Professional Documents
Culture Documents
11
JANUARY 2015
Fermented and
preserved foods
Youn Myeung-Ro
Travel
Cheonsuman
CONTENTS
JANUARY 2015 | KOREA VOL.11 NO.1
04
24
18
28
42
04 COVER STORY
14 PEOPLE
30 CURRENT KOREA
42 GREAT KOREAN
Men in aprons
32 SUMMIT DIPLOMACY
18 TRAVEL
22 SPORTS
36 POLICY REVIEW
24 ENTERTAINMENT
38 CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY
26 SPECIAL ISSUE
40 GLOBAL KOREA
Seosans Cheonsuman
Short track skater Shim Suk-hee
Gugak singer Song So-hee
Bringing down trade barriers
Uncovering a new dinosaur
ASEAN-Republic of Korea
Commemorative Summit
Yi Hwang
44 MY KOREA
46 MULTICULTURAL KOREA
48 NATURE KOREA
50 FLAVOR
Bossam
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Publisher Kim Jae-won, Korean Culture and Information Service | Executive Producer Han Seong-rae | E-mail webmaster@korea.net | Magazine Production Seoul Selection |
Editor-in-Chief Robert Koehler | Staff Writer Felix Im | Producer Shin Yesol | Production Supervisor Lee Jin-hyuk | Editorial Advisor Choi Byong-Gook | Copy Editors Gregory C. Eaves, Jaime Stief,
Hwang Chi-young | Creative Director Jung Hyun-young | Head Designer Lee Bok-hyun | Photography Ryu Seunghoo, Robert Koehler, RAUM Studio | Printing Pyung Hwa Dang Printing Co., Ltd. |
11-1110073-000016-06
COVER STORY
COVER STORY
COVER STORY
COVER STORY
10
11
COVER STORY
A delicate balance
ganjang
The beans are soaked in water, steamed for three to four hours, crushed and molded into soy bean blocks,
which are then left to dry. The fermented soybean blocks then are put into a clay jar with salted water to
make ganjang . The mixture is left to mature for 40 to 60 days. Chili pepper and trace amounts of charcoal
are added, as they have a sterilizing effect. The resulting liquid is ganjang, and the remaining solid matter
is used to make doenjang .
12
deonjang
13
PEOPLE
In the eye of
the beholder
Legendary abstract artist
Youn Myeung-Ro avoids labels
Written by Felix Im
Photographed by Lee Hyang-ah
14
15
Refusing to conform
To put his vision to practice, Youn and a handful of
compatriots founded the 1960s Artist Association at the start
of the decade with the goal of promoting a genuinely creative
movement. To announce its presence, the group held an
outdoor exhibition - the first in the nation - with paintings
displayed on the stone walls near Deoksugung Palace. The
show was a success, and launched Youns career much further
than expected. Although the 1960s Artist Association was
essentially a protest of the Gukjeon and state-sponsored
creativity, many established Gukjeon figures visited the
exhibition and expressed enthusiastic praise. Throughout the
decade, Youn was featured in exhibitions in Paris, Tokyo, Sao
Paulo and other cities. He helped found the Korean Modern
Printmakers Association in 1968, indirectly earning him the
opportunity to study techniques in lithographs, etchings and
silk screens at the New York Pratt Graphic Center.
What an experience that was, going to New York City, to
see some of the worlds best art and museums after only seeing
them through books! he recalls.
Still creating art at 78 years old, Youns work now spans
several decades and genres, and is featured in exhibitions
worldwide. Appreciating his works, often untitled, takes time;
the more you look, the more you see. At first, it appears like
chaos, but you eventually discover an indescribable precision,
something beyond words. If you give something a title,
it taints the viewers experience; they ignore everything
unrelated to that one word or phrase, says Youn, confidently.
Its better to respect the viewers imagination.
PEOPLE
16
17
A hot technique
Over the course of her studies,
Park researched both the
origin and history of Korean
tea customs and completed
a comparative analysis on
traditional tea practices in Korea,
China and Japan. Her extensive
research appears to have paid
off, as those who try the tea she
prepares usually remark that it
tastes of freshness and purity, or
soswae simple but energizing.
Unlike common tea brewing
methods, Park uses a hot
brewing technique. She pours
hot water over the tea leaves and
allows them to sit for just 20 to
30 seconds. Koreans prefer the
hot and pure taste fit for our
nature, climate and lifestyle,
she explains. It is the essence of the teas flavor that reveals its
purity and fragrance in hot water.
Recognized for its benefits, tea has received considerable
spotlight lately for its antioxidants and anti-inflammatory
effects. According to Park, good tea must first appeal to the
eye by being clear and lucid. Roasted tea should not elicit
a smell of grass. It is at once refreshing and delicate. Under
Parks care, Koreas tea legacy will continue to be preserved
for future generations to share and enjoy.
TRAVEL
18
19
TRAVEL
A happy accident
Nestled in a nook on Koreas famously craggy Yellow
Sea coast, Cheonsuman Bays ecology is the result of
a reclamation project that was launched in 1979 to
boost domestic food production and to put men and
equipment to good use as they returned from the
petrodollar-fueled construction boom in the Middle
East. The construction of a mighty, 7.7-kilometer
breakwater produced two huge freshwater lakes,
Ganwolho Lake and Bunamho Lake, and over 6,400
hectares of new agricultural land on a reclaimed tidal
flat.
As intended, the project, which was completed in
1987, did result in a boost in food production. But
it did something else, too. The bays location on a
major bird migration route and its mild maritime
climate, with wintertime temperatures some 1.2
degrees Celsius higher than inland regions, were
combined with the new, rich supply of winter grains
in the post-harvest fields of the reclaimed land,
producing an ideal nesting spot for migratory birds.
Birds of a feather
Since the 1980s, Cheonsuman Bay has been
recognized by birders all over as one of Koreas
premier bird-watching sites. In 1999 it was added
to Wetlands Internationals East-Asia Anatidae Site
Network, a list of wetland locations favored by East
Asias Anatidae, a family of birds that includes ducks,
geese and swans. Every autumn, at the start of the
bird migration season, the town of Seosan hosts the
recognized by their striking head plumage of green, yellow, black and white.
Most notably, however, they fly in large, dense flocks of tens of thousands.
These black, dancing clouds can be seen in the late afternoon, as the ducks take
off in search of food in the nearby rice fields, and in the early morning, when
they return to gather in the middle of the lakes. Its a natural phenomenon so
breathtaking that several years back the BBC sent a film crew to capture it.
Youll find plenty of wildlife photographers trying to do the same.
Ganworam hermitage
Located on the small island of Ganwoldo, the Buddhist hermitage of
Ganworam is the closest thing Korea has to Frances famous Mont SaintMichel. At low tide, the hermitage is attached to the mainland by a land
bridge, but at high tide, it becomes a true island. The hermitages name means
Observing the Moon, and to be sure, its especially lovely at night when the
moonlight reflects off the water. The hermitage was founded at the start of the
Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) by the monk Muhak Daesa, famous for being an
advisor to the founder of the dynasty, King Taejo (r. 1392-1398).
Seoul
Seosan's
Cheonsuman
Jejudo
3
20
21
SPORTS
A new
queen reigns
Shim Suk-hee wins her 12th gold medal
at the ICU World Cup
22
Girl power
During the event, Shim crossed the finish line with
a time of 1:30:641, beating her compatriot, Choi
Min-jeong by a mere 62 nanoseconds. Yihan Guo
from China came in third.
Shims strategy for the race was that of a veteran
skater: Saving her strength in the beginning of the
event, she waited until the five final laps to begin
leading the pack and then maintained her pace
until she crossed the finish line.
Following her first-place win for her individual
performance, Shim earned another gold medal for
Korea in the ladies 3000-meter relay shortly after
finishing the 1000 race. Koreas ladies relay team Shim Suk-hee, Choi Min-jeong, Jeon Ji-su and Lee
Eun-byul - clocked a time of 4:09:985, spending
the entirety of the race at the front of the pack, and
leaving Italy, Russia and Canada to claim the next
spots behind them. With the addition of the relay
win, Shim has taken home a total of five medals so
far during the first and second rounds of the World
Cup.
Other Korean athletes have been dominating the
2014/2015 World Cup as well. Rookie skater Choi,
who had come in second place for the 1000-meter
event, won two gold medals after coming in first in
the 1500 event and participating as a team member
in the 3000 relay.
ENTERTAINMENT
Regaining
the spotlight
24
25
to modern melodies.
She has now developed from a prodigy into a
traditional music idol, giving gugak a more hip,
updated image.
Songs active promotion of gugak prompted the
government to name her as the Best Korean of the
Year in 2010. She was also appointed as an honorary
ambassador for the Korean National Commission for
UNESCO, as well as to the Presidential Committee
for National Cohesion wherein she helps promote
Koreas traditions and arts.
Gugak is a genre that is an essential part of the
national identity, enriched by hundreds of years
of history and laced with traditions that have been
passed down over many generations. However,
despite the importance of preserving such a
cultural identity, younger generations have chosen
to focus more on contemporary music, often
giving traditional music the cold shoulder. For this
reason, Song just might
be the extra boost that
traditional music has
been looking for to
make people take
a break from the
colorful dynamics
of K-pop and
have a closer
listen to their
native sounds.
SPECIAL ISSUE
In effect
China
10+ ASEAN
member states
2288
(9 trillion,
469.1 billion)
Korea, China,
Japan, Australia,
India, New
Zealand
EU
EFTA
88
1051
(1 trillion,
108.9 billion)
(17 trillion,
512.1 billion)
Canada
99
(1 trillion,
826.7 billion)
RCEP
Turkey
53
(819.9 billion)
KoreaChina-Japan
Vietnam
India
176
(1 trillion,
876.8 billion)
Indonesia
ASEAN
1353
(2 trillion,
133 billion)
Singapore
325
(297.9 billion)
U.S.A.
1019
A decade of growth
Korea will abolish tariffs on 9,690 products within
10 years, while China will abolish tariffs on 5,846
of the products that imported from Korea. Over
the next 20 years, over 90 percent of products
traded between the two countries will quality for
tariff reductions. As tariffs on another USD 45.8
billion worth of products are eliminated over the
next decade, Korean companies are expected to
increase their exports to China.
When the agreement is fully effectuated, annual
tariff reductions are estimated to total USD 5.44
billion, 5.8 times more than the USD 9.33 million
gained through the KORUS FTA (the U.S.-Korea
Free Trade Agreement), and 3.9 times more than
the USD 1.38 billion gained through the KoreaEU FTA. Minister Yoon Sang-jick of MOTIE said,
The openness is seemingly lower than that of the
KORUS or Korea-EU FTAs, but (is actually) at a
very high level.
27
15
(378.4
billion)
Thailand, Indonesia,
the Philippines,
Malaysia, Singapore,
Brunei, Vietnam, Laos,
Myanmar, Cambodia
Peru
34
(202.4
billion)
Chile
302
(1 trillion,
505.9 billion)
Colombia
(16 trillion,
768 billion )
Australia
Building a foundation
Looking to MOTIEs analysis of the Korea-China
FTA, the preferential tariffs given to China will
help Korean small- and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) secure their competitiveness in steel
26
Currently negotiating
Final agreements
71
New
Zealand
(276.9 billion)
SPECIAL ISSUE
1. Drawing of a
Deinocheirus that was
featured in Nature
28
29
CURRENT KOREA
Men in aprons
More men are heading to the kitchen after work
Written by Claire Jang
1
As seen on TV
Media is also fueling the trend. Its not
uncommon to see attractive men cook on TV. If
the UK has Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay,
Korea has Leo Kang and Edward Kwon, faces of
popular reality cooking shows like Master Chef
Korea and Yes Chef.
1. A cooking contest
for retired men held
at a welfare center
in Seouls Mapo-gu
district
Yonhap News
A cultural shift
Among classes held at educational centers at
department stores, culinary schools and other
public institutions, 20 percent are male and for
some classes, the percentage goes up to 40 to 50
percent. Many are even male-only classes.
Whats all the more interesting is that men are
2. Celebrity chef
Edward Kwon
Yonhap News
3. Dishes made by men
of all ages at a mens
cooking contest in
Seoul's Jungnang-gu
district
Yonhap News
30
31
SUMMIT DIPLOMACY
32
SUMMIT DIPLOMACY
34
35
POLICY REVIEW
36
A welcome shift
The government also vowed to continue
negotiating for more free trade agreements and help
businesses fully utilize existing agreements. It will
deregulate e-commerce to encourage more exports
and imports online. To jump-start competition,
the government said it will deregulate seven service
industries with high growth potential, including
healthcare, education, tourism, finance, software,
content creation and logistics. It will also work to
fight unfair practices by large corporations aimed at
SMEs. Additionally, the government reiterated its
efforts to promote the creative economy, defined
as the convergence of science, information and
communications technology and existing sectors
to create new industries and jobs. Some of Koreas
proposed measures were even reflected in the
Brisbane Action Plan, an international blueprint for
growth among G20 nations.
While each G20 country monitors and assesses
its own growth strategies, a peer review system
with input from the IMF and OECD is designed
to ensure that member nations pursue the reforms.
The G20 will also produce an annual report on the
progress being made, and the IMF and OECD will
help estimate the impact of the measures on GDP
until 2018, the Brisbane Action Plan said.
Innovative economy
- Reduce discrimination
between part-time and
full-time employees while
neutralizing the labor markets
structure
- Construct a Northeast
Asian oil hub
Readjusting import-export
balance by boosting
domestic consumption
- Cut red tape in healthcare and
medicine, education, tourism,
finance and other servicerelated industries (readjust
governmental regulations
through newly implemented
taskforce)
- Provide support to SMEs for
exports
Average income
per person
Potential annual
growth
Around 3%
Employment rate
37
65.3%
(as of November 2013, based on
persons aged 15-64)
3 years later
30,000
40,000
Surpass USD
,
well on the way towards
USD
4%
70%
CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY
Smarter agriculture
Convergence and synergy to lead to better farming practices
Written by Sohn Tae-soo
38
1. Spectators witness the world's first grafting robot at an exhibit of high-tech farm equipment using advanced sensors developed by the Rural Development
Administration. Yonhap News 2. Visitors take a look at a farm automation system at the 2012 IT Expo in Busan. Yonhap News
1
39
GLOBAL KOREA
40
41
GREAT KOREAN
Starting early
Yi was born in what is now Andong, Gyeongsangbukdo. Because his father passed away when he was only 7
months old, Yi was raised by his mother, who cared for
him alongside the seven other children in the family. Yis
mother toiled endlessly to support them, with particular
focus put on her sons education. Its said that she would
repeatedly tell her male offspring that they needed to
study and work several times harder than other children,
otherwise theyd be looked down upon for being the
byproduct of a single-parent household. It appears that
such words made a tremendous impact on young Yi,
who finished reading the Analects of Confucius by
age 12 and by 18 had composed one of his best works,
Yadang, a poem about a pond. At age 20, Yi undertook
the massive task of reading and interpreting the Yijing,
the oldest of the Chinese classical texts. Only three years
later, he entered Seonggyungwan Academy, Joseons
foremost educational institute.
After overcoming the death of his wife in his late
20s, Yi eventually passed his civil service examinations
and started life as a bureaucrat at 34. When he lost his
mother three years later, however, he spent the next
three years in mourning, as dictated by filial tradition.
Yi ended up restarting life as a government official at
age 37, but by this point had already grown disillusioned
with the political struggles and corruption of the royal
Yi Hwang
One of Joseon's first true scholars exemplified
the Seonbi spirit
Written by Felix Im
42
Call of duty
Unconcerned with worldly riches or political
influence, Yi was feeble and poor by the time
he established the academy, yet his devotion to
teaching, studying and writing never faltered.
1. Statue of Yi Hwang
Yonhap News
2. The Four-Seven Debate,
a discussion of NeoConfucianism based on
letters exchanged between
Yi and scholar Gi Daeseung over the course of
eight years, beginning in
1559 Yonhap News
3. Dosan Seowon, a
Confucian academy built
by Yi's students on the site
where he taught them
43
MY KOREA
My taekwondo journey
Taekwondo has been a part of my life ever since middle school. I
was the geeky, nerdy kid who never liked to play sports, so when
one of my good friends joined a taekwondo academy, my mother
saw it as a good way to get me some much needed confidence, not
to mention plenty of exercise. Starting to practice taekwondo was
probably the best decision
of my childhood;
the sense of
discipline
and focus
that it
instilled
in me was
remarkable. You
train with your friends,
encouraging each other along the way, pushing
each other through your exhaustion and pain to the end.
It was with these memories that I decided to restart my
training when I came back to Korea in 2013. I joined Arirang
Taekwondo in January 2014 and havent looked back since. The
dojang, or martial arts school, is located near Sookmyung Womens
University Station on Line 4. As such, we have a lot of university
44
45
MULTICULTURAL KOREA
Campus love
Perhaps Alastaro would have never set foot in Korea had she
not met her husband, Hong Sung-hwan, a respected glass artist
in his own right. Hong, who currently works in both glass art
and architectural design, was in Finland for graduate school
when Alastaro was an undergraduate
student at the same institution, Aalto
University in Helsinki. I spotted him
on campus because he stuck out from
the usual Finnish student crowd, and
remembered him when I ran into him
later, she says. Hong was actually an
accomplished artist and designer by that
point, having held personal exhibitions
all across Europe. Hong and Alastaro
married in 2005 and moved to Korea
the following year with their two
daughters.
I knew absolutely nothing about
Korea before coming here. I remember
seeing a paragraph about Korea in a
school textbook as a young student,
something about traditional fan dances,
but other than that, I had no images
- no preconceived notions at all, she
recalls. I just arrived with an open
mind.
Written by Felix Im
Photographed by Lee Hyang-ah
46
47
NATURE KOREA
48
49
FLAVOR
Bossam
Written by Shin Yesol
Photograph courtesy of the KTO
was the time of year when the kimchi was at its crispiest
and freshest, making it a delightful accompaniment for
the pork, which is tender enough to melt in your mouth.
In Seoul, a good place to enjoy bossam is Jongno
3-ga, where theres an entire alleyway lined with bossam
restaurants. Many of these places specialize in gul bossam,
in which the meat is topped with a raw oyster.
50
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2015
JANUARY
01
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Minsuya, irwol irire mwo hae?
03
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Jeongdongjine gaseo haedojireul
boryeogo hae.
04
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haedojireul bogieneun jeongdongjinmankeum joeun gosi eopsseo.
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Lets Practice
Lets recommend good travel destinations using the examples below.
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