The Global Costume Festival is a meaningful event that creates harmony with other different cultures and peoples. It was established by Yang Myung-hwan, former president of the organization, and during the last festival in Incheon on December 27th a new president was elected for this global festival. He is Jeong Jae-min, president of the Hanji Arts Association of Korea. The Korea IT Times met president Jeong and listened to his global vision for the festival.
Evolution of the Festival
President Jeong Jae-min said: "It is a long-standing festival that is already very well-known among foreign ambassadors around the world. Based on this background, if various artistic elements are added to the Festival, I think the one-time event will become a truly global cultural festival where many of the world's citizens get together under the banner of culture to celebrate." He assumed this post from the end of last year at the persistent recommendation from his predecessor.
President Jeong is doing his utmost to diversify the Festival. So far, the Festival has been just a one-day event with 50 foreign diplomatic couples parading on the stage dressed in the traditional Korean dress Hanbok. It was his wish to extend the Festival period longer than the present festival with many colorful events.
Three Stages of Upcoming Change
President Jeong said: "My plans for developing the festival can be divided into three stages. The first stage is to upgrade the common bonds shared among nations through costume festivals. From this year, I want to add new colorful features to the fashion show, based on the systematic assortment of foreign costumes. For example, I want the festival to show not a single representative dress, but a variety of costumes of other countries by age so that the audience can understand how the foreign dresses changed through the ages.
"In addition, I want to invite well-known dress designers from foreign countries with models dressed in their own national costumes. This will add another fresh fashion show to the Global Costume Festival. I am also confident that through such cultural events, universal human bonds would be further solidified. With such a firm conviction, I took over the presidency of the Global Costume Festival at the end of the last year."
The second stage will be to prepare individual booths for all participating foreign countries to display their handicrafts, foods and housing cultures so that visitors to the festival can directly experience different foreign lifestyles. And the third stage will be to link all these cultural functions to a business aspect. In other words, it is to channel such factors into the production of general commercial merchandise, thus opening a new gate of trade among nations.
Cultural Merchandise as Commercial Items
Korean Hanbok and handicrafts have high value as commercial items. They encourage a two-way trade between Korea and foreign countries. President Jeong said: "As the cultural exchange develops gradually to a business trade, this will lead to more solid and friendly relations among nations than the conventional business pattern. In the case of opening new business among foreign countries, benefits of many-sided cultural exchanges will smoothly spill over into forging new trade relationships."
President Jeong has a rich experience of showing Korean paper handicrafts and folk paintings in Russia and China. According to Jeong, Korean cultural merchandise attracted deep interest from foreign countries and celebrities in foreign countries were very interested in the general cultural field.
His wife, who is also the co- President of the World Cultural Exchange Association, is well-known painter Ko Sung-rye, who plays an active role in President Jeong's nongovernmental cultural exchange programs. She won the Grand Prize in the 26th Korean National Grand Arts Exhibition in 2007 and has received requests from many foreign painters to hold joint art exhibitions. The joint art exhibitions will also be included as part of President Jeong's cultural exchange programs. Culture has no national boundary and becomes more bountiful if merged with other cultures.
President Jeong says that if all Korean cultural elements such as Hanbok, Korean foods, Korean paper, Korean paintings, and Korean traditional houses are placed together in a package under the title of Han Style Culture, they will provide rich and more attractive cultural experiences to foreign audiences. As part of nongovernmental cultural diplomacy, such activities will also serve as an occasion for ambassadors and their families of major foreign countries to appreciate the excellent qualities of Korean culture.
First Encounter with the Art
It was eight years ago that President Jeong first came to be interested in culture and the arts. When he organized an incorporated body for his wife, Mrs. Ko was engaged in Korean paper craft at that time. He hoped for systematic development of Korean paper craft through the incorporated body. He also established the Korean Folk Paintings Promotion Association and the Korean Paper Handicraft Promotion Association under the corporate umbrella. Later these two associations were respectively authorized by the government and renamed the Teacher's Handicraft Training Organization and a distinguished traditional cultural handicraft business center.
His foresight, organizational skills and personnel management ability made all these accomplishments possible. His prowess will also be exhibited in his cultural exchange programs and activities in the future. All the programs and activities will have a thread of connection with each other and pave the way to promoting efficient cultural exchanges and business transactions among foreign countries. Currently, the development of Korean cultural merchandise is one of the weak points in Korea's cultural exchange activities. Nevertheless, President Jeong's devoted promotional efforts will certainly result in synergy effects through the exploration of Korean cultural goods exports.
His Wish for CEOs
He is convinced that his grand vision will eventually bear rich fruit despite the current global financial difficulties. Having been engaged in non-governmental cultural diplomacy that the government can hardly conceive of positively pushing through in this economic crisis, it is certainly a heavy burden for President Jeong. So, he is cooperating with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and other local autonomous bodies to realize his vision, and he is looking forward to the participation of like-minded CEOs of other businesses in his venture.
