Writer홍보협력팀
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2022-01-17
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On November 19, KSI Gothenburg and the local art group Const Collectivet jointly held a mini-Korean festival. Recently, an increasing number of Swedes have become interested in Korean language and culture due to BTS and the Netflix TV series Squid Game. Therefore, KSI Gothenburg provided an opportunity to directly experience Korean culture through collaboration with the Swedish local community.
This event was held offline thanks to the easing of Covid restrictions in Sweden. It consisted of various activities including Korean food, traditional games, introduction to the Korean language, folk painting, K-pop dances, and Korean traditional music performances.
At the entrance to the event hall, President Park Mi-hyeon of KSI Gothenburg prepared welcoming foods such as vegan gimbap, makgeolli, and confectionery for the participants. In addition, in the Squid Game zone, people could experience slap-match, dalgona games, playing marbles, Korean alphabet, and Hangeul tattoos.
In the folk painting zone, folk paintings and the Korean traditional mask crafts were presented. They made a special effort to create a Korean atmosphere by inviting a local art expert and printing the design on paper made of a material similar to that of hanji.
The invitation performance started with a wonderful dance by a Swedish K-pop dance group Kodex. And by inviting the Korean traditional music duo "Daleum," which is on tour in Europe, people were able to enjoy a performance of the gayageum and geomungo, which are Korea"s representative string instruments. The beautiful Korean sounds echoed through Gothenburg"s night.
Sandra, who visited the festival, said, “I learned Korean two years ago. I don’t study Korean at the moment, but I want to start again.”
On December 15th, learners at KSI Gothenburg King had lunch with the Ambassador of the Swedish Embassy (hereinafter, the Embassy). This meeting was the embassy"s first consular schedule of the tour of Swedish regions, and was prepared to encourage Swedish learners studying Korean and KSI teachers who are working hard to disseminate Korean language.
Unfortunately, it was a weekday lunch and not all learners could join, but eight learners came for a talk. Each learner talked about their experiences of being interested in Korean culture and how they started studying Korean.
Among the participants, Daniel Palstrom, who went on a business trip to Korea for two weeks last year, said, “I felt the charm of Korea while on a business trip and started studying.” In addition, Mr. Pontus Sunelgren, who had experience studying at Yeungnam University"s International Language Center several years ago, spoke the Daegu dialect and made everyone laugh.
Ambassador Ha Tae-yeok asked all the learners about difficulties in studying Korean, listened to their grievances, and led a relaxed conversation. He said, “Each Korean name has its own meaning” and explained the meaning of his name. It was a very interesting Korean cultural exchange for the Swedes who do not give any special meaning to their names. In addition, he talked about his experience of giving a daily Korean language education lecture at the Embassy in Russia five years ago. He also promised to hold a special Korean lecture at KSI Gothenburg in the future. Also, at the end of the meal, each student was given words of encouragement and a diary for 2022.
After the meal, Julia Marin said, “Meeting the people at the embassy has motivated me. It was so much fun, and I really enjoyed it today. I would like to meet them again.” Like she said, it was really a very meaningful and precious time for the learners at KSI Gothenburg.
