500 to 1,000 households.
than unsightly Thus setting up electrical lines would be even more
power lines. costly than generating power locally.
Chairman Kim called the Korean government
shrewd for investing in rural Mongolia, as it could help
the country win development rights to rich mineral
resources such as soft coal and copper.
In addition, the participation of the local govern-
ment and domestic companies will help improve
Korea’s image and create new opportunities to export
renewable energy in the long run.
The GEEP project has been closely monitored by
the world energy industry as a new model to prevent
desertification while supplying energy to countries
like Mongolia that struggle to bring power to all their
people.
“The economic feasibility of Mongolia’s sunlight
and wind power has been proven,” said Lee Joon-hyun,
head of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Eval-
uation and Planning. “The GEEP project will be an
opportunity to test the technological credibility of
Korean technology in the renewable energy sector.”
Daesung Group is already in the process of build-
ing another solar-wind hybrid power system at anoth-
er village, Mandakh, 500 kilometers southeast of the
capital. A total of 4.2 billion won is being invested into
the development of desertification prevention power
systems. 
By Lee Ho-jeong
Provided by the company
Wind turbines generate power at the Green Eco Energy Park, developed by Daesung Group over the
last two years to prevent desertification in Mongolia.
August 2009 korea 25
 Global Korea
Provided by the Korea Rural Development Administration

Aussie Plants in Royal Forest

Arboretum becomes partners with gardens in Sydney and Melbourne
Representatives of the Korea

W
Rural Development Adminis-
tration and the U.S. Agricul- hen one thinks of globalization, a quiet arbo- KNA has sought out. Its officials have gone as far afield as
ture Research Service pose retum is not exactly the first image that comes China and Germany in search of international cooperation.
with a placard to celebrate to mind. But it’s exactly what the Korea “I think we will have a lot of chances to learn from such
their joint project. National Arboretum hopes to achieve great arboretums.” said Lee Bong-woo, in charge of public
through a recent agreement with two of its finest Australian relations at the arboreteum. “We will continuously try to
counterparts in June. make ties with other advanced arboretums in the world.”

How Healthy is Korean Food? According to the Korea Forest Service, the deals were In honor of its new international siblings, the govern-
signed by Kim Yong-ha, head of the Korea National Arbore- ment-operated garden plans to open a new section to intro-
tum, with the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney and the Roy- duce Koreans to Australian plants.
al Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. The opening of the new garden in 2011 will also celebrate
New study will show whether local dishes are as wholesome as believed Kim and other public officials made a one-week visit to the 50th anniversary of friendly diplomatic ties between
the two world-class arboretums in June, at the invitation of Korea and Australia.

K
the Australia-Korea Foundation. “The Australian authorities have promised to send native
orean food is known throughout the world as holding special banquets in Paris or London, where people still The efforts are part of the KNA’s push to become one of plants to us for [our] first foreign garden,” said Lee. “We will
healthy, but based on what evidence? have little knowledge of Korean food, this symposium marked the world’s top 10 arboretums by 2020. continue to make efforts to contribute to the growth of the
In an effort to seek scientific proof for the health the first time anyone had undertaken an international and “We announced our blueprint titled, ‘Top 10 world arbo- arboretum.”
benefits of hansik (Korean cuisine), agencies from systematic study of Korean food. By acquiring scientific proof retum by 2020,’ at the 10th anniversary of the founding [of the With 15 specialized plant gardens, forest areas, a zoo and
Korea and the United States held a joint symposium recently of the health benefits of the Korean cuisine, the government KNA],” said Kim. “This [memorandum a seed bank on its 11.16 million-square-
on the subject “Strategy for Regular Coordination on Home surmised that it would be easier to persuade and promote the of understanding] will help us realize that meter grounds, the Korea National
Nutrition, Food Safety and Function: Food for the Korean food. dream.” Arboretum has attracted researchers
and American Diet.” Local researchers from the Food Globalization Under the agreement, the three gar- and a curious public since 1999.
The event, which took place from June 16 to Department, with prominent nutritionists and dens will cooperate on research into local The site was initially called the
18, was cosponsored by the Korea Rural Devel- other experts from the administration and its plants through regular meetings, person- Gwangneung Arboretum, after its loca-
opment Administration and the Agriculture American counterpart, pondered how Korean al exchanges, information and specimen tion in Gwangneung forest in Pocheon,
Research Service, part of the United States food might be introduced and localized sharing and other joint programs. Gyeonggi, about 50 kilometers north of
Department of Agriculture. Experts inquired abroad. Established in the early 1800s, the Seoul.
more deeply into the health benefits of popular On the agenda at sessions over the three days Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney, the larg- For hundreds of years, the 22.38 mil-
Korean dishes, while also dealing with some of the of the symposium were subjects including “Using est of the three major botanical gardens lion square meters making up the royal
possible benefits of Korean cuisine for people from Bibimbap Dietary Intake Survey Information to Assess open to the public in the Australian city, forest of Gwangneung surrounded the
other countries. Dietary Patterns and Health,” “Functional Foods contains 11,000 different kinds of plants, mausoleum of King Sejo of the Joseon
The joint study was part of a concerted effort by the local and Human Health” and “Food Safety Research.” There was including local natives such as the Sydney Dynasty, another tourist attraction.
government to promote Korean food abroad. also a spotlight on some state-run nutritional centers in the Red Gum, Sydney Boronia, Native Fuch- Over the last 500 years, it has been
On May 4, the government established a special task force United States, and Korean and American researchers discussed sia, Waratah, Swamp Oak and Grey Box, constantly preserved in an effort to min-
including government leaders, academics and prominent fig- culinary exchange programs. on lovely grounds just east of the iconic imize human disturbance.
ures responsible for globalizing and commercializing Korean But the local administration isn’t just reaching out to the Sydney Opera House. The Royal Botanic According to arboretum officials,
food. The government aims to position Korean food among United States. Gardens Melbourne, which also opened in about 300,000 people nationwide visit
the world’s top five cuisines within 10 years, and lays out the “Plans have been made for later joint research with other the early 1800s, likewise maintains a mix the forest and national arboretum annu-
current top five as Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese and Thai developed nations such as the Netherlands,” an official at the of native and exotic plants of over 12,000 ally.
food. Korea Rural Development Administration said. In the coming different species. “We currently limit the attendance
Even further back, last year, the Korea Rural Development months and years, “the researchers will study the nutritional The 354,000 square meters of land- to protect the natural environment
Administration inaugurated its Department of Korea Food value of Korean food through scientific research and release the scaped gardens, visited by an average of 1 around the forest,” said Lee. “Before
Research for Globalization. results together so that the world will know that Korean dishes million people each year, put more empha- The Korea National Arboretum, top, signed daily attendance was limited, more than
And while there have been many efforts both inside and can be as beneficial as the so-called Mediterranean diet, thus sis on Australian indigenous varieties. deals with two Australian parks, one of which 20,000 people came each day.” 
outside the country to promote local cuisine, for example, by contributing to the globalization of hansik.” By Lee Eun-joo And these are not the first partners the is the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney, above. By Park Sang-woo

26 korea August 2009 August 2009 korea 27


[JoongAng Ilbo]
Britons Step In to Shrink
Firms’ Carbon Footprints
M
ost embassies are con-
cerned with improving
bilateral relations, but the
British Embassy in Seoul
has another agenda: to create awareness
of climate change and helping South
Korea develop policies to better cope
with it.
The embassy hopes
the labels will raise
eco-awareness.
The embassy started several pro-
grams earlier this year aimed at prepar-
ing companies and institutions in Korea
for a changed future. It has an entire
team at the embassy dedicated to these
projects, which are all scheduled to run
over the next several years.
For example, with the cooperation
of the Korea Environment Industry and
Technology Institute and the Korean
Federation of Small and Medium Sized
Businesses, the embassy has designed a
28 korea August 2009
carbon footprint training program that
it is now delivering to 300 companies. A
separate carbon labeling program that
will be provided to companies that have
completed the initial training is also on
its way. The embassy’s plan is to help
label up to 150 products according to
their “carbon footprints” over the next 3
years.
“The things that we’re doing here are
usually in association with the Korean
government or Korean companies to
help with the carbon labeling scheme.
It’s money well spent. It will actually
help Korean consumers see what the
issues are and have an appreciation of
how their choices affect the environ-
ment,” said British Ambassador to Seoul
Martin Uden in a recent interview with
the JoongAng Daily.
Another ongoing way to strengthen
the capacity of Korean companies to
manage their emissions is the Carbon
Disclosure Project. Although this is vol-
untary, it does create pressure for major
British Ambassador to Seoul
Martin Uden
corporations to participate, since inter-
national financial institutions have
asked large companies to report their
emissions levels and carbon manage-
ment strategies through the program.
CDP has already become a powerful
tool in moving carbon management
forward in the business world, but for
now Korean companies are still in the
process of fully understanding its future
implications. Just 32 percent of the
country’s businesses reported their
emissions levels and carbon manage-
ment strategies, one of the lowest
response rates globally.
The embassy is also assisting Korean
businesses in launching a forum on cli-
mate change to present their views on
the subject to the Korean government
and helping the Samsung Economic
Research Institute’s Climate Change
Center conduct research on the cost
effectiveness of trade policies related to
climate change.
By Brian Lee
K-Water Saves on Power
With ‘Energy Guardians’
E
very day, Kang Dong-hyeong, a deputy director at
the Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-Water),
visits all four offices at the corporation’s Gumi
branch in North Gyeongsang Province, where he
works.
The purpose of the 42-year-old’s visits: to ensure the tem-
perature inside the air-conditioned offices is around 26
degrees Celsius, and to check for unused computers or lights
that have been left on. If he finds some, the employees involved
receive verbal warnings.
Kang is one of 93 K-Water officials the company desig-
nated as “energy jikimi” in March. The job of a jikimi, or
“guardian,” is to help the company conserve energy by cor-
recting inefficiencies.
“Having a finger pointed at you would be unpleasant for
anyone, but many of my colleagues are cooperating with what
I do [as jikimi],” said Kang.
With the importance of the environment and fossil fuel
conservation growing, many local companies are working to
incorporate energy-saving efforts into their business activi-
ties.
And K-Water has been among the most aggressive, par-
ticularly since it joined a conservation campaign called Save
Earth Save Us, sponsored by the JoongAng Ilbo.
As part of the campaign, the company recently set up a
water-based cooling system to save electricity at its water
purification plant in Cheongju, North Chungcheong. The
system works by drawing cold water from dams nearby and
using it to cool the facility.
According to Kim Dae-geun, 44, a deputy director at the
Cheongju plant, the new setup has helped the company save
3 to 4 million won ($2,000 to $3,000) on electricity each
Employees at a K-Water
purification plant in
Cheongju, North Chung-
cheong, check the water-
based cooling system.
Green Growth
year.
“The company plans to set up this system at many other
workplaces,” said Kim.
The main mission of the state-funded company is to pro-
vide water for drinking and industrial use. But it is also an
energy provider.
The company owns nine 1,000-megawatt multi-purpose
dams, including Soyang Dam, Chungju Dam and Daecheong
Dam. Together all nine produced 1.54 million kilowatt hours
of electricity last year.
Now that K-Water has put its conservation and environ-
mental programs in place, it has shifted its focus to developing
new renewable energy.
Four of the corporation’s water purification plants across
the country are outfitted with 170-kilowatt solar power gen-
erators, with a tidal power plant planned at Lake Sihwa in
Ansan, Gyeonggi, next year and a wind farm in 2011, also
near the lake.
These facilities, along with efforts to improve energy effi-
ciency at existing sites, will help K-Water reduce its carbon
dioxide emissions by 1,234,000 tons annually. Given that
Korea’s CO2 emissions per capita are 9.86 tons, that’s like
preventing all the annual carbon dioxide emissions from a
city of 125,000.
But it’s not just the big ideas that help conserve.
K-Water is encouraging employees to use mass transit on
their commutes, and is even planting trees outside its offices.
Other projects include replacing the fluorescent lights at its
workplaces with energy-efficient light-emitting diodes, and a
planned ban on the use of the elevator from the first to fourth
floors.
By Moon Gwang-lip
[JoongAng Ilbo]
August 2009 korea 29

A
5-foot-7-inch woman
Kim has a solo album to be stands on stage with a vio-
released in August, and a lin. With powerful bowing
performance in Seoul with technique and an expressive
six other young artists to be face, she plays the third movement of
conducted by Chung Myung- Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major.
whun. After she finishes the piece, the crowd
claps, and finally a cautious smile spreads
across her face. She takes a bow with
confidence.
This was 21-year-old Korean violin-
ist Kim Su-yeon performing in the finals
of the Queen Elisabeth International
Music Competition in Brussels, Bel-
gium this May. She won fourth place.
Along with the Chopin International
Competition in Poland and the Interna-
tional Tchaikovsky Competition in Rus-
sia, the Queen Elisabeth International
Music Competition is one of the most
prestigious classical music contests in
the world.
Only a handful of Koreans have
enjoyed the honor of winning the com-
petition. Cho Eun-Hwa took the grand
prize for composition last year, and vio-
linist Bae Ik-hwan won second prize for
violin in 1985.
Named after Queen Elisabeth of Bel-
gium, the famed patroness, the competi-
tion is devoted to four musical disci-
plines: piano, voice, violin and composi-
tion. The performance sessions - piano,
voice and violin - take place separately
on a rotating basis every three years,
each preceded by a composition con-
test.
“Although I do have regrets about
not winning the grand prize, I am very
[JoongAng Ilbo]
honored to have won fourth place,” Kim
said. “More than anything, I’m glad that
it’s over.”
The young violinist certainly capti-
vated the audience in Brussels, exuding
A Happy Ending to strength and grace beyond her years,
and her story is a modern multicultural
fairytale of talent recognized and obsta-
Violinist’s Unusual Story
cles overcome.
Kim was born in the small city of
Muenster, Germany in 1987 to a Korean
couple, father Dong-wook and mother
Kyeong-suk, who had moved to Ger-
Raised in Germany, Kim Su-yeon owes her acclaimed classical career many to study theology, but found
to a teacher who spotted her talents and made sure they were nurtured themselves struggling.
Her parents soon realized their child
was a musical prodigy. And thanks to
30 korea August 2009
Though her family was not well-off, Kim was able to pursue the violin thanks to Germany’s public
education system.
the German public education system,
she was able to develop her talents with-
out prohibitively expensive lessons.
When Kim was five years old, she
began playing violin with her teacher,
Houssam Mayas. Back then she played a
borrowed instrument - and she still does
today.
In 1995, Kim’s father, who was work-
ing on his dissertation, suffered a cere-
bral hemorrhage, after which he went
through four difficult surgeries. Since
then Kim’s family – her father and moth-
er and her two siblings – has lived off
welfare payments from the German
government.
“I don’t think that I had much diffi-
culty growing up,” Kim said. “Our fam-
ily members love each other, so going
through financial difficulties wasn’t that
hard.”
At the age of nine, Kim enrolled as
an extraordinary student at the Acade-
my of Music, Detmold, Muenster
Department, the youngest extraordi-
nary student ever to be accepted at a
German conservatory.
“There were times when I didn’t
want to practice. So I didn’t,” recalled
Kim. “I read books, played and did not
even look at the violin. But after about a
week, I wanted to play again. Then I
realized that I play not because I have to,
but because I want to.”
In 2004, Kim enrolled at the Muen-
ster Music Academy. She now is a post-
graduate student at the University for
Music and Performing Arts in Munich.
Kim made headlines in the Korean
Culture
[JoongAng Ilbo]
media when she took honors at the
International Berligske Tidende Youth
Competition in Copenhagen in 1999
and 2000, then at the International Vio-
lin Competition Leopold Mozart in
Ausburg in 2003, and again at the
Hanover International Competition in
2006.
Her story even provoked some
reflection about the Korean educational
system, with some here wondering
whether girls like Kim are able to pursue
their talents here to the same degree.
In Korea, classical music education
is often deemed a privilege for wealthy
children, while extracurricular activities
like music, arts and sports are a luxury
for students desperate to score high in
literature, English and mathematics -
subjects vital to get into a good college.
“For me violin was just the natural
way to go,” Kim says. “A teacher told me
I had talent. So I practiced a little harder.
Then an opportunity came by for me to
play in front of others.”
Thus have Kim’s instincts led her to
where she is today - and there’s another
busy month ahead. In August, Kim will
perform in Seoul with six other young
musicians under the baton of popular
local conductor Chung Myung-whun,
while promoting the release of a solo
album she recorded in April.
Kim plays a violin made by Camilus
Camilli in 1742, loaned out to her by the
the German Foundation of Musical Life
in Hamburg. She has the right to use the
instrument until she turns 30. 
By Kim Hyung-eun
August 2009 korea 31

Korean Dancers Jeté to the Top
F
our Korean dancers took
home prizes this year at the
highly prestigious Moscow
International Ballet Competi-
tion, sometimes called the “Olympics of
ballet.”
First held in 1969, the Moscow con-
test takes place every four years. Dedi-
cated to Russia’s legendary ballerina
Marina Semyonova, the competition is
one of the three most respected of its
kind in the world.
At this year’s competition, which
ended June 20, a total of 103 dancers
from all over the world battled it out in
the senior division, while 38 dancers
competed in the junior division. Yuri
[joongAng Ilbo]
32 korea August 2009
Grigorovich, the former ballet master of the Bolshoi
Ballet, and the world famous ballerino Julio Bocca,
along with 15 others from 11 countries, acted as
jurors.
At the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the venue of the
competition, Lee Dong-hun, 23, and Kim Ri-hoe, 22,
both from the Korea National Ballet Company, won
The four second prize in the senior duet category.
Another Korean duo, 16-year-old Kim Ki-min and
dancers put in
17-year-old Chae Ji-young, both students attending
best showing the Korea National University of Arts, won second
prize and the special prize respectively in the solo cat-
Koreans have egory for juniors.
ever achieved It was the best showing by Korean dancers yet at
the esteemed competition. Previously, the bar had
at the Moscow been set by ballerino Kim Yong-gul, who won third
competition. prize in the male’s solo category in 1997, and ballerina
Lee Dong-hun, left, and Kim
Ri-hoe won second place in
the senior duet category in
Moscow.
Kim Joo-won, who won the same prize
in the female solo category in 2001.
“I started preparing for the competi-
tion in March, but because I also had to
prepare for the performances of my bal-
let company, it was very exhausting,”
Kim said. “Dong-hun was the biggest
support I had. So I am very happy with
the result.”
Lee attributed their success to team-
work. “We just told ourselves to do just
like we did during our many practices. I
think that’s how I was able to dance in a
relaxed manner. It’s very gratifying,” Lee
said.
Both Kim and Lee said they were
determined to invest everything into
their performance. They prepared for
the contest on the assumption that they
would make it to the final round.
The duo performed the famous Pas
de Deux between Medora and the Slave
from Act II of “Le Corsaire” in the first
round, and a dance from “Don Quixote”
in the second. Their choice for the third
and final round was a Grand Pas de
Deux from “La Fille Mal Gardée.”
The “Le Corsaire” piece was selected
from a mandatory list of choices for the
first round program. The piece from
“Don Quixote” is fast and exciting,
requiring a lot of technical skill,
while the final piece from “La
Fille Mal Gardée” demands
more profound artistry and
expression.
Kim started dancing ballet when
she was five years old. After graduat-
ing from Sunhwa Art Middle School
and passing a talent examination with
flying colors, she entered the Korea
National University of Arts and joined
the Korea National Ballet Company in
2006.
Lee’s background is markedly differ-
ent. A former breakdancer, Lee started
his career in ballet only after he entered
middle school, on a recommenda-
tion from his physical education
teacher. After winning awards at
many competitions, he joined the
Korea National Ballet Company
last year.
Last December, both per-
formed Tchaikovsky’s “The Nut-
cracker.” While it was Lee’s first
Culture
‘After the first
round, my
fellow jurors
Yuri Grigoro-
vich and
Vladimir
Vasiliev were
in awe.’
[JoongAng Ilbo]
Clockwise from top left: Lee Dong-hun, Kim Ri-hoe, Kim
Ki-min and Chae Ji-young
time in his role, Kim had already performed the work
in 2006, the youngest member of the KNBC ever to
take that lead part.
Choi Tae-ji, the artistic director of the Korea
National Ballet Company, was also present at the com-
petition, invited as a juror.
“After the first round, my fellow jurors Yuri Grigo-
rovich and Vladimir Vasiliev were in awe after watch-
ing the Korean ballet dancers, saying, ‘The traditional
beauty of the Russian Ballet seems to be embedded in
the Korean dancers’,” Choi said.
The foreign judges at the contest couldn’t hide their
amazement at the young Koreans’ talent, according to
Choi.
“It has only been 10 to 15 years since Korean bal-
let has had any exchange with foreign countries. Yet
this competition proved the international prestige of
Korean ballet to the world,” said Choi.
The winners got to show off their talents fur-
ther at a gala performance held in Moscow on
June 20.
Meanwhile, other Korean dancers also
took home awards at various ballet com-
petitions around the world.
The 20-year old Lee Yong-jung and
19-year-old Kim Ki-wan won third in the female
solo category and the special prize in the male solo
category, respectively, in the senior division at the New
York International Ballet Competition in June. Mean-
while, in Europe, at the Premio Roma competition
from June 29 to July 2, Korea’s Song Ho-jin, 22, took
third in the female solo category in the senior divi-
Lee Dong-hun and Kim Ri-hoe sion. By Grace Lee
August 2009 korea 33

Net Fans Whip
Up Their Own
Korean Wave
A
new Korean Wave is growing —
this one with the power to sweep
across the Pacific in seconds,
thanks to online video sharing
site YouTube. After years of effort by fans and
artists, today more than 408,000 Korean pop
culture videos can be found on this United
States-based user-created content site.
By allowing the users to upload the con-
tent of their choice, YouTube opened up a new
conduit to deliver video globally to more than
2 million users per day. That means easier
access to Korean culture for both Koreans liv-
ing abroad and foreign natives.
But the freeform nature of YouTube means
It may seem odd that not only is Korean culture being con-
sumed by foreigners — they’re also remixing
to see a blue- and reproducing it, making themselves part
eyed blond man of the equation. For example, some Ameri-
cans have uploaded video clips of themselves
singing in singing Korean songs on YouTube.
Korean, but James Lockett, 34, has been recording
himself performing Korean music and
James Lockett is uploading video clips on YouTube for a year-
not alone. and-a-half. He has uploaded 39 songs by
34 korea August 2009
Korean musicians such as Yoon Do-hyun, Lee
Seung-chul, Lee Juk and Kim Jang-hoon.
Lockett was first introduced to Korean popu-
lar culture a few years ago by his Korean
friends in Austin, Texas, and since then he has
immersed himself in Korean culture, listen-
ing to the music and learning the language.
Lockett enjoys Korean social networking site
Cyworld more than MySpace and says Yoon
Do-hyun and Seo Ta-ji are his favourite Kore-
an musicians.
His interest finally led Lockett to move to
Seoul, where his interest in Korean music
blossomed further.
“I chose to play primarily Korean songs
because I live in Korea these days and I’m
more interested in Korean music,” says Lock-
ett. He has been interested in music all his life
and uploaded his first Korean song on You-
Tube in early 2008.
Lockett posted his video without expect-
ing any major attention, but it quickly attract-
ed interest.
“I think people appreciate the effort it
takes to play the guitar, sing, and convey some
kind of emotion in another language,”
says Lockett, whose most popular
upload is a cover of Nell’s “Walking into
Memories,” with around 50,000 views
on YouTube.
It may seem peculiar to see a blue-
eyed, blond man singing Korean music
through an American accent, but Lock-
ett’s not the only one.
Songwriter and musician Natalie
White, 27, is another American You-
Tube user who has been uploading
remixes of K-pop songs — and she is
actually well known in Korea. Her cov-
ers of Lee Hyori, Wonder Girls and Girls
Generation songs on YouTube became
so popular that she was invited to the
Korean variety TV show Star King in
March this year. White has been inter-
ested in Korean culture for 10 years and
started to upload Korean songs on You-
Tube in January. Her most popular
upload, a version of Girls’ Generation’s
“Gee,” was posted February 10th and
currently has 1.7 million views.
White discovered Korean music
while attending Northwestern Univer-
sity in Chicago 10 years ago. There were
two local Korean channels that came in
clearly on her TV, and she started watch-
ing music videos by Lee Hyori, Shin-
hwa, Turtles, Cherry Filter and others.
Keeping track of Korean music was
not easy for White, because it wasn’t
widely available in the United States
back then. But with the rapid growth of
the Internet, especially YouTube, White
found a source for the music she has
grown to love.
“It’s the easiest way to gain access to
a culture you admire from afar. There’s
so much more content available now
than there was when I first discovered
it,” White continues. “I have seen Kore-
an culture’s popularity skyrocket on the
Internet.”
K-pop used to be largely unknown
in mainstream America. But the easy-
to-use Web site YouTube offers more
content and easier access for an audi-
ence eager to learn more about Korea.
“I’m happy there is such a strong
online community to share in this par-
ticular interest. I never had that in the
beginning. I used to think I was the only
Stars like BoA
and Wonder
Girls have used
YouTube to build
a fanbase in the
United States.
James Lockett performs a
Korean song with his guitar.
Culture
[JoongAng Ilbo]
Natalie White’s videos, in which she sings covers of K-pop
hits, have been seen millions of times.
one,” White continues. “You’re able to reach people you
never normally would. It’s basically a necessity for
someone like me.”
YouTube is an online archive that allows users to
upload and share videos with the entire world. First
launched in 2005, it rapidly grew in popularity among
young members of the Internet generation. According
to one estimate, in 2007 YouTube consumed as much
bandwidth as the entire Internet used in 2000. And
today, YouTube is the dominant provider of online
video in the United States, with a market share of 43
percent and more than 6 billion videos viewed in Jan-
uary, according to comScore, a market research com-
pany.
Because of its popularity, YouTube has developed
into a unique culture unto itself among the young. By
providing a chance for users to interact directly with
artists and fans, it bypasses the mainstream media
industries. Anybody can show off their talent there by
producing a video and vying for the attention of the
world. YouTube also opened up possibilities for Kore-
an popular culture to spread.
The Web helped Korean singers like BoA and
Wonder Girls to make successful inroads in the United
States. Even before her debut, BoA had already gained
a fan base from musical performances uploaded on
YouTube, and her first American single, “Eat You Up,”
was introduced at the YouTube concert YT Live. Won-
der Girls also set up their own YouTube channel to
update fans on their schedule and show video clips of
their life in the States.
As YouTube becomes the go-to spot for Korean
content overseas, it boosts the spread of Korean popu-
lar culture around the world. The cycle of fans upload-
ing new videos and viewing existing ones is expected
to continue, bringing the Korean Wave to new shores
across the globe. 
By Yoon Su-jin
August 2009 korea 35

Invasion of the Weird Movies
K
orean movie buffs know that
every October, the place to
be is the Pusan International
Film Festival, the country’s
biggest, in the southern port city of
Busan. Now in its 13th year, PIFF has
grown into the premier film event in
Asia.
If once a year just isn’t enough,
Korea’s No. 2, the Jeonju International
Film Festival serves film buffs each
spring in the traditional town of Jeonju,
North Jeolla, focusing on independent
films and lesser-known directors.
But for those with a particular taste
for blood, thrills or science fiction,
PiFan beats them both.
Short for the Puchon International
Fantastic Film Festival, PiFan is held
Celebrities walk the red carpet at the 13th
Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival
July 16 in the city of Bucheon, Gyeonggi. The
event featured 202 films from 41 countries.
36 korea August 2009
each year Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, outside Seoul.
It has grown into the country’s largest genre film fest
through cooperation with global counterparts such as
Japan’s Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival
and the European Fantastic Film Festival Federation.
This year PiFan was held over 11 days from July
16 to 26 and featured 202 films from 41 countries,
including 38 world premieres and 26 international
premieres. The festival theme was, “Love, Fantasy,
Korea’s top Adventure.”
genre film fest On the occasion of the festival’s 13th anniversary,
organizers decided to include several movies that
is celebrating refer to numbers, including the unlucky one in ques-
its lucky 13th tion, said Kwon Yong-min, PiFan programmer, prior
to the opening.
with vampires, Other films were the first of their kind ever seen:
Czech sci-fi Invitation Only, which was screened as part of the
Puchon Choice Feature section, is the first Taiwanese festival, was the first Indonesian mar-
and more. slasher movie, while Merantau, which closed out the tial arts film.
But the banner event was the Kore-
an premiere of M.W. by Japanese direc-
tor Hitoshi Iwamoto, which opened
this year’s festival. Tickets for the film
sold out in less than five minutes after
online reservations opened in mid-
June. The movie is a live-action adapta-
tion of a dark revenge manga series
written by the late Osamu Tezuka,
Japan’s “godfather of anime.”
“Unlike Tezuka’s other works, M.W.
portrays the dark side of the human
being. I tried not to rely too much on
computer graphics and instead create
action and suspense to breathe life into
the original,” said Iwamoto, who visited
Bucheon on PiFan’s opening day to
attend the screening of his film.
PiFan 2009 included eight regular
sections — Puchon Choice, World Fan-
tastic Cinema, Fantastic Short Films,
Forbidden Zone, Family Fanta, Ani-
Fanta, Special Programs and Retro-
Provided by the organizer
spectives — presenting audiences with
a variety of cinematic choices.
The World Fantastic Cinema sec-
tion, the core of the festival, centered on
independent Korean, South Asian and
Culture
[JoongAng Ilbo], [NEWSIS], Provided by the organizer
Five actresses starring in the fifth episode of
the Korean horror series Whispering Corri-
dors: Blood Pledge walk down the red carpet.
Top. the 13th PiFan opening film was M.W.
Also screened was Korean director Park Chan-
wook’s Thirst.
European films, while the Forbidden ings and tell them more about Czech
Zone featured hardcore genre films. literature and filmmaking.
Despite the festival’s general focus The other special program, Fanta
on horror, thriller and sci-fi films, plen- Masters: Vampires of Their Own, fea-
ty of fantasy and animation suitable for tured variations by different directors
children and other movies for general on the timeless horror icon of the vam-
audiences were also on offer in the pire, including famed auteur Roman
Family Fanta and Ani Fanta sections. Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers
Korean audiences also had the rare and internationally acclaimed South
opportunity to see genre films from the Korean director Park Chan-wook’s lat-
Czech Republic at this year’s PiFan est work, Thirst, which was awarded the
through the special Czech-Imagination Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes film fes-
program. tival.
“Because of my interest in the sci- Also on hand was Japanese director
ence fiction field, I was pleased to be Takashi Shimizu, who shared behind-
part of PiFan this year,” said Czech the-scenes stories about his world-fa-
Ambassador to Korea Jaroslav Olsa, mous horror series Juon in another
who spearheaded his country’s involve- special program arranged by PiFan to
ment in the film fest. commemorate the series’ 10th anniver-
The ambassador has long been sary this year.
involved with science fiction, authoring Meanwhile, PiFan’s industry pro-
an encyclopedia of genre literature and gram, called the Network of Asian Fan-
founding the first Czech sci-fi maga- tastic Films, which was created last year
zine, Ikarie, which itself has a 20-year to help genre filmmakers expand their
history. networks and keep track of new trends,
Ondrej Neff, a Czech science fiction gave the creators of 19 genre films from
writer and journalist and an old friend 10 countries a chance to present their
of the ambassador who co-founded film to and meet with their potential
Ikarie, was down in Bucheon with Olsa producers and investors. 
to meet viewers after the Czech screen- By Park Sun-young
August 2009 korea 37

This mask performance by Group Jip Hyun,
titled “On the distant hill across the river,”
will be just one part of the festival.
Thriving Traditions on Stage
Autumn performance festival combines old styles with new sensibilities
S
eptember in Korea brings a
cool autumn breeze that seems
to whisper in the ear, enticing
families outdoors for a walk in
nature’s glory. It also happens to be the
perfect season to enjoy traditional
Korean performing arts.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and
Tourism will sponsor the Korea Tradi-
tional Performing Arts Festival 2009
from Sept. 16 to 20 at the National
Museum of Korea. The festival will
combine a variety of traditional Korean
performances with a few from overseas
to create a program people of all ages
can enjoy.
The festival, the third of its kind, is
38 korea August 2009
held in 2009 during the year of the
100th anniversary of the establishment
of the National Museum of Korea, and
it’s expected to attract approximately
200,000 visitors.
The local contributions will include
namsadang (a troupe of traveling per-
formers), pansori (traditional Korean
lyric storytelling), madanggeuk (out-
door theater), talchum mask dance
shadow theater, a samulnori percussion
quartet, and jultagi rope performanc-
es.
The focus of this year’s festival is on
raising interest in and awareness of
Korean traditional performance. The
ministry hopes to develop shows that
can be enjoyed and appreciated by
audiences from anywhere in the world.
It also aims to reach out to a younger
generation more used to pop songs and
dance music.
Competitions among professional
performing groups will reward the
most creative reinterpretation of tradi-
tion to incorporate modern sensibili-
ties. Ten groups passed the screening
round and will perform at the festival.
The ministry will select five works that
they deem highly likely to appeal to
both foreign and Korean audiences.
“Audiences will witness birth of a
new tradition though the combination
of the past and future of Korean per-
forming arts,” said Lee Sun-min, plan-
ning team manager for the festival. The
winners will get support from the min-
istry and worldwide publicity.
In another rare treat, viewers will
have the opportunity to compare the
traditions of Korea, China and Japan as
intangible cultural assets from all three
countries perform in the same place.
Japan’s Ise Kagura and China’s Chuanju
and Bianlian will be among the styles
on display.
There’s even an area where ama-
teurs can strut their stuff; 40 pieces cre-
ated by members of the general public
will be staged there. Similarly, this com-
petition is designed to showcase inno-
vative combinations of the traditional
and the modern, but also to hunt down
any unknown talent hiding in the
everyday world. Anyone, regardless of
occupation, nationality or age, can par-
ticipate, but the deadline to apply is
August 7.
Foreigners interested in Korean cul-
ture will be no mere onlookers. The
festival provides a firsthand experience
of local traditions, with lessons for for-
eigners focused on talchum and sam-
ulnori. Under the guidance of an Eng-
lish-speaking instructor, foreigners will
have the chance to make their own tal
mask and learn how to dance, or how to
play in a samulnori ensemble.
“Traditional performing arts are no
longer old,” art director Cho Soo-dong
said. “The traditional performing arts
will not only adhere to past forms. We
are entering a time of modern perfor-
mances where tradition is inherited
creatively, and I believe all the people
will be able to enjoy this through the
festival.”
Cho is a veteran curator who direct-
ed the closing ceremony of the Seoul
Olympics back in 1988, as well as the
opening and closing ceremonies of the
Busan Asian Games and the Hi Seoul
Festival.
Events will take place from 11 a.m.
to 10 p.m. for five days (Sept. 16 to 20)
at the National Museum of Korea. For
more information call 82-707-506-
2848, e-mail openpan@paran.com or go
to the official Web site, www.openpan.
com.  By Kim Mi-ju
Culture
Two of the festival’s more modern pieces
are Huo-i Huo-i (Princess Bari’s Journey:
Episode Seven) by Tae Hye-Shinyn Kar-
mafree Dance Company, left, and Jindo
Myung Da Ri Gut by the Chung-Ang Mu-
sic Drama Company.
Q&A Cho Soo - dong
In a brief interview, Cho Soo-dong, art director of the
Korea Traditional Performing Arts Festival 2009, said he
is hopeful the festival will help local culture spread on
the world stage.
Q. Why was such a festival launched?
A. There were different festivals featuring Korean traditional performing arts in the past,
but the public became fed up with traditional performances because they were all the
same. The performances had been showcased without any changes in story and format.
Many have lost the appetite for such performances. And that’s why the Korea Tradition-
al Performing Arts Festival was started in 2006. The festival aims to nurture traditional
performing arts while fusing the new and old faces of Korea to create something that
can be widely accepted not only by the general Korean public but also the world.
Q. Is the committee considering providing foreign language services for foreign
visitors who are interested in learning Korean traditional arts?
All photos provided by the Korea Traditional Performing Arts Festival Committee
A. English subtitles will be provided for every performance on a screen to help foreign-
ers understand them. This includes performers’ lines. They will not miss a single mo-
ment, and will be able to laugh with the Korean audience.
Also, there will be brief explanations of the history and theme of every performance at
the festival.
Brochures will be provided in three foreign languages, English, Japanese, and Chinese,
each with details about every performance.
Q. How’s this year’s festival different from previous ones?
A. There will be also sessions by Korean TV show and movie directors. They will show
people how Korean traditional performing arts have been portrayed and reflected in the
media. They will also speak with people seeking ways to help traditional performances
be accepted by the global public. Anyone who is interested is welcome to participate.
Q. Are there any programs for foreigners?
A. This year’s festival has more activities than visitors can take part in. Foreigners will
be able to create their own masks and learn talchum. They will also be able to learn
samulnori, while playing different Korean instruments.
August 2009 korea 39

“W
Masters Gather hat’s in a
name?” Juliet
asked. We all
at Mountains remember the
heroine in the timeless play engaging in
this heartfelt soliloquy about her love’s
Music Festival
pesky family moniker.
This summer, the organizers of the
upcoming International Great Moun-
tains Music Festival and School,
GMMFS for short, ask that question of
Known for its eccentric themes, the you.
event is a chance for students to learn But it’s not the love of a woman for a
man that prompted them to ask. Rather,
from some of the world’s top virtuosi it’s their love for some of history’s great-
est songs and composers.
“I hope at this year’s GMMFS, the
participants can explore what the names
of certain composers or titles of certain
pieces entail,” says Kang Hyo, the festi-
40 korea August 2009
Provided by the organizer
Top, the Sejong Soloists pose in Pyeongchang, Gangwon
while participating in the International Great Mountains Mu-
sic Festival and School. Above, Korean cellist Chung Myung-
wha, one of the master participating at the festival, is now a
regular at GMMFS. 
Culture
val’s artistic director, at a press conference in central Seoul last
week.
“Juliet says, ‘that which we call a rose, by any other name would
smell as sweet.’ I want the festival to be an opportunity to examine
how names and titles express the fragrance, if you will, of composers
and songs, as well as how that fragrance is delivered to the audi-
ence.”
Pretty philosophical, even vague, some might say.
But the festival, now in its sixth year, has always picked rather
difficult themes: last year it was the combination of images, text and
music. One show that year was called “Eh Joe,” adapting music by
noted Korean-American composer Earl Kim (1920-1988) and imag-
es by Irish dramatist Samuel Beckett (1906-1989).
But the organizers of GMMFS seems to take pride in a theme that
encompasses not just music but also literature, philosophy and visu-
al art, saying that the festival is a venue to introduce avant-garde or
peripheral trends and values in the music scene.
As in previous years, the festival will feature three weeks of clas-
sical concerts and classes at the scenic mountain resort of Pyeong-
chang in Gangwon Province.
“Before we received about 150 students a year, but this year we
have accepted 183 students, expanding the classes,” said Korean cel-
list Chung Myung-wha, one of the participating virtuosi.
Chung, now a regular at GMMFS, says that she had planned to
take part in just a few events, but that she just couldn’t help but come
back.
“For students, it’s a great opportunity to learn from renowned
teachers without having to travel abroad. For teachers, it’s a rare,
intimate opportunity to spend quality time with young musicians,”
Chung says.
Organizers say some of the highlights this year include “Bachi-
anas Brasileiras No. 5,” which was written over a period of 15 years
by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959). Aldo
Parisot, a Brazilian-born American cellist who’s been teaching at
GMMFS from 2004, will perform the piece. Parisot was a good friend
of Villa-Lobos.
Others include “Ghost Opera” by Tan Dun, a Chinese contempo-
rary classical composer who wrote scores for films such as Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Voice of Whale by George Crumb, an
American composer of modern and avant-garde music who wrote
the piece inspired by the voices of whales.
This year’s GMMFS also features some new faces. Elmar Oliveira,
the first and the only American violinist to win at Moscow’s Tchaik-
ovsky International Competition, will be performing her first Korean
show in 10 years.
The International Great Mountains Music Festival & School runs
until Aug. 14 in and around the scenic mountain resort area of
Pyeongchang, Gangwon. For more details visit www.gmmfs.com or
call the organizer at (033) 253-7497. Some programs are free of
charge, while others require reservations — visit ticketlink.co.kr or
call 1588-7890. 
By Kim Hyung-eun
August 2009 korea 41

The Prima Donna Behind
Korea’s Ballet Success
I
t wasn’t too long ago that ballet was considered
entertainment for a wealthy minority in Korea.
But today, it’s begun to seep into the public
consciousness. What’s responsible for the
change?
Asking who might be more accurate, because as
many Korean enthusiasts will tell you, it’s all thanks
to ballerina Choi Tae-ji.
When two South Korean dancers won second
prize in the duet division at the Moscow Interna-
tional Ballet Competition in June, the highest level
any Korean had ever achieved at the competition also
known as the “Olympics of ballet,” it was Choi critics
praised once again for encouraging young Korean
ballerinas and ballerinos to strive for greatness.
And Choi was watching this year’s competition
from the other side of the judges’ table at the Bolshoi
Theater, as one of the 15 people selected for a jury
that included star choreographers Vladimir Vasiliev
and Yuri Grigorovich.
“It has only been a decade since exchanges began
between Korean ballet and foreign ballet, and it
seems the world is acknowledging us already,” said
Choi excitedly in a recent interview. “Korean dancers
have the passion and talent to mesmerize the audi-
ence, and their physical condition doesn’t lag behind
Western dancers either.
“Korean ballet is about to move up to another
level,” she said.
Choi is currently head of the Korea National Bal-
let Company, and her fans call her the godmother of
Korean ballet. Some even call her the “CEO of the art
world,” for her doggedness in bringing Korean ballet
into the public eye.
She has served the national ballet for years as lead
coach and art director. She was even named director
of the KNBC once before, 13 years ago. In 1996, at
37, she became the youngest KNBC director ever,
staying in the post for five years. After that she worked
as a top manager of the Chongdong Theater in cen-
Choi’s abilities as a director
have earned even greater
tral Seoul.
[JoongAng Ilbo]
praise than her long career as The KNBC called her back as director in 2008,
a ballerina. crediting her with drawing the public to ballet as
popular entertainment.
42 korea August 2009
She instituted several novel measures
to fill seats, staging performances with
narration in Korean to allow locals to
understand the plot. This approach let
Koreans relax even during a performance
by the Russian Bolshoi Ballet.
Choi also dramatically lowered ticket
prices, sometimes selling seats for just
10,000 Korean won (about $7.50) or even
giving them out for free. She took the
show on the road outside the capital, to
attract more diverse audiences through-
out the country.
Choi is Korean-Japanese and still
prefers to speak Japanese or English over
Korean. She was 27 years old and spoke
no Korean at all when she made her
Korean debut in 1987. Before arriving in
Seoul, she studied in Japan and the Unit-
ed States at the Kaitani Ballet Academy,
the Joffrey Ballet School and the New
York City Ballet.
“There were many difficulties in
communication when I decided to dance
with the Korean company,” she recalled.
“But I think it was my national identity
back then as a Korean that told me to go
back to my mother country and do
something for it. I guess that’s what made
me what I am now.”
She soon became the star of the
national ballet company in the 1980s,
starring as the prima donna in major
Above left, Choi is lifted during a performance of The Nutcracker with the Korea National Ballet Company, while above right, Choi leaps in
the Korean ballet Prince Hodong.
Korean Artist
‘I keep telling works such as Swan Lake, Don Quixote and Giselle. She
may have had difficulty with spoken language, but on
myself never to stage her message came across loud and clear, and she
forget the pas-
sion I had
became a media darling.
Ballet critics praise her even more for her talent
planning programs as administrator of the national bal-
when I first
let company, even as she showed special passion for
teaching younger Korean students to dance.
stood on the “I keep telling myself never to forget the passion that
Korean stage.’ I had when I first stood on the Korean stage,” she said.
“I still have a long way to go to achieve what I want to
do here.”
Her next goal is to build a ballet school for Korean
teenagers so that they can receive proper, continuous
dance education. She also dreams of building a theater
exclusively for Korean ballet so that more people will
appreciate its beauty.
Choi is currently working on producing her own
modern ballet works, hoping to inspire overseas troupes
to restage Korean works.
Her colleagues and her fans say it’s Choi’s endur-
ance, devotion, training and belief in what she can do
that keep her going.
On August 7 and 8, Choi plans to stage Cinderella
for a Chinese audience in the city of Ordos in Inner
Mongolia, followed by a production of Tchaikovsky,
which she believes will be a technical challenge for her
students.
Choi’s young daughter must have inherited her tal-
ent, as she is also a ballerina, currently with a Russian
company. Some Korean critics even dare to hope that,
one day, we will see Korea’s first mother and daughter
duo on stage.  By Hong Jin
[JoongAng Ilbo]
August 2009 korea 43
 Business

using conventional plastic to enclose Innovation, “Fans are one of those products that get used for
the portable PC, these computers have three months or so and are stored for nine months

Bright Ideas
bamboo paneling. Besides being par-
tially natural and biodegradable, the
notebook is energy-efficient and has a
longer battery life compared to previ-
ous models. The creative computers
were honored by both TIME and
that eternal after that. So we tried to solve the inconvenient stor-
watchword, age issue.” He said that to make the design slimmer
and more compact, he put the motor inside the main
can lead to base and made the neck of the fan adjustable.
Other innovative “idea products” are also target-
some weird ing summer shoppers on the Internet. Take the “Oli-

to Change
National Geographic magazines, with
the former’s style and design section
writing that the laptop “ranks high in
energy conservation and saves 27 lbs
[12 kg] of carbon emissions annually.”
Hanwha L&C’s “Myeongga Magic”
but brilliant ver Toy Swim Coach,” an inflatable swimsuit for chil-
dren learning to swim sold at Auction, a Web site
products. owned by eBay, Inc. The “Idea Hat Flash,” also sold
at Auction, is a camping hat with a flashlight on the
front, for venturing out of the tent at night.
The “Play and Freeze” ice cream maker, made by

Our Lives
flooring material is another clever
energy-saving product for the home,
turning from grey to brown when
heated above 31 degrees Celsius. The
company said it mixed a color-chang-
ing ink into the material to create the
effect. In Korea, where it’s easy to forget
to turn off floor heaters, it’s an inven-
tive way to save oil — and cash.
Food dehydrators • Color-changing floors • Bamboo computers But with summer here, most are
facing the opposite problem, with large
Behind each is a passionate inventor — and a lot of perseverance fans taking up space in bedrooms
across the country. This clunky clutter
inspired local company Innoman to
the U.S.-based firm Industrial Revolution, is an ice
cream maker shaped like a ball. Customers can sim-
ply put ice and rock salt in one end and ingredients
into the other, then play with the ball to churn the ice
cream.
For those long trips on the road, there are even
disposable urinals for children, made by local com-
pany Calyx out of paper and resin, which absorbs
urine and turns it into a jellylike substance, ready for
disposal. On Calyx’s homepage, the owner Shin
Wuk-jung writes that he got the idea for the product
because he is the father of two children himself. 
By Cho Jae-eun

L
ee Hee-ja’s life turned around
12 years ago, in 1997, with one
bright idea.
She, like many housewives
in Korea, found it burdensome to sep-
arate food waste from other garbage
and throw it out in a bucket. “Because
Korea has a lot of spicy, soup-based
food, often times, there is smelly spill-
age,” Lee said.
But Lee tackled the problem,
inventing a device to dehydrate food
waste and prepare it for easy disposal.
As the founder and president of Loofen
BIF Co. Ltd., she’s pioneered a new
business, leaving bigger companies
including Woongjin Coway running
to catch up. (Woongjin will launch its
own food waste dryer this year.)
For many local companies, success
is as simple, or as difficult, as one out-
side-the-box idea. Take Wise & Blue, a
local maker of Bluetooth headsets that
expanded into dry-erase markers with
tinational retail group based in France,
visited the small Korean company to
examine the markers and verify the
company’s claims.
According to Wise & Blue, the
buyer was impressed that the ink didn’t
leave any residue and could be erased
easily with one swipe. Last month,
Auchan signed a contract with the
Korean company to supply them with
water chalk products.
“We conducted tests for more than
three years using various plants to
make this ink,” said Kim Ji-hyeon, an
executive at Wise & Blue. “We are now
in the process of trying to make a deal
with the United States-based Staples
and Best Buy, as well as the Japanese
stationery company Pentel.”
A similar product for computer
printers is Fuji Xerox’s “solid ink.”
Though shaped like ink cartridges,
they are in fact a solid mass of ink,
which makes for easy installation and
launch its Edison brand fans, which
fold down for easy storage. On June 19
this year, when the company first fea-
tured the product on the GS Home
Shopping channel, 300 units were sold
in the first 15 minutes. Just five days
later, the company had chalked up
more than 300 million won ($230,000)
in sales.
“Although [Edison fans] are twice
as expensive as cheaper Chinese fans
sold online, the fact that the height and
angle could be adjusted appealed to
customers,” said a spokesperson for GS
Home Shopping.
Lee Soon, head of Innoman, agreed.
Lee Hee-ja
toner residue and does not hurt the
ozone layer. Because of these benefits,
many hospitals, research centers and
preschools use the product, even
Far left, Fuji Xerox’s “solid
though it is a bit pricey compared to its ink” wastes no plastic on
traditional counterparts. cartridges, while, left and
Another environment-friendly above, Lee Hee-ja changed
[JoongAng Ilbo]

its “water chalk,” which it says uses significantly less waste, according to innovation that has made headlines is the market by inventing the
eco-friendly, non-toxic ink. Earlier the company. Also, because the prod- Taiwan-based Asus’ bamboo notebook food dehydrator.
this year, a buyer from Auchan, a mul- uct uses natural palm oil, it leaves no series, launched last year. Instead of
44 korea August 2009 August 2009 korea 45

Hidden
Champions
Ad Printer Maker Stays
Ahead of Tech Curve
E
ver wonder how those huge
advertisements plastered on
sides of office buildings and
department stores get made?
They’re just like your digital ink-jet
printer at home - but on a massive,
much higher-quality scale. In fact, these
industrial printers are usually about
five meters long, capable of producing
a banner advertisement in just a couple
of minutes.
And the company with the world’s
largest market share in these remark-
able machines is DGI. Starting off as
IIIi, a small company that manufac-
tured drafting machines, in 1985, DGI’s
products were high-quality and came
at a competitive price, leaving a lot of
potential for the company to grow.
But for the company to thrive it had
to overcome a new challenge, as com-
puter-aided design, also known as
CAD, began to replacing hand-drawn
designs.
To keep up with the competition,
the company entered the computer
printer market.
In 1993 DGI jointly developed a
pen plotter, a vector-based device that
DGI prints using a robotic pen, with the
Has largest global market Korea Research Institute of Standards
share, partners in over 70 and Science. Pen plotters are only capa-
countries ble of creating line art.
In 1996, the company began devel-
oping a cutting plotter, which it com-
pleted the following year.
This new product was a huge step
for the company. Vinyl sign cutters like
46 korea August 2009
the one DGI produced are used to cre-
ate weather-resistant posters and bill-
board signs designed using CAD.
It was the first time a cutting plotter
had been developed using completely
Korean technology. Previous plotters
had been made from imported parts.
DGI decided to build a digital ink-
jet plotter, as the advertisement market
changed from text-oriented advertise-
ments to visual-heavy signs.
Using the company’s experience
with software and machinery, DGI suc-
cessfully introduced its first inkjet plot-
ter in 2000 along with a new digital
image printing algorithm.
The DGI inkjet plotter uses the
piezo system, a pressure application
that maintains the quality of printed
outdoor posters and billboard signs
over the long term.
The firm now enjoys the largest
share of the global market, and has
signed deals with 90 companies in over
70 countries, including India.
The secret behind DGI’s success is
its targeting of a niche market and its
persistence in the face of a challenge.
DGI has continuously expanded its
business, acquiring IJT Inkjet Technol-
ogy, a U.S.-based company that special-
ized in inkjet printer heads, in 2004.
DGI is also known for its strict
quality management and customer ser-
vice. Each product has its own serial
number and must be put through a
300-step checklist before it’s shipped
out.  By Lee Ho-jeong
Yoo Chang-hyeon, a Chung-Ang University basketball player leads Koreans athletes on a march from University Village, a new housing
complex for athletes in the downtown Belgrade area, to Beogradska Areana where the opening ceremony was held.
Korea Third at Universiade
Athletes edge Japan in medal count for best showing ever overseas
K
orea finished the 2009 Universiade Games held in
Belgrade, Serbia third overall. At the international
student games, Korea tied its best Universiade finish,
achieved at the 2003 Games in Daegu, making the
Belgrade performance the country’s best ever on foreign soil.
As expected, Korea gained plenty of medals in tae-
kwondo and archery, but there were a few surprises as
well. Heading into the final day of competition, Korea
was in fourth behind Japan in medal standings, but Kim
Duk-hyun won a gold medal in the long jump event —
Korea’s lone gold in track and field — to nudge Korea into
third with 21 gold, 11 silver and 15 bronze medals. Kim’s
best, an 8.2-meter jump, was good enough to break the
Korean record he himself set in October. He nearly beat the cur-
rent Universiade record with a jump of 8.41 meters, but with wind
speeds clocking in at 3.5 meters per hour, that jump was ruled
wind-aided.
One of the more impressive performances at the Games was
the women’s football squad, which managed a podium finish for
the first time. The team started the group phase with a dominating
4-0 win over Germany and a lopsided 12-0 win over South Afri-
ca, the most commanding victory in the team’s history.
Later victories in the quarter and semifinals in penalty kicks
Business
Sports
[YONHAP]
were a prelude to a 4-1 defeat of rival Japan, also in penalty
kicks.
“We’ve never had such an easy victory over Japan in the past,”
sated the team manager Ahn Ik-soo. “I hope the win generates
increased interest in the sport of women’s football.”
The fencing team also put in a stellar showing at the
games, with two athletes on top of the podium. Son
Young-ki won the gold in the men’s individual foil, while
and Kim Hae-rim won in the women’s individual sabre.
Son, a late bloomer, picked up fencing in his first year of
high school, and with just eight years of experience under
his belt, became the first Korean male to win gold in a
fencing event at the Universiade Games by defeating
Italy’s Tobia Biondo 15-9 in the finals.
Kim Hae-rim upped Bao Yingying of China 15-11 in the
finals to earn her second gold since finishing first in a team sabre
competition in Bangkok two years ago.
Female archer Kim Yea-seul was the top performer at the
games for Korea with three gold medals. Judoka Wang Ki-Chun
and Kim Sung-min notched two gold medals apiece.
The Universiade gave young Koreans valuable experience,
and they’ll need it with the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou,
China coming up late next year.  By Jason Kim
August 2009 korea 47

Yi Eun-jung reacts after missing a birdie
putt on the first hole in the final round of
the Jamie Farr Classic golf tournament July
5 in Sylvania, Ohio, United States.
[AP]
2 New Talents Smash Way
Y
oung Korean golfers made a
lot of noise on the LPGA tour
last month — even more than
usual.
Often referred to as the “Pak Se-ri
kids,” after the Korean hall-of-famer,
Shin Ji-yai, Kim In-kyung and Park In-
bee are just a few of the most recogniz-
able faces of the group, and all are hav-
ing a solid LPGA season.
But they’ll have to make room for
two more female golfers who made
names for themselves in the month of
July.
Ji Eun-hee became the third Korean
golfer to win the U.S. Open and only the
seventh Korean female golfer to win a
major championship on the LPGA tour.
Pak Se-ri broke that barrier 11 years ago
when she won her first major at the U.S.
Open, and Park In-bee won the title last
season.
A native of Gapyeong, Gyeonggi,
with two KLPGA wins, two LPGA wins
and two Asian tour wins, Ji had been a
relative unknown among Korean female
48 korea August 2009
golfers. Although winning her first
major was an impressive feat, what made
the win all the more dramatic was the
manner in which she won.
Ji, dressed in her trademark black on
the final day, struggled early on, making
a double-bogey on the 10th hole. But it
seems her errant play simply helped
ease her nerves for the final stretch of
the competition.
“I had birdied on the No. 8 and that
drove me to get ahead of myself and
think about the possibility of winning
the championship,” Ji explained.
“I was able to calm down after the
double-bogey. Up until that point, Cris-
tie Kerr was so far ahead, and I just
didn’t think anyone was going to be able
to catch up with her. I basically cleared
my mind at that point.”
Ji went on to birdie on the 13th and
14th to tie for the lead with Kerr, Kim
In-kyung and Candie Kung before she
rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt on the
final hole to defeat Kung.
“I was really nervous — nervous to
the point where my hands were shak-
ing,” said Ji about preparing for the deci-
sive putt.
Yi Eun-jung also made headlines
after years of toiling in obscurity when
she captured the LPGA Jamie Farr Clas-
sic in early July.
While born in the same year as Shin
Ji-yai and talented enough, Yi was an
unknown until last month. The Pocheon,
Gyeonggi native got her start in golf at
the urging of her father in middle school,
when her main objective was to lose
weight. Unlike Shin and Park, who won
fame on the junior and amateur circuit,
Yi started out on the Futures Tour, a
notch below the LPGA. But she failed to
make a splash there and had to go
through qualifying school this year after
finishing her rookie year in the LPGA at
104th in total earnings.She had never
won an amateur tourney, and her big-
gest title prior to this one was the 2005
US Amateur Public Links Champion-
ship.
“I don’t even have a Korean amateur
Sports
Ji Eun-hee holds her trophy as Paul Park of
Hana Bank pours champagne over her after
winning the U.S. Women’s Open golf champi-
onship at the Saucon Valley Country Club in
[YONHAP]
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on July 12.
Into LPGA’s Winners Club
title to my name. The biggest win in my during the Jamie Farr Classic. Ji and Yi still have a way to go before
career was the amateur public links “I struggled with my putting game they can be included among the cham-
championship, and that just goes to in the past and suffered from back and pions on the LPGA tour, but with big
show how little exposure I had in the neck pain in the past year. My qualifying wins last month, both have established
past,” said Yi after her win in Sylvania, school scores were subpar, and so I had a solid start to what will hopefully be
Ohio. been competing this year as an alternate two very exciting careers. 
The 21-year-old captured her first participant,” said Yi.  By Jason Kim
win after birdying the first playoff hole
to defeat American Morgan Pressel. Yi
completed at an even par-71 to finish at
18 under 266. She shot an impressive 61
on the final day of competition.
Yi skipped the Korean amateur links
completely by chance. During the win-
ter of 2002, she left to train in California
and ended up staying long-term.
“I came to California, and it had a
great atmosphere for those involved in
golf. I had the goal of making the LPGA
Tour anyway, so I decided to start as a
competitor here in the States,” explained
Yi.
Though Yi could be considered a
[YONHAP]
late bloomer, her past woes were largely
due to injuries. She wore a knee brace to
relieve some of the pain in her left knee Ji Eun-hee is only the seventh Korean female golfer to win a major LPGA championship.
August 2009 korea 49
 Korea through the Lens
[JoongAng Ilbo]

[YONHAP]
A Snack for a President — Above, Presi-
Click dent Lee Myung-bak tastes boiled fish cake
June 25 at a Korean traditional market in
Korea Dongdaemun County, eastern Seoul, during
a tour to check the condition of the local
economy.

Big-screen TV — Above right, Samsung

Electronics said recently that it has established
two 46-inch full-sized monitors in front of the
Statute of Liberty in New York. The monitors
are twice as bright as regular full-sized screens
Off to Chuncheon
and are visible even in bad weather due to an
- Right, The Seoul-
air conditioning adjuster inside them.
Chuncheon Expressway

running from Misari on
Down and Dirty — Right, the annual
the outskirts of Seoul to
Boryeong Mud Festival returned to Korea’s
Chuncheon, Gangwon,
popular Daecheon Beach in Boryeong, South
opened to traffic July 15.
Chungcheong, for a nine-day run ending
The highway is expected
July 19. Celebrating its 12th year, the festival
to offer a quicker route
always attracts thousands of people from all
to one of Korea’s most
over the world with the promise of play and

[YONHAP]
[YONHAP]

popular resort areas.

health benefits in its famous mud.
 Korea through the Lens

[JoongAng Ilbo]
Marrying the Culture — Curt Olson, chief excutive of ING Life Insurance Korea, gets mar-
ried in a traditional Korean ceremony at Korea House. The 55-year old assumed his position in
Korea in April 2008. The couple said they would live in a hanok, or traditional Korean home, in
downtown Seoul.
Provided by Dahanu Village

And Now For Something Completely Different — “Korean Eye,” an exhibit of contem-
porary Korean art sponsored by the SAATCHI GALLERY in London, run by the world-renowned
collector Charles Saatchi, was so popular that it had to be extended to two months. More than
40 thousand visitors came to the event, which now ends Sept. 13, over just two weeks.

A New Alliance for Peace — Foreign students participate in the “We Love Peace” event
sponsored by Dahanu Village in Gimpo, Gyeonggi, making rice balls with Korean beef to pray for
peace and reunification

A Milestone of Note — On June 23, the Bank of Korea put into circulation the new 50,000
won banknotes, the largest denomination since the BOK started issuing 10,000 won bills in 1973.

[KOREAEYE-SAATCHI GALLERY]
[YONHAP]

Korea’s Temples
Open Their Doors
Buddhist institutions offer the chance to experience
traditional culture while exploring one’s own soul
E
very urbanite has at one time
or another longed to get away
from the exhausting routine
of the daily grind. As a chance
to relax in a beautiful natural setting
while replenishing the mind and the
spirit, temple stay programs have long
been a popular option. More than 100
temples in Korea offer stays for students
or office workers during the summer
vacation season, while even foreign
visitors and residents have begun to
realize the programs’ rejuvenating pow-
er.
Most of the programs are relatively
recent, starting in 2002 in the lead-up to
the World Cup soccer tournament host-
ed by Korea and Japan. The itineraries
are as varied as the Buddhist sects them-
selves, but each one offers a chance to
experience the daily life of a monk.
Many start with pre-dawn yebul (cere-
monial chants), followed by activities
that may include chamseon (sitting
meditation), 108 prostrations, a walk
54 korea August 2009
Travel
through the temple with one prostra-
tion every three steps, dado tea ceremo-
ny early morning mountain treks and
Dharma talks with monks. Most offer
barugongyang, traditional Buddhist
meals in wooden bowls.
The length of a temple stay varies
from just one day to as long as the visitor
wishes.
Retreating to the mountains
The venerable Woljeong Temple
was built in the Silla Kingdom in A.D.
643 by the monk Jajang. It is a head
temple of the Jogye Order of Korean
Buddhism, located on the eastern slopes
of Mount Odae in Pyeongchang Coun-
ty, Gangwon. Since 2002, Woljeong has
hosted temple stays throughout the year,
with an average of 200 to 300 Koreans
Provided by Tongdo Temple
and 50 foreigners coming each month. Temple stay participants
A special package is available for local bow with a monk at
families and foreigners over the sum- Tongdo Temple in South
mer holidays every year, with three Gyeongsang Province.
nights and four days available for for-
August 2009 korea 55
 Travel

Visitors can also appreciate the historic Gap Temple

and Mount Gyeryong National Park, both within an
hour’s driving distance.
Jeong Heon-mook, a 48-year old office worker,
says he goes on temple stay programs whenever he
finds spare time over the weekend. “Temple stay gives
me a way to find myself when I feel I’ve lost my way,”
Jeong says. “I lost myself because I was too much keen
on making money and gaining popularity. But then I
decided to manage my own life and seek for myself.”
Temples in southern Korea mainly offer tea cere-
mony and Zen meditation, because most of the coun-
try’s green tea is cultivated in the south. Geumsan
Temple in Gimjae, North Jeolla; and Seonun Temple
in Gochang, Daeheung Temple in Haenam, Baekyang
‘Temple stay including English teachers, participants
in the Asian Youth Camp and represen-
gives me a tatives of tourism organizations come to
way to find Myogak Temple. The seven-hour pro-
gram includes an introduction to Korea
myself when I and Korean culture, the threading of
feel I’ve lost Buddhist prayer beads, the 108 prostra-
tions, a quiz on Buddhism, the dado tea
my way.’ ceremony and, of course, sitting medita-
tion. All activities are conducted in Eng-
lish.
On the lunch menu are black and
unpolished rice with side dishes made
from brown mushrooms, button mush-
rooms, broccoli and cabbage.

Provided by Myogak Temple

Myogak Temple is well-known for its one-night
temple stay program, left. These programs of-
ten include the threading of Buddhist prayer
beads, top, and the practice of dado, or tea
ceremony, above.
eign visitors at 120,000-200,000 Korean won to the ecology of the area and several
($95-$160). museum tours. Visitors can also enjoy a
Fees for temple stay programs vary depending on trip to the Herbnara arboretum, the
the location. The average price of a one-night, two-day birthplace of Korean novelist Lee Hyo-
stay is about 40,000-50,000 Korean won. Optional seok and the port and beach at Jumunjin
extras include classes in Buddhist teachings, the chance on the east coast. Sangwon Temple, a
to climb the temple “wishing tower,” a walk through small branch temple of Woljeong, is
the nearby fir tree forest with prostrations every three located midway up Mount Odae, and is
steps, or even yoga. A month-long stay, or the chance worth visiting because of the famous
to be a “Buddhist priest for a month,” is also available monks who spent time here through the
for those who wish to experience what ascetic devotees ages.
go through, having their hair shaved and being dressed Magok Temple, located in Gongju,
just like any other novice. When it was offered in July South Chungcheong, offers a youth
last year, only 60 people of the more than 400 who summer camp from August 14 to 16 and
applied were able to experience this program. a family program from August 21 to 23.
“The number of urbanites who wish to have men- Magok was built during the reign of the
tal and physical relaxation at a quiet and beautiful Silla queen Sundeok (632-647), and the
temple continues to grow, as they are too stressed from programs there also include collective
their busy daily lives,” says Kim Eun-mi, the temple therapy to heal mental stresses by expos-
stay coordinator at Woljeong. “Foreigners come to ing emotional and spiritual injuries.
Temple in Jangseong and Hwaeum Temple in Gure, all The daylong programs cost 20,000
in South Jeolla, offer the chance to learn how to make to 30,000 won, while the fee for the over-
traditional and fermented tea. night is 50,000 won.
According to the Venerable Yeo Yeo,
Temple stay in Seoul who is in charge of temple stay programs
But you don’t have to go far afield to experience at Myogak, “People who had been suf-
Buddhist serenity. Temples in Seoul also offer pro- fering from serious hypochondria or
grams for urbanites, and more than 200 Koreans and those who have felt the impulse to kill
700 foreigners have already taken advantage of the themselves come here to be relieved
ones offered by Myogak Temple. Located in a very from their mental stresses.”
quiet residential area along a 100-meter back alley that Jacques, a tourist from the United
meanders off the main road in Sungin-dong, Jongno- States who has participated in the pro-
District, Myogak is surrounded by a small garden with
a statue of the Buddha, enclosed by stone walls, grant-
ing tranquility even in the middle of the capital. The
dull sound of the brass temple bell rings out across the
greenery.
Myogak is well-known for its one-night, two-day
temple stay programs for foreigners. Every weekend,
starting at 2 p.m. on Saturday, visitors come to soothe
their souls. The program begins with the making of
Buddhist lanterns, followed by the striking of the bell
with the monks in the evening and a yebul service with
chanting. Vegetarian meals are served at dinner, after
which meditation lasts until 9:30 p.m., when visitors
are required to go to bed.
You’ll be glad you did, because reveille is at 3 o’clock
in the morning, when participants strike the bell and
prostrate themselves 108 times in front of the statue of
the Buddha in the Hall of Paradise in the pre-dawn
mist. The 108 prostrations are supposed to rid one’s
daily life of 108 kinds of anxieties and fantasies, and
Myogak alumni say they are mentally calming, not

Provided by Tongdo Temple

learn and experience the spirit of Eastern culture,
Korean Buddhism and meditation.”
More than 150 Buddhist monks and administra-
tive staff currently reside at Woljeong Temple, which
also offers tours of Mount Odae National Park and the
Yongpyeong ski resort linked to the temple stay pro-
gram. Both of those attractions are just 20 minutes
away by car. The Odae tour includes an introduction
Traditional Buddhist meals
(vegetarian, of course) are
served three times a day dur-
ing temple stay programs.
According to coordinators, “Temple strenuous. Then it’s time for yoga stretches and a
stay program participants are able to mountain trek. A panoramic view of Seoul is waiting
practice sharing mercy with their fami- for the hikers at Naksan Park, to wash away hardships
lies and neighbors after their mental and stress.
injuries are cured.” A day-long program exclusively for foreigners is
A totem pole village, outdoor swim- also available at any time regardless of the number of Visitors meditate outdoors at Tongdo Temple around the reliquary of a Bud-
ming pool and several pensions are participants. dhist master, top. Above, others meditate covered with nets to protect them
located near the entrance to Magok. One such day in June saw more than 50 foreigners, from mosquitos.

56 korea August 2009 August 2009 korea 57


The main sanctuary at Tongdo Temple
gram, says, “I really like this
experience. It was very informa-
tive and eye opening. I would
recommend it to others very
willingly.”
For a different Seoul experi-
ence, try Gilsang Temple, which
was a house for gisaeng (Korean
geisha) called Daewongak from
the 1960s to the 1980s. Gilsang
offers the feeling that one is on a
remote mountainside, but in fact
it’s in Seongbuk 2-dong, near
downtown Seoul. The temple is
surrounded by a small forest
with a cozy pond.
A forest path connects the
main hall of the sanctum to the
Hall of Paradise.
The temple’s current site was
donated by Kim Young-han,
owner of Daewongak. Forty
temple buildings have been built
on the 23,100-square-meter
grounds.
The beautiful trees that sur-
round Gilsang are the perfect
setting for serene and undis-
turbed meditation. Gilsang’s
temple stay programs are distin-
58 korea August 2009
guished by longer periods of sit-
ting meditation to allow partici-
pants greater ability to reflect.
A “Room for Silence” is also
provided in the left corner of the
Hall of Paradise, open from 10
a.m. to 5 p.m. to casual visitors.
Gilsang’s temple stay pro-
gram is only available on the
fourth weekend of each month.
Nine other Seoul temples,
including Jogye Temple in Gyeo-
nji-dong, Jongno District and
Hwagye Temple in Suyu 1-dong,
Gangbuk District, offer temple
stays for foreigners. The average
cost of the programs is between
30,000 and 50,000 won for one
night and two days. More than
30 temples will offer programs
for children and youth begin-
ning this year.
Details can be found on the
Internet homepage of the Korea
Buddhism Culture Business
Corps, run by the Jogye Order of
Korean Buddhism (www.tem-
plestay.com) or on the Internet
homepage for each temple.
By Hong Jin
Travel
Korea’s Taste Masters
Judge a Chef by Her Kimchi
And dine out at Yongsusan, says Italian Anita Bidini
A
nita Bidini, head enters a new Korean restaurant
chef of Il Ponte, the is its red kimchi, which she
Italian restaurant thinks reflects its overall stan-
at the Millennium dards.
Seoul Hilton in central Seoul, “Italians judge a restaurant
says cooking comes from with- by its pasta, but here, you judge
in. it by its kimchi,” she said.
Provided by Tongdo Temple
“The number one ingredi- “Though I’m not an expert on
ent in cooking is your heart,” kimchi, I can tell if the cabbage
says the only expatriate female isn’t properly marinated or
to run a hotel kitchen in Seoul. stored.”
Bidini, who arrived in She says the kimchi served
Korea in 2005, has found one at Yongsusan is different from
restaurant in central Seoul that other restaurants in that the
matches her philosophy: Yong- rich taste stimulates the appe-
[JoongAng Ilbo]
Information susan, a royal Korean cuisine tite for more mouthwatering
Below is a list of temples in Korea restaurant in the Seoul Finance dishes. Yongsusan was founded
that offer temple stays.
Center near Gwanghwamun. by Choi Sang-ok in 1980. The
(City Hall Station, line No. 1 or Sinseollo, or royal hot pot, contains a vari- restaurant is intended to serve
Seoul Myogak Temple 2, exit 4. For information, call ety of fish, meat and vegetables and is con- Kaesong-style dishes known to
www.myogaksa.net Tel: 02-763-0054 (02) 771-5553). sidered a Korean delicacy. be simple and mild in taste.
Gilsang Temple “When friends and family Since the hanjeongsik style
www.kilsangsa.or.kr Tel: 02-3672-5945 visit from Europe, I always take them there,” said Bidi- includes rice and stew with an endless number of side
Jogye Temple ni, an Italian who spent 19 years as a chef in the Middle dishes, Choi has saved recipes for some 100 side dish-
www.jogyesa.org Tel: 02-732-5292 East. “In most restaurants here, you share dishes, es in a DVD manual to preserve the
Gangwon Baekdam Temple which can be a culture shock to foreigners. But at restaurant's culinary principles.
www.baekdamsa.org Tel: 033-462-5565 Yongsusan, you’re served portion by portion on your Yongsusan has seven branches
Woljeong Temple plate.” in Seoul, including one each in Sam-
www.woljeongsa.org Tel: 033-339-6606 Typical dishes at Yongsusan, a high-end restau- cheong-dong, central Seoul, and
Incheon Jeondeung Temple rant, include red and white marinated fish fillet with Jamsil and Cheongdam-dong in
www.jeondeungsa.org Tel: 032-937-0125 chili paste, garlic sauce and sesame oil; mussels served southern Seoul. There's even a
South Tongdo Temple with prawn meatballs and fresh clams; grilled freshwa- branch on Vermont Avenue in Los
Provided by the hotel
Gyeongsang
www.tongdosa.or.kr Tel: 055-382-7182 ter eel marinated in a ginger and soy sauce, and grilled Angeles. The restaurant offers
North Jikji Temple marinated tender short-rib fillet. lunch and dinner courses
Gyeongsang
www.jikjisa.or.kr Tel: 054-436-6084 The restaurant offers set lunch and dinner courses consisting of 17 main and
South Magok Temple as well as a la carte items. side dishes. Prices range
Chungcheong
www.magoksa.or.kr Tel: 041-841-6221 Bidini’s favorite dishes here are bulgogi, marinated from 20,000 ($13.64) to
Sudeok Temple beef; japchae, glass noodles mixed with vegetables and 125,000 won, but they may
www.sudeoksa.com Tel: 041-337-6565 sliced meat, and bossam, kimchi wrapped in a large vary depending on which
North Jeolla Beopju Temple cabbage leaf. branch you choose.
www.beopjusa.or.kr Tel: 043-543-3615 As a chef here, the first dish Bidini tastes when she By Lee Eun-joo Anita Bidini
Jeju Yakchun Temple
www.yakchunsa.org Tel: 064-738-5000
August 2009 korea
August 2009 korea 59
59
 Korean Food

Guests invited to the “Global Hansik Night” bibimbap (rice mixed with fresh vegeta- Millennium Seoul Hilton, who has long
enjoy an eight-course Korean meal at the bles and seasoned raw meat), with green been involved in efforts to globalize

Provided by the Millennium Hilton Seoul

Millennium Seoul Hilton in central Seoul, tea and red bean cake and green tea ice
last month. The event was co-hosted by the cream for dessert. The fabulous meal
hotel and Grand Korea Leisure. ended with a tasting of traditional jujube
tea.
A variety of traditional wines were
served to the distinguished guests,
matched to each dish, including different
types of baekseju rice wine, ginseng
liquor and bokbunja wine made from
wild berries.
“It was a wonderful meal,” said Kurt
Achin, bureau chief for the Voice of
Korean food.
Park was appointed a Star Chef by
Lufthansa in March to create premium
in-flight meals for its passengers. The
culinary mastermind was the first Kore-
an to become an executive chef at a West-
ern hotel chain in 2001.
“I prepared for more than one month,
creating a traditional menu to please the
palates of Westerners,” Park said. He said Hobakjuk
he put a twist on tradition to create the Pumpkin Porridge
very best hansik.

Provided by Grand Korea Leisure

America Seoul, one of the invited
guests.
“The thinly sliced fresh abalone cold
appetizer was especially popular among
members from our table,” he added.
“It was a dish I’ve never tasted before
here or anywhere. The combination of
abalone, mushroom and ginseng was
superb.”
Achin said that the wide range dishes
Instead of serving simply bulgogi or
marinated beef on a plate, he wrapped
the beef with lotus leaves, which adds to
its health value. Royal tteokbokki was
served on top of japchae (glass noodles
mixed with a dish of vegetables and sliced
meat), a rare approach here.
“Korean food is very highly flavored
and healthy compared to Western cui-
sines,” Park said. “Many including myself

A Tasty Wave of New Cuisine reflected the diversity of the country.

The evening’s dishes were prepared
by Park Hyo-nam, executive chef at the
hope that Korean cuisine will penetrate
deep into the global food market.” 
By Lee Eun-joo
Royal Tteokbokki

S
ince the government declared
last year that the global promo-
tion of Korean food would be
crucial to economic growth
and the spread of local culture world-
wide, a variety of efforts have been
undertaken to push the movement for-
ward.
Most recently, in an effort to intro-
duce foreign nationals to local tradition-
al food and further globalize Korean
cuisine to the level of sushi and spaghet-
ti, an eight-course Korean meal was
served to 100 foreign VIPs as part of
“Global Hansik Night” at the Grand Ball-
room of the Millennium Seoul Hilton in
central Seoul.
Cohosted by the hotel and Grand
Korea Leisure, which operates the for-
eigner-only Seven Luck Casino, the din-
ers included guests at the casino, mem-
bers of the American Chamber of Com-
merce in Korea and the foreign press.
The Korean guests of honor in atten-
dance were Grand National Party legisla-
tor Kim Gum-rae, Korea University eco-
nomics professor Lee Man-woo and
many other local dignitaries.
“It is now time for a Hallyu [Korean wave] of Kore-
an food, following the first Hallyu of dramas and films,”
said Chung In-joon, senior vice president of marketing
for Grand Korea Leisure, at the event. Chung was the
driving force behind the dinner.
“In addition to the government’s establishment of a
Korean food globalization committee on May 4, there
should also be corporate-level contributions to promote
the wave,” Chung said.
That same evening, lawmaker Kim said that in the
21st century food is more than just a meal, it’s a culture,
and by sharing Korean food to the world Korea as a
whole will become better known.
“The many Korean traditional dishes can be used as
a path to spread Korean culture,” said Kim, who is
known to have a keen interest in the global hansik
(Korean cuisine) campaign as a member of Culture,
Sports and Tourism Committee of the National Assem-
Park Hyo-nam bly.
The menu started with appetizers: thinly sliced
prepared the fresh abalone with green leaves and a soy ginger dress-
ing, hobakjuk (pumpkin porridge), royal tteokbokki
dishes to fit a (pan-fried rice cakes with soy sauce and vegetables),
foreign palate, pine mushroom sinseollo (traditional hot pot) and Jeju
tangerine sherbet. A main course following consisting
to rave reviews. of bulgogi (marinated beef) in lotus leaves and yukhoe
Fighting the Delicious Fight
Chung In-joon, senior vice president of market-
ing for Grand Korea Leisure, was the mastermind
behind the Global Hansik Night on July 3 at the
Millennium Seoul Hilton in central Seoul.
“When I was working in overseas Korean embas-
sies, I invited many foreign journalists to Korean
restaurants,” Chung said. “From them, I received Pine Mushroom
many positive responses about the food and Sinseollo
naturally came to think about the very possibility of globalizing Korean food.”
Then Chung read in a newspaper that the Korean government was promot-
ing local food. Chung realized that the participation of private corporations
would be vital. So he decided that Grand Korea Leisure could draw on its
foreign VIP guests and journalist contacts to help. Chung asked Eric Swanson,
the general manager of the Millennium Seoul Hilton, to help host the event.
The event was a smash. Countless guests came to Chung, he said, to praise
the food and thank him for bringing Koreans and foreigners together.
But it’s just the beginning., Chung says. “Within three to four years, there
should be plans to open many high-end, competent Korean restaurants that
introduce Korean agricultural goods such as organic and natural vegetables
and Korean beef in New York, Tokyo, Beijing, Paris and London.”
For that to happen, Korea needs more first-class, committed chefs who can Fresh Abalone
create dishes to satisfy foreign tastes. And, of course, these chefs should be with Soy Ginger Dressing
widely recognized and respected by Koreans first.

60 korea August 2009 August 2009 korea 61


Farmer Offers Helping Dish
Y
ou wouldn’t know it to look at
this shy farmer living in the
town of Yeongju, North Gyeo-
ngsang, but Lee Si-kap is a
recordholder: He owns 85 satellite dish-
es, more than any other South Korean.
The dishes receive 1,500 television chan-
nels from over 100 countries, some as far
away as South Africa and Canada.
To passers-by, Lee’s home stands out
like a giant, bristling hedgehog in the
otherwise nondescript countryside, dot-
ted with apple orchards and ginseng
fields. Satellite dishes cover his roof like
giant steel mushrooms. They spread into
his front yard and blossom in a field
behind his house, some as large as five
meters, or more than 16 feet, in diame-
ter.
Once dismissed as a local eccentric,
Lee’s home in Yeongju,
South Gyeongsang has
earned him a reputation as
a local eccentric.
62 korea August 2009
Lee has more recently emerged as some-
thing of a hero of modest fame, featured
on national television as ‘‘antenna man.’’
Since late last year, he and fellow satellite
enthusiasts — there are quite a few in
this mountainous country — have
started a campaign to install free satellite
dishes for poor foreign brides living in
rural South Korea so they can receive
broadcasts from their home countries.
‘‘Thanks to Mr. Lee, I now miss my
country, my mother and father less than
I used to,’’ said Bui Thi Huang, a 22-year-
old bride from Haiphong, Vietnam, who
now lives here in Yeongju, 160 kilome-
ters, or 100 miles, southeast of Seoul.
In recent years, the South Korean
countryside has seen an influx of brides
from poorer countries like Vietnam,
China and the Philippines. Like Ms. Bui,
they marry South Korean farmers who
have difficulty finding a spouse because
so many young Korean women have
rejected rural life and migrated to cit-
ies.
These young foreign brides have
become the bedrock of the local econo-
my in rural towns like Yeongju. They
work alongside their husbands in the
fields and, most importantly, have
brought back a sound that was rapidly
disappearing among the aging farm
population here: crying babies.
In South Korea, which had once
prided itself on being a homogeneous
society, four out of 10 women who mar-
ried in rural communities last year were
foreign born. In Yeongju, the number of
foreign wives increased 28 percent in the
past year-and-a-half to 250, half from
[JoongAng Ilbo]
Lee Si-kap owns 85 satellite dishes, more than any other individual
Korean. Now he’s using his hobby to help homesick foreign spouses.
Vietnam.
“These women have a hard time fit-
ting in. The local governments, and the
husbands, often focus only on making
them ‘Korean,’ teaching them the Kore-
an language and computer skills,” said
Lee, 39, who has himself never married.
"They don’t quite understand how iso-
lated these women feel.”
Lee and his friends still encounter
objections from husbands who are
determined to shield their foreign brides
from any reminders of their native lands
for fear it might only magnify their
homesickness. But they are encouraged
that many families have reported that
watching satellite broadcasts from home
actually helps the lonely women adjust
to life here better.
Lee says his sympathy for foreign
brides stems in part from his own expe-
rience of feeling cut off from society. He
felt deeply hurt when his father aban-
doned him and his mother when he was
a small boy, and, lacking self-confidence,
had trouble making friends in his neigh-
borhood and at school. He rarely ven-
tured outside his village and said he still
feared making phone calls.
What saved him, he said, was music
— and satellite television.
‘‘Music was my only friend,’’ said Lee,
whose dream is to meet his idol, the
American heavy metal musician Ronnie
James Dio. ‘‘And because I couldn’t get
much rock music on Korean television,
I turned to satellite television.”
Satellite television introduced him to
a wider world — to Japanese baseball,
life on islands in the Pacific, Russian folk
music and religions in India and Nepal.
Lee installed his first satellite dish in
1992, when he was 23 and had already
returned to farming after completing a
vocational college degree in electronics.
Collecting secondhand satellite dishes
has since become a hobby, verging on an
“Music and satellite television” saved Lee
from loneliness as a child, he says.
obsession. When most farmers here
look to the sky, they read clouds for
weather. When Lee looks skyward, he
says he imagines artificial satellites in
earth orbit. To him, the air is filled with
broadcast signals, ‘‘like seeds from this-
tles.’’
Farmers here at first didn’t know
what to make of their bachelor neighbor,
who listened to heavy metal music, often
belting out the lyrics in English, or some-
times in Japanese. They would see him
on the roof under the blazing summer
sun or under the starry winter sky, fid-
dling for hours with his satellite equip-
ment.
Although he doesn’t understand
most of the languages on the broadcasts
he receives, Lee said, ‘‘It gets addictive.
The more dishes you have, the more
channels you can get.
“Nothing compares with the joy of
catching a new broadcast channel from
a faraway country,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s like pull-
ing in a big fish. It’s the excitement of
discovering something from outside the
boundaries of your usual world.’’
As an example, he said, take the time
he first encountered Communist propa-
ganda broadcasts from North Korea.
People
When Lee, who lives with his
80-year-old mother and 97-year-old
grandfather, is not toying with his satel-
lite gear, he tends his pepper and sesame
fields or makes the rounds of nearby vil-
lages to see whether the foreign brides
are having problems with their recep-
tion.
On the Internet, Lee is part of a com-
munity of 6,000 Korean satellite televi-
sion devotees, including husbands of
foreign brides and a few dedicated souls
searching for extraterrestrial signals.
There is intense competition over who
owns the most and biggest satellite dish-
es. The runner-up to Lee is a man north
of Seoul who owns 60 dishes.
“When we talk about satellite mania,
we talk about men who steal their wives’
pot lids and convert them into satellite
dishes,” Lee said.
These buffs came together recently
when Lee and others started an Internet
campaign to raise money to bring satel-
lite television to foreign wives like Ms.
Bui.
Ms. Bui came to Yeongju in 2006 to
marry a South Korean widower 23 years
her senior. It was a marriage of conve-
nience. Her husband supported her
family back in Vietnam with a monthly
remittance and occasional gifts.
Last year the couple skipped their
annual visit to Vietnam, because busi-
ness was poor at the husband’s motor-
cycle repair shop. Now Ms. Bui is hoping
for a good watermelon crop this year, so
they’ll be able to resume their visits
home.
Meanwhile, she has her satellite
broadcasts.
“When I watch TV, I can see that
Vietnam is changing so fast,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s good that I can at least catch up on
TV. Otherwise I won’t recognize it when
I go back there again.’’ 
By Choe Sang-hun
August 2009 korea 63
 People

dhism by “introducing its history and culture, so that I

can facilitate the research of such studies in the world.”
Buswell’s second goal is to “raise the awareness of
unique characteristics of Korean Buddhism by writing
many related books and articles so that not only non-
Buddhist scholars but also ordinary people can be easily
Designing the ‘Nonexistent’
exposed to Buddhist studies.”
Dongguk decided in May to make Professor Buswell
head of the institute. He is also a professor in the depart-
ment of Asian Languages and Cultures and director of the
Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of Califor-
nia, Los Angeles.
Born in a Christian family, Buswell was fascinated
with Buddhism during his undergraduate years at the
University of California at Berkeley, where he was exposed
to books on the religion.
Buswell said that he got interested in the history, cul-
ture and especially meditative practices of Buddhism
because, for him, it was like studying the mind itself. One
can use meditation, training the mind, to find the basis
of all one’s problems and how to resolve them, Buswell

[joongAng Ilbo]
explained.
The professor dropped out of college in 1972 and
spent a year each in Thailand and Hong Kong as a Bud-
dhist monk. While he was in Thailand, two Korean monks Kim Young, chief executive of Inno Design, poses with a few of his electronics designs.
[joongAng Ilbo]

K
introduced him to the Korean brand of the religion, and
Robert Buswell persuaded Buswell to visit a local monastery. im Young is probably the most well- from mobile phones and eyeglasses to refrig-
Buswell moved to Songgwang Temple, whose name known and celebrated designer in erators and suitcases. Kim is one of a handful of
means “pine expanse,” in Suncheon, South Jeolla, in 1974 Korea, with his sleek MP3 players, designers who has won gold, silver and bronze
at the age of 21 and practiced meditation for five years as cosmetics containers and mobile medals at the International Design Excellence

An emissary a Buddhist monk.

After years in Korea, the young man returned to
Berkeley and earned his doctorate in Buddhist studies in
phones positively ubiquitous on the streets of
Seoul.
As chief executive of the California-based
Awards, an international design competition,
while his works were chosen twice by Business
Week for “Best Product of the Year.”

for Korean 1985.

As a professor at UCLA, Buswell founded two centers
that now rank as the largest of their kind in the United
Inno Design, Kim’s works are increasingly rec-
ognized by people outside this country, and
Nikkei BP, a major Japanese publishing house,
Kim’s flagship designs include the iRiver
MP3 player, manufactured by the Korean com-
pany ReignCom and sold under the Rio name

Buddhism
States: the Center for Korean Studies in 1993 and the
Center for Buddhist Studies in 2000.
The professor is married to a Korean-American,
Christina Lee Buswell, 49, who is a believer in Buddhism
recently chose his company as one of the world’s on the U.S. market. The iRiver turned out to be
10 leading design firms. In Nikkei BP’s latest a huge hit both at home and abroad, with its
book, titled “Design Research Methodology,” prism-shaped iFP model selling more than 1
Kim’s design house ranked alongside seven million units and becoming the first million-

K
orea is today a global center of Buddhist stud-
ies, and one of the people to thank for that is
Professor Robert Buswell, 56, an American
scholar and the head of the Korean Buddhist
Research Institute at Dongguk University in Jung Dis-
trict, central Seoul.
Buswell is the first head of the institute, and assumed
his post for a one-year term in June. The institute was
established in March, integrating the school’s other Bud-
dhist research institutes.
“I have two goals to achieve during my term of service.
First, I will try to introduce as many contributions from
Korean Buddhist studies as possible to the world,” Bus-
well said. The professor plans to publicize Korean Bud-
and a scholar of Korean studies. They first met in 1997,
when Buswell visited Dongguk to attend an academic
symposium related to Buddhism. Lee worked as an inter-
preter at the conference.
“I am in the middle of translating many classical mas-
terpieces written by famous Korean monks including
Wonhyo Daesa, Great Master Wonhyo. I am also creating
a Buddhist terminology dictionary written in six different
languages — Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese, Viet-
namese and Tibetan,” Buswell said. “The KBRI will be
hosting its first international academic conference early
next year, and it will be a great opportunity to introduce
Korean Buddhism to foreigners. I am preparing for that
event as well.” 
By Lee Min-yong
European companies and two from the United
States, based on recommendations from major
world designers and industry researchers.
“Using cutting-edge features and different
Kim’s best colors and forms [for a product] is merely
changing the product model,” said Kazuya
known designs Shimokawa, chief editor at Nikkei Design, the
include the monthly periodical under Nikkei BP that put
together the latest book. “You need the concept
iRiver MP3 of ‘design research’ to create what was nonexis-
tent before.”
player and “Creating what was nonexistent” pretty
‘sliding pact’ much sums up the career of the 59-year-old
Kim, who has won numerous international
makeup. design awards for his industrial product designs,
selling MP3 player model in Korea in 2004.
In 2005, Kim designed the so-called “sliding
pact,” a new powder compact for Amorepacific,
Korea’s largest cosmetics maker. Unlike other
powder compacts, which flip open like a clam-
shell, the sliding compact has a fully reflective
folding exterior that consumers can use as a
mirror, while they can simply slide the top open
to use the contents.
Kim launched the product after his wife
complained that she hates trying to flip open
compacts just to look at the mirror for a second.
Amorepacific sold more than 2 million units of
the innovative product in the year after it was
released in 2005.  By Jung Ha-won

64 korea August 2009 August 2009 korea 65

Foreign Viewpoints
A Fetish for
English
Learning
Koreans’ devotion to the study
of foreign languages is to be
admired. But are they really
using the skills they work so
hard to acquire?
Steffen Hantke has written on contempo-
rary literature, film, and culture. He is author
of Conspiracy and Paranoia in Contemporary
Literature (1994), as well as editor of Horror,
a special topics issue of Paradoxa (2002),
Horror: Creating and Marketing Fear (2004),
Caligari’s Heirs: The German Cinema of Fear
after 1945 (2007), and, with Rudolphus
Teeuwen, of Gypsy Scholars, Migrant Teach-
ers, and the Global Academic Proletariat:
Adjunct Labor in Higher Education (2007).
Since 2003, he has taught in the American
Culture Program at Sogang University in
Seoul. English is his second language.
66 korea August 2009
I
n all large Seoul book stores, the section
featuring books on how to learn English
tends to be large, while the section fea-
turing books written in English tends to
be small. There is endless variety in one, bland
bestsellers and children’s books in the other.
Curious readers of all ages crowd the former,
while a few, looking lost and insecure, wan-
der the meager shelves of the latter. Judging
by its bookstores, Korea is a place where ev-
eryone studies English and nobody speaks it.
There are places in the world where the re-
verse is true. Iceland is one: minimal effort,
maximum efficiency. My own native country,
Germany, makes less of an effort than Korea
as well, and yet you can always count on
someone around you happy at the opportu-
nity to try out his or her high school English.
Many Germans don’t speak English well; in
fact, many mangle it atrociously. But hardly
anyone ever shrugs you off or shoos you
away wordlessly when you approach them
with a question in English — a common re-
sponse in Korea, all the more puzzling given
Korean hospitality and friendliness.
What distinguishes English acquisition in
these European countries is that nobody
believes the language possesses magic trans-
formative powers. Of course, Icelanders and
Germans still understand that English is es-
sential for a career in business. They too are
citizens of small countries using English to
operate in the 21st century’s global economy.
But in Korea, there’s more than this simple,
pragmatic attitude. There is a widespread be-
lief that English is a magic bullet, and that to
speak it perfectly (whatever that means) is to
be transformed into a better, smarter, more
attractive person. From prenatal classes to
adult education, a massive English instruction
industry testifies to this belief and actively
encourages it. Hence the vast section in the
bookstore promising to turn the ugly Korean
duckling into a magnificent English-speaking
swan.
According to many definitions, this belief in
the transformative power of English qualifies
as a fetish. Anthropologists see the fetish as
a magical object, of divine origin or inhabited
by powerful spirits, which, in turn, bestows
magical powers upon the one wielding it.
Marxists and Freudians, despite their differ-
ences, agree upon our deep personal invest-
ment in such magical objects — investments
that ascribe far greater symbolic significance
to the object than its simple pragmatic value
would warrant.
Given the meagre English-language section
of Seoul’s bookstores, it must be English ac-
quisition that stimulates such fetishistic fer-
vour in Korea, not the actual speaking of the
foreign tongue. After learning English, hardly
anyone seems to have the desire to read an
actual book in English. The point is not what
to say in English—just to say something in
English. Anything.
To understand the limits of this approach to
language acquisition, it is useful to stay for a
moment longer with the Marxists and Freud-
ians. They point out that the fetish takes on
heightened importance because it takes the
place of something else that is missing. This
means that, as much as it consoles and pleas-
es, the fetish also evokes anxiety over the
loss, lack, or absence of what it replaces. A re-
minder of what’s missing, it ultimately disap-
points, and it is this failure to satisfy that calls
up further investment, continuing the cycle.
Good for business, bad for the customer.
Though these speculations must remain
superficial in regard both to the theory of
fetishism and to the intricacies and com-
plexities of Korean culture, they do capture
a sense of the heightened expectations for,
the unrealistic beliefs in, the intense preoc-
cupation with, and the dissatisfactory results
of English-language teaching in Korea. To an
outsider, there is something strange and un-
nerving about a Korean high school student
who, tense and miserable, cannot or will not
speak a word of English after years of joyless
toil in English classes from kindergarten to
adult private tutoring.
It is difficult to change such an entrenched
way of thinking. Ask the English instruction
industry, and they will tell you that more,
more, more of the same will produce better
results: study harder, go abroad, take more
tests, spend more money! Is this the way to
go? Or does it make more sense to give up
the fetish in exchange for the real thing —
to see English as a means to an end, and its
acquisition not an end in itself? Isn’t it time to
stop studying English and start speaking it?
With a common language, what an interest-
ing conversation we could have!