Kang Seung-woo is the Business Desk editor at The Korea Times. Prior to this position, he covered politics, national affairs, finance and sports.
Center opens to narrow inter-Korean cultural differences
The Inter-Korean Cultural Integration Center, located in Gangseo-gu, western Seoul, is aimed at helping North Korea defectors and local residents communicate through cultural activities and narrow their cultural differences. Courtesy of Ministry of Unification
By Kang Seung-woo
By Kang Seung-woo
A center designed to promote cultural exchange between North Korean defectors and South Korean residents has been launched.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ambitious project from the Ministry of Unification named the Inter-Korean Cultural Integration Center, originally slated to open in April, held an online opening event on May 13.
The seven-story establishment, located in Gangseo-gu, southwestern Seoul, has several galleries with different themes.
“I hope that North Korean defectors and local residents will be able to achieve a small unification at this center,” Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said in a congratulatory speech.
As North Korean defectors' struggle to adjust to life within South Korean society has emerged as a social issue, the ministry said it hopes the cultural center will help defectors and local citizens communicate through cultural activities and narrow their cultural differences.
To this end, the center is set to run programs enabling North Korean defectors and locals to participate together in a variety of different activities, including yoga, childcare, cooking and music. In particular, a conversation program is available, in which they can have heart-to-heart talks.
First of all, the center provides defectors with opportunities to work alongside South Koreans to create cultural content and participate in volunteering activities to help the local community, activities that in turn help them to contribute to South Korean society.
It also serves as a place where visitors can experience the cultures of both South and North Korea and offers programs for North Korean defectors with an exhibition hall, an integrated culture experience hall and two Peace Unification libraries for adults and children, with each having 20,000 and 10,000 books that are available for online viewing.
The Inter-Korean Cultural Integration Center is a place where visitors can experience the cultures of South and North Korea. Courtesy of Ministry of Unification
Visitors can see a lot of items from North Korea that were donated by people, including food and cosmetics, in the integrated culture experience hall.
“As more time has passed, daily life in South and North Korea has become very different. The center provides a lot of information to narrow those cultural differences,” a ministry official said.
Visitors can also watch a lecture titled “South and North Korean Traditional Cuisine” via its social media platforms.
According to the ministry, for the time being the center will focus on online programs and its few offline programs will be restricted to fewer than eight participants in accordance with disease control measures designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In addition, visitors need to make prior reservations to take part in the programs and to take out books at the library. However, they can check online anytime for information on the various programs.
“We had prepared many offline programs, but it became difficult to carry them out in large numbers because of the coronavirus situation,” said Lee Jong-ju, director of the humanitarian cooperation bureau at the ministry.
The center plans to expand its offline programs gradually depending on the coronavirus situation, offering programs to help defectors connect with the community.
The completion of the cultural center had a series of twists and turns.
Although the need to build the center was first raised in 2012 amid a growing number of people defecting from North Korea, local residents' opposition to North Korean defector-related facilities held the plan back for eight years.
“A process to convince local residents to accept the plan took quite a while, but now they are satisfied with the center being launched there ― particularly due to the inclusion of a toy rental shop and a children's library,” Lee said.
The ministry plans to build more facilities across the nation after helping the first center to become a model for social integration.
According to a February survey conducted by the Hana Foundation, a state-run agency that helps with the resettlement of North Korean defectors, 17.2 percent of 3,000 defectors polled said they experienced discrimination last year. The ratio was slightly down from 20.2 percent reported a year earlier, but indicated the continued presence of deep-rooted prejudice against defectors.
In addition, 76.7 percent said they were discriminated against because of “cultural” differences such as their way of speaking, manners and lifestyles. It was higher than the corresponding figure of 69.9 percent a year earlier.
According to the unification ministry, a total of 135 North Korean defectors arrived in South Korea during the first quarter of this year, compared with 229 arrivals during the same period of last year. In 2019, a total of 1,047 North Korean defectors came to South Korea, the lowest annual number in 18 years.
"The Ministry of Unification will strive to ensure that the center establishes itself as a space for communication and amicable ties between South and North Koreans," the official added.