Director Kim Tae-hoon of the Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS) delivers his congratulatory remarks during the opening ceremony for the Korean Cultural Center in Hong Kong, at the city’s landmark Police Married Quarters (PMQ) on Jan. 24. (Korean Culture and Information Service)
By Min Yea-Ji and Kim Young Shin
The Korean Cultural Center in Hong Kong opened on Jan. 24 at the Police Married Quarters (PMQ), a popular cultural complex in downtown Hong Kong. It’s now the third Korean cultural center in greater China, after the ones in Beijing and Shanghai, and the 32nd Korean Cultural Center around the world.
At the launch ceremony were some 200 dignitaries, including Director Kim Tae-hoon of the Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS), Consul General of Korea in Hong Kong Kim Won-jin, Director Yu Byungchae of the new cultural center, and Jack Chan, the undersecretary for home affairs of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.
“Seoul and Hong Kong have long been close partners in terms of business and trade. In terms of tourism and human exchanges, Korea and Hong Kong have become closer and closer. Last year, more than 2 million mutual visits were made between the two,” said the KOCIS director. “I expect that the Korean Cultural Center in Hong Kong will introduce the quintessence of Korean culture and heritage, and promote even more mutual exchanges.”
The cultural center takes up two floors in the PMQ building, covering some 1,072 square meters. It has a multi-purpose hall, a “K-Culture Experience Zone,” a cooking classroom, seminar rooms, a library and a multimedia room.
Art exhibitions, small-scale performances, Korean language classes, cooking classes and educational sessions about Korean pop music and movies will all take place at the new cultural center. The library will feature books related to Korean art, food and literature.
To celebrate the opening of the center, an exhibition of modern Korean art, “Blooming at the Junction” (접점개화, 接點開花), will take place in the multi-purpose hall on the sixth floor and the gallery on the seventh floor from Jan. 25 to March 31. The exhibit consists of some 30 works of art by 19 representative Korean artists, such as Paik Nam Joon, Kimsooja and Atta Kim.
More news about the Korean Cultural Center in Hong Kong can be found at its website.
http://hk.korean-culture.org/en/welcome
jesimin@korea.kr
