[Chunchon Report3] Eve Festival lacks Korean cultures

Eve Festival of 2000 Korea Open Chunchon Int'l TKD Championship was held from 7 in the evening, lasting 3 hours. The Eve Festival began with Street Rally from Chunchon City Hall to Children's Hall and about 3,000 people were participating there.

In the beginning, the festival had Chunchon Mayor Pae, Gye-sup's celebration remarks and Chunchon citizens' Rally to achieve TKD Park Project. This way, the festival had a lot of sub-events, but it seemed lacking in performances of Korean Cultures.

A military band was the first team at stage, playing 'Champs-lyses' and 'Choryun'(a Korean pop song). Especially, when Korean pop musician Clon's 'Choryun' was played, Korea kids and some foreign players went up to the stage and danced together.

In succession, the mime show was performed by Namgungho, a play group. The title was Golden Belt, whose subject was Taekwondo, first time for mime performances. The story is that a man, who has lost his lover by a gangster, learns Taekwondo and then gets even with the guy. Actually, it was a little exaggerated, but it was really fun to people present.

Next was Kang-hwa chidrens' chore. All kids from the chore were wearing traditional costumes of every country in the world, attracting lots of attention. The children sang 'Space Bike' and 'Plant Trees' with their own purity, and sometimes danced a little. They got applauded a lot by people present.

Next performance was 'Nanta,' which was the highlight of the Eve Festival. The team was composed of 5 people. Its intense and exciting rhythm fascinated spectators from the beginning through the end.

Finally, an amateur club, whose members work for Chunchon City Hall, performed the last scene of the festival. They sang 'La Bamba' 'Loving You', enjoyable songs for foreigners, and Korean songs 'Let's go for trips' and 'Girl Soyang River.'

Scott from the Australia team said, "Korean people are so nice. The performances were great." On the other hand, there were few performances to meet Korean cultures, he added.

An anonymous volunteer worker said, "I don't know why they sing foreign pop songs in this int'l event. I think it would be better if they performed some Fan Dancing or Samulnori (4 item performances) to promote Korean cultures to a lot of foreigners."

They added, "We had only two times educations for volunteers. So, to be honest with you, I work here as a volunteer, but I don't know what to do here." It might be one problem of the Eve Festival preparation.

Opening Ceremony is to be held in Chunchon Hoban Gymnasium at 4 in this afternoon (on 24th).