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Hello, Vietnam and Korea!

Korea-Vietnam Cultural Exchange Concert ‘EULSOO’, an effort to promote mutual understanding and friendship, was co-organized by Korea’s Jobarte group and Vietnam’s Good Will civic organization with support from the Korea Foundation. Two performances were successfully staged in Da Nang, Vietnam on April 24 and 26.



Jobarte, a co-organizer of the Korea-Vietnam Cultural Exchange Concert ‘EULSOO’, is a cultural enterprise that promotes performance and educational experiences which combine culture, art, and entertainment, while its Vietnamese counterpart, Good Will, is a civic organization comprised of Vietnam’s young intellectuals. The two organizations joined forces to present the recent concert in an effort to bolster two-way relations through people-to-people interaction and cultural exchange between Korea and Vietnam.



Exchange of Song and Dance
Two performances were staged in Da Nang, in the central region of Vietnam. Da Nang is a port city with a population of 900,000, making it the fourth-largest city in Vietnam. During the Vietnamese War, the Da Nang area served as a key battleground that included base camps for the U.S. and South Korean military forces. Reborn as a city of trade, commerce, and tourism, Da Nang has been enjoying rapid development in recent years. As we made our way to the performance venues, there seemed to be construction of new buildings at every corner, including well-known hotels.
The first concert was held at the University of Da Nang, which attracted an audience of about 200 university faculty members and students, including Dean Tran Quang Hai, of the College of Foreign Languages, and Professor Hoang Phan Thanh Nga, of the Department of Korean Language. The event opened with a performance of Jindo Bukchum, followed by the Pungmul group Dunum’s renditions of samulnori and Namsadangnori, which energized the atmosphere. The audience closely observed every movement of the Korean performers, along with cheering loudly to the dynamic rhythm of Korea’s traditional percussion instruments (jing, kkwaenggwari, janggu, and buk). Following the program segment by Korean performers, girls in traditional Vietnamese attire, ao dai, presented a variety of Vietnam’s traditional works of dance and folk songs. Indeed, this was a meaningful opportunity for the audience to appreciate each other’s performing arts culture.
Thereafter, the Korean instrumental group, Joyful Island, played the soundtrack theme of “Winter Sonata,” the Korean TV drama that enjoyed tremendous popularity among viewers in Vietnam, as well as “Trong Com,” Vietnam’s representative folk song, to a highly enthusiastic response from the University of Da Nang audience. For a finale, the performers and audience joined together to sing Korea’s well-known Arirang folk song, which served to underline the cultural understanding between the peoples of Korea and Vietnam.

Passionate Performance
The second performance was staged at the Korea-Vietnam Friendship IT College, with the attendance of some 2,500 students, as well as President Phi Dac Hai and Vice President Tran Thien Thanh, who offered their encouragement and support to the performers. In December 2007, Korea-Vietnam Friendship IT College, an institution of higher learning, was established through the cooperative efforts of KOICA (Korea’s lead ODA agency) and various Korean business enterprises and institutions, for the purpose of promoting the transfer of Korea’s IT education to Vietnam and supporting the technical education of Vietnam’s IT workforce.
The campus gymnasium, where the performance was staged, was packed with students, adding to the stifling humidity, even in the evening. Unexpectedly, one student, who was apparently enthralled by the gracefulness of the Jindo Bukchum and Ipchum dance works, suddenly burst onto the stage to offer flowers to the dancers, in the middle of their performance. There was also raucous applause and cheering from the audience, like what you might expect for a popular rock group, when the Samulnori group launched into its Gutpan performance, with Gilnori running through the aisles.
The President of Korea-Vietnam Friendship IT College was called up on stage to participate in Beona Dolligi (spinning dishes) of Namsadangnori, to which the students showed an enthusiastic response. The following segment featured a performance of Vietnam’s folk dance. To present the elegance of Vietnam’s traditional dance, the Vietnamese performers presented a medley of Mua Sap, bamboo dance, and Hoa sen dang Bac, which is quite similar to Korea’s fan dance.



Cultural Interaction
Although this program in Vietnam was mainly focused on the performance of Korea’s traditional culture, our group made much effort to experience the everyday life and performance culture of the Vietnamese people. For example, we had a chance to tour a local market and enjoy Vietnamese coffee at a small street cafe. It was also memorable that we could reflect on the importance of peace by visiting the War Remnants Museum, of Ho Chi Minh City, and paying our respects at a war memorial site. An especially meaningful experience was our visit to a training center for underprivileged children operated by the Red Cross group in Da Nang. The local youth were appreciative of our brief performance and simple gifts.
An understanding and respect for each other’s traditional culture is the most noteworthy outcome of the Korea-Vietnam Cultural Exchange Concert ‘EULSOO’. Through this, the people of Vietnam and Korea are better able to better acknowledge the diversity and characteristics of our cultures and to find common ground. To build on this experience, Jobarte plans to further promote the traditional culture of Korea in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Thanks to the popularity of its various TV dramas and popular music, Korea has come to be recognized as a culturally advanced country. Currently, Jobarte is discussing with KOICA our possible participation in the events to commemorate the 65th anniversary of Vietnam’s independence day, Quoc Khanh (September 2-3, 2010), and the ASEAN 2010 conference (October), on the occasion of the millennium anniversary of Hanoi. And of course, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to the Korea Foundation for its support of this successful project.

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