Amid South Korean civic groups’ vigorous campaign to promote the international awareness of Dokdo and of South Korea’s sovereignty over the islets, which is challenged by Japan, a tour bus in New York has begun to run a Dokdo-promoting advertisement, joining the same crusade in a novel way.

The full five-meter LED (light-emitting diode) ad, attached to a double-decker that tours around Manhattan, flashes to pedestrians that the proper name of the international sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan is “East Sea” and Dokdo, a set of islets there also belongs to South Korea, Yonhap News Agency reported Saturday.

"Do You Know? For the last 2,000 years, the body of water between Korea and Japan has been called the `East Sea.' And Dokdo located in the East Sea is a part of Korean territory,” the 15-second ad said, displaying a big picture of Dokdo.

The ad has begun since Aug. 20. The ad-carrying bus drives through New York’s main tourist attractions, including Time Square, Central Park, Empire State Building, Soho, Wall Street, Korea Town, China Town, and the U.N. building, flashing the ad more than 1,000 times a day.

The bus is a property of the East Tourism Co., a tour company run by Cho Kyu-sung.

“As a person who originally came from Korea, I became disquieted whenever the disputes surrounding the Dokdo ownership and its official international naming surfaced,” Cho said.

“I just wanted to tell people here in New York that Dokdo belongs to Korea, and East Sea ‘is’ East Sea,” he added.

For Cho to run such a voluntary ad meant that he needed to give up making 6 million won monthly per bus that he could otherwise make by running commercial advertisements. He currently uses two buses for the Dokdo ad and plans to add one more soon.

The impact of Cho’s idea has turned out to be more than he expected. A number of New Yorkers and tourists have paid keen and curious attention to the novel ad.

A woman, identified as Kristin, said, “It’s my first time to know that the name of the sea between South Korea and Japan is East Sea.” With her curiosity apparently picked by the ad, she then asked the reporter what “Dokdo” meant.

“The singer Kim Jang-hun ran a Dokdo ad in the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal started to put the islands’ Korean name before its Japanese name. Now, we have a tour bus that promotes the awareness of Dokdo as well,” observed a Korean-American resident, identified as Choi, in the piece.

“It’s like New York has become a Mecca for the Dokdo campaign,” he said.

sunny.lee@koreatimes.co.kr