KoreaToday Salad TV Offering Bowl of Multiculturalism

By Kwon Mee-yoo

Staff Reporter

Park Kyong-ju, 42, president of an Internet broadcaster for migrant workers and immigrant women, is looking to bridge the gap between Koreans and the immigrant community.

A graduate of the printmaking department of Hongik University, one of the nation's top art schools, Park studied abroad at Braunschweig University of Art and Berlin University of the Arts.

As a foreigner there, her interests focused to the issue of discrimination. She photographed and recorded the lives of migrant workers in Berlin and Korean miners and nurses sent to Germany.

She came back to Korea and became interested in the lives of migrant workers and immigrant women as a cultural activist.

``I thought that Korea needed to change in terms of cultural diversity, but migrant worker issues were mostly focused on human and labor rights,’’ Park said.

She first tried to affect change through art, but realized that there were limitations to high culture. ``Art galleries did not have mass influence and making hit records required money. I became aware of the importance of media then.’’

Park decided in 2004 to create a channel that would give a voice to immigrant women and migrant workers. After a year’s preparation, Salad TV, then called Internet Broadcast for Migrant Workers, launched in 2005.

``Nothing out there was shedding light the lives of multicultural families and migrant workers,’’ Park said. ``I wanted to accomplish real communication without any prejudice.’’

This is the reason Salad TV is offered in various languages. ``I first thought of making a Korean Web site, but the migrants preferred their mother tongue,’’ she said. As a result, the broadcaster changed its name to Salad TV and now is provided in eight languages _ Korean, English, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Russian, Nepali and Mongolian. The site gets some 1,000-1,500 hits daily.

The name comes from the image of a salad, where various ingredients coexist to create a harmonious whole.

According to 2009 statistics, more than 1.1 million expatriates live in Korea and the number of married immigrants reached 167,000 with 88,000 children from multicultural families. However, the understanding of immigrants and multicultural families here still leaves a lot to be desired.

Broadcasting for Migrants

The multicultural broadcasting station is composed of three major businesses _ Salad TV conveys information regarding immigrant women, migrant workers and foreign students; Salad Theater portrays the lives of married immigrants and their families; and a publishing arm prints children’s storybooks and other photograph collections. About 50 people are involved in the multicultural broadcasting station’s operations, including directors, reporters, volunteers, actors and staff members.

``Some of them worked with me before establishing the multicultural broadcasting station as volunteers and the others applied for positions after seeing the job listing,’’ Park said.