THE Korean Cultural Center in Pretoria launched a colourful cultural day last Friday to provide an opportunity for the South African public to experience and taste Korean culture closely.
The centre was officially opened in 2021.
The Korean Cultural Centre, in partnership with the South African Royal Princesses Network, hosted a cultural exchange program under the theme Connecting Through Cultural Exchange.
The colourful event at the cultural centre showcased diverse cultures of Korea, Mpondo, Pedi, Ndebele, Swati, Zulu, Tsonga and Tswana. Royalty from various parts of South Africa, including the members of the South African Royal Princesses Network from Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northwest, Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, and KwaZulu Natal presented their diverse cultures to share and exchange various universal cultural elements.
The event was attended by traditional leaders from various traditional councils in South Africa, including South African royal princesses, who included among others Princess Gaboilelwe Moroka, Princess Stella Sigcau II, Princess Nombulelo Ngomane and Princess Tshepi Motloung.
Jungbum Chun, who is the Director of the Centre, remarked that the Centre hopes to strengthen the cultural relations with South Africa by creating collaborative events.
“Our main aim is to introduce and promote diverse and dynamic cultural contents of traditional and contemporary Korea to South African public and reach out to wide audience, with diverse programmes utilising our facilities such as Korean language classes, arts and cultural events, cooking classes, Taekwondo classes as well as popular K-pop dance classes,” said Chun.
The Republic of Korea is one of the most advanced economies in the world today, is well known for resilience, adaptability, and creativity, and is a major player among the world’s top exporting nations.
It is a high-tech industrialized nation, its automobile, shipbuilding, steel making, and IT industries are on the leading edge in global markets.
Korea is South Africa’s fourth-largest trading partner in Asia. In South Africa, the presence of The Republic of Korea has increased and trade between the two nations include a wide range of products, from minerals to sophisticated high-technology electronic products, and adding to that is the success of companies such as Samsung, LG, and Hyundai, that makes the Republic of Korea better known in SA than ever before.
The Korean Cultural Centre is the third of its kind in Africa, following those in Nigeria and Egypt, the Korean CulturalCentre in South Africa is a two-story building located in the capital city of South Africa, Pretoria.
The Centre has the facilities to introduce a diverse range of Korean cultural contents such as movies, fashion, food, beauty, Korean language, sports, games, animations, as well as popular K-pop and K-dramas in South Africa.
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