Kkakdugi University

In particular, the location sites of the TV drama where the main characters’ scenes have been taken were what aroused the audiences’ curiosity the most. Let us have a closer look to the places Secret Garden invited their fans; the workshop location where Joo Won (Male leading charater) and Lime (female leading character) looked through the eyes of love of each other, Jeju hotel site where the two souls were switched and Petite France where the couple has first met.

Petite France, Joo Won first meets Lime

Do you remember the place where Joo Won first meets Lime, mistaking her as Park Chae Rin who Oscar asked to find for him? The romantic and fairytale village that often appears on TV or movie screen is from Petite France, a French village located in Gapyeong-gun Cheongpyeong-myeon, Korea.

The place combined with Goseong Youth Training Center, has sixteen French-style architectures and provides various activities to experience French culture during the stay. The site has a gift shop themed on Little Prince, a representative novel of a renowned French writer Antoine Marie Roger de Saint-Exupéry and a gallery where an exhibition on the theme cock - the symbol of France is on show. Every month they have various events offered, so it would be worth to check out the website at www.pfcamp.com for more information before your visit.

The Seaes hotel in Jeju, the two souls switch their bodies

At the beautiful blue seashore, Joo Won and Lime confronts their destiny that inevitably ties their relationship; their souls switch bodies of each other. This happened right at the Seaes hotel in Jeju, a place of traditional and sophisticated aesthetic where Joo Won frequently visited for his stay. Later the switched souls returned back to their bodies with a kiss, and the bench on which they sat on at that moment as well can be found at this hotel site. The hotel located by Jungmun seashore, Seogwipo-si is a special resort hotel which embraces the beautiful scenery and taste of traditions of Jeju.

The Seaes hotel is unique for keeping the regional features of the traditional housing culture of Jeju i.e. Doldam (traditional gates built with stones) and traditional straw-roofed houses. The guest rooms have private terraces where sunrises and sunsets can be seen and facilities such as open gardens and outdoor pools are offered for the guests. Even Traditional Han Room, a private villa house is offered as a guest house for those who want more privacy during the stay while two types, Ko-dang and Cho-dang is available.

In addition, eight Jeju Olle courses that pass by the hotel is another benefit. This well shows how much the hotel harmonizes with the natural environment. For the excellent scenery, besides Secret Garden, it has a number of TV dramas that took location at the site; Boys Before Flowers, The Snow Queen, and Sorry I Love You. It surely is one of top attractions of Jeju.

Visit the Shelter of nature

Lime and her action training academy, for a workshop, visit the villa the top 1% rich man, Kim Joo Won owns. During the stay, Joo Won stares at Lime with love while she is sleeping; this moment was appreciated as one of the best scenes that excited many fans of the couple.

The scene where the two had a walk with beautiful fallen leaves the following day and the starry nights they spend together was shot at the newly opened Resom Forest at Jecheon city, Chung-buk. As Joo Won has explained to the investors inside the TV drama, the resort aims a resort of nature itself. The site shall cure the exhausted minds and bodies of the tired city people being full of dozens of trees and wild flowers, including a 150 year-old pine tree.

Resom Forest has a number of beautifully named paths; Sosori Baram-gil, Poreureu Solrae-gil, Gajaegineun Goljjack-gil, and Sanbaragi Neungseon-gil and so on. Especially the path the two main characters had a walk together is now entitled as ‘Secret Road,’ sending best wishes to all loving couples who walk the path together. There are also health programs through a walk in the forest such as ‘walking meditation’ and ‘walking the Resom Dule-gil path’ inviting everyone, men and women of all ages to the forest.

Secret Garden made the romantic comedy TV genre, after a six-year period, to win back the top TV audience rating, but would not the real location sites be even more romantic than the TV drama? The healthy, beautiful places with interesting narratives located in every corners of Korea are in fact the secret locations for us. Secret Garden, the TV drama is over but why not visit one of the celebrated sites and enjoy or own secret gardens instead?

Hip hop, R&B, electronic dance and etc. has originated from the Western cultures, yet these genres have been interpreted by Asian sentiments in Korea and developed a unique style of pop music. It then has been introduced back to the global market; it is pop music but from Korea. A recent research on K-pop video views statistics on YouTube, a global video-sharing website, well illustrates this phenomenon.

The Korea Daily (Korea Joongang Daily USA) totaled the views of K-pop video clips on YouTube of year 2010, which counts those of netizens from 229 nations. 923 video clips of Korean pop-stars who belong to Korea’s top three major entertainment management agencies were analyzed and 793,570,000 was its total hits; by continents, views from Asia was 566,270,000, Northern America 123,470,000 and Europe 55,370,000. While Asia showed the largest number of views yet an increase of those in the US is shown: the number, 94,870,000 views in total, ranked third following Japan (113,540,000 views) and Thailand (99,510,000 views).

In fact, this is not that surprising if we take a look to rising K-pop starts receiving attention overseas. Recently Wonder Girls, a representative K-pop girl group success example in the overseas market, performed on the legendary funk band - Earth Wind & Fire’s 40th debut anniversary opening stage receiving favorable response from the audience.

Wonder Girls earlier performed the opening stage of a mega concert of which top musicians of America including Stevie Wonder had participated; there they received enthusiastic response for their songs Nobody and Tell Me while some fans following their song and dances. With their hit song Nobody, Wonder Girls became the first K-pop start to have their song ranked on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2009 and as well had been introduced by Chicago Tribune, one of the 10 major newspapers in the US, on their daily paper and online site.

After the success of Wonder Girls other K-pop singers has been active to enter the overseas music market. JYJ a boy group of three members separated from the previous Dong Bang Shin Ki is planning to release their first regular album in the US. In fact they are the first Korean singer to make a contract with Warner Music, one of the top three major recording labels in the world; Warner will produce and distribute JYJ’s first US album and Kanye West, a renowned musician and producer will be participating. For such reasons even before its release this album received great attention introduced on the main page of Billboard magazine online.

In addition, BoA, who already has a bigger fandom in overseas as a singer will this time play the main role in Duane Adler’s – a renowned screenwriter of ‘Step up’ and ‘Save the Last Dance’ - new film as an actress.

Why K-pop?

Actually America has much more variety of popular culture; then what makes it possible for K-pop seem to do quite well while American pop world has been dominant? We hear from one American fan, Savannah Daniel who visited Korea to meet her favorite K-pop star G-dragon (a member of Big Bang, a K-pop boy group). She explains her fondness for K-pop is the powerful rhythm and the passion of dances compared to American pop. Last December 26, she finally met her favorite K-pop star happily leaving back to America.

Song Gi-chul, a pop music critic explains the rising popularity of K-pop overseas due to its matching musicality to American pop while discovering more talented singers. According to Song, for such reasons K-pop was able to attain positive attentions from overseas.

K-pop video hits on YouTube is increasing not only in America but also other countries, which it fact indicates possibilities of K-pop to be successfully introduced to other parts of the globe, besides Korea and besides the States this time. For example, people from Middle East countries e.g. Egypt (630,000 views), Kuwait (414,000 views) and other relatively exotic countries e.g. Montenegro (220,000 views), New Caledonia (140,000 views) and Guadeloupe (10,000 views) were even watching some K-pop videos on YouTube.

Onggi, a traditional Korean pottery has a significant role as a container preserving food in Korean food culture. In fact, among this time is when we remind of the rows of kimchi and doenjang (soybean paste) jars that used to be stored in the house yard. Nowadays as plastic and stainless containers became popular and the housing environment has changed Onggi lost its popularity in daily life of Koreans. However, recently the cultural value and identity of Onggi has been acknowledged. Books written in English to promote a global use of Onggi have been published followed by attempts of contemporary interpretation on the traditional pot. Let’s take a closer look.Onggi, traditional Korean pottery of daily life

Onggi, in Korean means earthenware or pottery with a dark brown glaze, which is a native Korean pottery of daily life. Often used as a kimchi jar, for its cheap price and long-durability has been generally used by Koreans. Onggi Folk Museum in Ssangmun dong, Seoul, possesses a variety of Onggi; the big ones mostly used for preserving soy sauce, doenjang, kimchi and water and others used in a more wide range of use e.g. chimneys, candle bottles, lamp-oil containers, Gi-wa(roof tile) and tea pots.

The common use of Onggi can be explained with the characteristics of the Korean food culture. Onggi perfectly suits to preserve fermented food. Made from coarse sand-mud, its breathing holes allows air to enter but block water out that helps the preservation of the food for a longer duration. It also removes toxic substance of foods and reduces the smell. By enabling effective flow of air that helps the fermentation and preservation of the food, Onggi is perfect to store doenjang, soy sauce, kimchi and Jeotgal (salted seafood) keeping it fresh until the following year.

Especially, Onggi is a ‘pot from nature,’ that when cracked or broken to be thrown away it is simply back to earth as soil. The pot is made of soil, water, fire and wind that are harmless to our body. It is eco-friendly but also has traditional Korean scientific logics embedded, no surprise it was selected as one of ‘100 Cultural Symbols of Korea.’ Last year ‘Onggi Expo Ulsan Korea, 2010’ was hosted by Ulsan Oe-gosan Onggi village, the biggest Onggi trading center of Korea.

‘Onggi Expo Ulsan Korea, 2010’ under its theme ‘Onggi the Mirror of the Future’ introduced Onggi featuring the meanings found in its materials and decoration technology and also offering events to experience the difference between Onggi and other potteries from the world. It was the first international expo on traditional Onggi and especially its event for visitors to make their own Onggi was a great success.

CHA publishes an English edition book on Onggi

The National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage (NRICH), Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea published a book entitled as ‘Onggi’ written in English to introduce the Onggi culture to the world. In order to help the orientation of foreigners lots of visual images are included for explaining the production process of Onggi. The process is introduced by three themes – earth, fire and spirit, which are the essential elements for making the pot throughout the history. Among the three, spirit is the most critical that contains the heart of the artisan who made the pot.

This book will be distributed overseas through Korean Culture and Information Services and other related organizations. Also the PDF version will be available at the (NRICH) homepage (www.nrich.go.kr). In addition, NRICH based on their research on intangible cultural heritage of Korea, will continue to publish other English books for foreigners.

UNESCO has well acknowledged the importance of intangible cultural heritage. In 1997, at the 29th UNESCO general assembly it has adopted ‘Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’ in order to protect intangible heritage which has been under threat to cease to exist by industrialization and globalization.

In 2003 ‘Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage’ was adopted by UNECO and it designated an ‘Urgent Safeguarding List’ and ‘Representative List’ of intangible cultural heritage of humanity. In 2001, 19 assets have been assigned as intangible cultural heritage and the list of it is on increase since then. Last October the food culture of France and Mexico was added to the list receiving lots of attention.

CHA produces DVD on Intangible Cultural Heritage of HumanityHalf of cultural assets inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List are those of Korea, China and Japan; Kabuki theater of Japan, the Dragon boat festival and Acupuncture and moxibustion of traditional Chinese medicine of China. Korea has eleven assets on the list; the Royal Ancestral Ritual in the Jongmyo Shrine and its Music, the Pansori Epic Chant, the Gangneung Danoje Festival, Cheoyongmu, Ganggangsullae, Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut, Namsadang Nori, Yeongsanjae, as well as Daemokjang (traditional wooden architecture), Gagok (lyric song cycles accompanied by an orchestra), and Falconry the last three recently added to the list.

The National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage (NRICH), Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea produced contents with foreign language services introducing the eleven assets distributed by this month. A video clip on five assets inscribed on 2009 (Cheoyongmu, Ganggangsullae, Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut, Namsadang Nori, Yeongsanjae) is as well produced in three language editions with Korean, English and French. The clip includes a brief introduction on each relevant item that will be a useful resource for foreigners interested in Korean culture.

To promote active use of it, NRICH will distribute those video clips to relevant organizations and researchers in Korea and overseas, as well as providing online access to the material at NRICH homepage. High-quality contents on the intangible cultural heritage of Korea acknowledged by UNESCO is planned to be developed, produced and distributed every year. Such attempts is expected to improve a worldwide recognition on those heritages of Korea that has been under-promoted, despite of its value and significance representing the history, culture and identity of Korea.

Kkokdusoe (the head of the group) leads the group followed by gombaengisoe, tteunsoe, gayeol, ppiri, and jeoseungpae performing the six sessions of nori (recreation) that are Pungmul, Beona, Salpan, Eoreum, Deotboegi, and Deolmi. Its origin derives from late Joseon. It was to wish peace and wealth for the villages and deliver joy to the common people through various music and performance.

Ganggangsullae, the no.8 important intangible cultural properties of South Korea, is a more familiar traditional recreation of Korea. The tradition comes from the South-western area of Korea performed to wish good harvest and fecundity.

Especially a grand Ganggangsullae used to be performed on the night of Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving), which origins back from the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592. Admiral Yi Sun-shin lighted up torches on the hill and gathered women to play Ganggangsullae to fake the size of the army to the enemy and later the play continued to sing joys and sorrows of life.

Yeongsanjae is a kind of 49 jae (a Buddhist memorial ceremony held on the 49th day of one’s death). It is a ceremony for spirits to attain eternality based on the Buddhist faiths. It cultural value is recognized for reproducing Young-san Hwe-sang, reminiscences of preach Sakyamuni has performed on Vulture Peak Mountain; also called as Young-san jak Bup, a representative providence ceremony of Buddhism.

Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut is a kind of haenyeo gut (haenyeo means female diver, gut is a type of exorcism) that is part of the unique cultural heritage of Jeju along with haenyeo and folk religion. It has a cultural meaning as a cultural festival embracing the local community and encouraging mutual understanding between the people living on Jeju Island.