Korean culture inspires India's young leaders

By Rachel Lee

Korea’s diverse culture and technology development have inspired young leaders from India.

The Korea Foundation (KF) invited 11 people aged under 45 from India for the 2017 Indian Next-Generation Leaders Visit Korea from Nov. 5-11.

The event was part of the Next Generation Leaders Visit Korea Program, an annual program launched by the KF to give potential global leaders an opportunity to learn about the historical, cultural, economic, and socio-political aspects of Korea through an extended tour.

KF President Lee Si-hyung said that along with the new government’s diplomatic moves to improve diplomatic and economic ties with Southeast Asian countries, the KF also planned to boost exchanges with ASEAN as well as India,.

“Based on this program, we are planning to diversify our programs with India and expand the scope of Korea’s diplomacy not only the four world powers to Asia,” Lee said.

The program aims to provide participants with a platform for dialogues and discussions with their Korean counterparts to enhance Indian-Korean cooperation.

The visitors also had an opportunity to view local performances and engage in other cultural experiences.

Indian Actress Anaswara Kumar, one of the participants, said she was interested in Korea, especially K-pop. She said she was a big fan of Korean boy band Bangtan Boys and studied Korean at an Indian-Korean cultural centre.

“I feel very honored and happy,” she said. “I enjoyed experiencing Korean culture first hand and I would love to come back and represent India in Korea creatively through the hallyu industry while also promoting Korea in India and explaining about Korean culture to Indian people.”

The Indian film industry, known as Bollywood, is world’s largest, with major studios in Mumbai (Bombay), Calcutta, Chennai (Madras), Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Between them, they produce more than 1000 films a year.

For nearly 50 years, movies have been the main form of entertainment in India, with growing visibility and success around the world.

Mainstream commercial releases are popular but wherever Indian cinema has a large following, such as the British Caribbean, Fiji, East and South Africa, the U.K., U.S., Canada, or the Middle East.

Commercial cinema is the most popular form of cinema in India.

Commercial or popular films are produced in Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, to name a few. Commercial films, in whatever language, tend to be quite long (about three hours), with an interval. Another important feature of commercial cinema in India is music.

Actors lip sync to the music while performing the dance sequences. Indians enjoy dancing to film music during celebrations and festivals.

Film music caters to all classes of audiences. It also serves as a means of entertainment and relaxation from day to day worries. Most actors, especially heroines, work in multiple Indian languages and sometimes in Hollywood.

The Indian film industry is supported mainly by a vast film-going Indian public, although Indian films have been gaining increasing popularity in the rest of the world.

Jawaharlal Nehru University PhD scholar Shyam Sunder said: “This is an excellent experience for me. I could learn much about Korean culture and especially the development of Korea. I hope India will develop as Korea has done.”

University of Delhi Assistant Professor Netrananda Sahu said: “It was a good opportunity for me to see lots of development such as Smart city in Songdo.

“All people here are so nice and I can also gain overall knowledge about the economic system in Korea. I believe that Korea tries its best to utilize its technology, and such efforts have produced a good environment.”

Other young leaders included Delhi Government’s Director of Higher Education Garima Gupta, Delhi University Enclave Professor Pravakar Sahoo and Start-Ups Council of India Director Rohit Salunkhe.

The KF was founded in 1992 for international exchange and public diplomacy initiatives.