Korean Pavilion Visit! June 27, 2017

Korean Pavilion Visit!

By: Jon Poser and Sasha Bustamante

Today, Sasha and I decided to visit the Korean Pavilion for our first cultural exchange adventure. Along the way, we came across a Korean marching band playing Beatles songs in one of the main walkways, and watched as visitors gathered round singing along to ‘Hey Jude’. The crowd was lively and it seemed to put passersby in a pretty good mood, including ourselves. As we learned later, this was one of two musical groups to come to the Expo from Korea. The Korean pavilion, like the USA pavilion, has a group of energetic volunteers to represent their country.

At the pavilion itself, we were greeted by a group of charismatic student ambassadors, who like ourselves, were students from different parts of their own country. The students told us about themselves, gave us their perspective about their pavilion, and talked about similarities between the Korean and Kazakh culture. We were really excited to have remembered to bring our Polaroid camera with us as the Korean students became very happy when we gifted them one of the pictures. Two students even played ‘rock, paper, scissors’ to see who could stay with the Polaroid itself, and the winning student taught us how to play in Korean! Pins were exchanged and we caught a brief view of their penguin mascot, Pororo, as he ran by. After about a 20-minute wait, we were ushered down a dark hallway along with a large audience of all ages.

In the first part of the pavilion we were shown a video of an artist painting a mural depicting the history of Korea’s development. Then, in the main hall, we were treated to a combined video presentation/live dance performance showing a heartfelt story about how each person can move away from traditional sources of energy and tap into resources that are all around us. The presentation made a compelling argument for renewable resources, and the way that they benefit us, our future, and our environment. Finally, the last hall housed a series of trees representing different types of energy sources or technology that is either already being used in Korea or poised to be put into action. We were each given tablet computers that we used to interact with the different stations throughout the room and learn more about each type of energy as we explored the space.

In total, the show runs about thirty minutes and it’s a fun combination of engaging video presentations, dance, and augmented reality. The Korean team represents their country with pride and respect and their presentation truly engages one into thinking about the ways in which all of us can engage in being a part of new clean and renewable energies.  All in all, the team is super friendly, the pavilion is really interesting, and we had a great time. We definitely recommend for everyone to check it out!

Thanks!

Jon and Sasha

This post reflects the opinion of the author and not the USA Pavilion and its sponsors