South Korea’s Multicultural Festival Ends With Fanfare
The yearly multicultural festival in South Korea has ended successfully with a huge number of people attending and participating in the event that featured several shows and programs.
According to the event organizers, the multicultural festival was quite a success in promoting the Korean culture to foreigners and as well as to the locals. The statistics of the people visited in the event showed that the event was a great success and they are hoping for more success in the succeeding years of celebrating the festival.
On Friday, September 30th, the 11th Migrants' Arirang Multicultural Festival (MAMF) kicked off in the industrial city of Changwon for a three-day run of the festival with the goal of enhancing the understanding between South Koreans and migrants and sharing of cultural values.
Moreover, the venue of the event had changed due to the bad weather during that day. However, according to the organizing committee, around 220,000 people still attended the festival despite the bad weather and the festival ended without major problems and setbacks throughout the preparation.
"It is a bit regrettable that rain disrupted some events, but we are very proud of having been able to display better performances this year than in the past. We will try to provide an opportunity for South Korean society to better understand people from different cultures," said chief organizer Lee Chul-seung.
This year's guest of honor in the event was Cambodia, where it marked the opening of the festival at the Seongsan Art Hall with art troupe performances from the four nations. The Cambodian troupe performed the "Apsara Dance," which a traditional dance considered as intangible cultural asset by UNESCO. Moreover, the culture minister of Cambodia has delivered a congratulatory speech in the event.
The main events in the festival included a multicultural street parade, migrants' song festival and the Asia Pop Music Concert. On the second day of the festival, fourteen finalists competed for the migrants' song festival and an international seminar entitled "Migrants' Work, Life and Cultural Diversity" was held at Changwon University.
Furthermore, a street parade on Monday was conducted which was one of the centerpieces of the festival which included migrants from 12 nations wearing their traditional costumes. Some of the participating nations were: China, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Thailand. The South Korean rock star Yoon Do-hyun performed at the Asia Pop Music Concert together with the singers from the eight nations.