Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Garden show provides green Seoul to citizens
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon speaks during the opening ceremony of the Seoul International Garden Show at Sohn Kee Chung Sports Park in Seoul, Friday. Yonhap
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
Citizens are invited to visit various gardens decorated with styles from around the world at Seoul International Garden Show, which will run until Thursday in the city's downtown areas near Seoul Station.
The city's gardening event, which kicked off on Friday, is being held at Sohn Kee Chung Sports Park, Malli-dong Square and around Jungnim-dong, under the theme of “Link Garden, Think Life.” It displays 58 gardens including those created by horticultural designers from seven countries ― the Netherlands, the United States, Spain, the United Kingdom, Colombia, France and Korea.
The city government decided to hold the event at multiple locations with smaller scales each, rather than one big event at one place, to prevent large crowds gathering in one place and reduce the chances of coronavirus infection.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, Seoul City Council Chairman Kim In-ho, Jung District Office head Seo Yang-ho, Spanish Ambassador to Korea Juan Ignacio Morro and Dutch Ambassador Joanne Doornewaard attended the opening ceremony.
“In fact, there were concerns about holding this event due to COVID-19, but we thought we need a space to cheer up our citizens who have been exhausted by the prolonged pandemic. In addition, more citizens are looking for rest areas like parks in neighborhoods these days when travel is restricted,” Oh said in his opening speech.
“Relaxation and freshness of nature are not comparable to air purifiers inside buildings. So we decided to open the gardening event in order to give chances to citizens to breathe fresh air by combining online and in-person programs so that everyone can participate safely.”
Citizens look around gardens displayed at the Seoul International Garden Show in Sohn Kee Chung Sports Park in Seoul, Friday. Yonhap
After the opening ceremony, Mayor Oh toured the gardens and talked with citizens. When some citizens sitting on benches in the park told him the park had only two benches and asked him to increase the number, he promised to deliver their request to the head of the district office.
One of the gardens is designed by British landscape architect Andrew Grant. Titled “The Vine's Web,” his work contains an installation symbolizing a vine on a 150-square-meter garden in Namdaemun-ro Culture Park.
Five other gardens were created by winning teams from an international competition, among 80 teams from 19 countries.
Through this event, many different sizes of gardens were created throughout Jung District, and about half of them will be left for citizens to enjoy after the event comes to an end.
“We have had many outdoor events, but most of them were one-off ones, so when they were over, there was nothing left. But this gardening show will be a great gift to the residents of this neighborhood,” said Seo Yang-ho, head of the district office.
As part of the online program, a gardening industry exhibition is held with some 100 domestic and foreign companies showcasing their products. Citizens can also share the gardens and parks in their neighborhoods that are not well-known through the website of the garden festival.
Starting in 2015, the annual gardening event has attracted an accumulated 4.06 million visitors as of 2019, with the 2020 event being canceled due to the pandemic.
“We hope that this event will be a great opportunity to showcase Seoul's garden culture and landscape industry to the world,” an official from the city government said.