Photo Essay: GIC Week 2022 – A Week of Multicultural Immersion

GIC Week 2022

A Week of Multicultural Immersion

By Karina Prananto Photographs by Park Tae-sang

The Gwangju International Center (GIC) successfully organized the 2022 Gwangju International Community Week this October. Starting from Tuesday, October 11, when the GIC held Culture Night featuring four regions in the world, to that weekend’s Global Gwangju event at the Asia Culture Center, it was hard work for all involved, but it was also considered a job well done!

CULTURE NIGHT

From October 11–14, the GIC organized African Night (11th), Southeast Asian Night (12th), Central Asian Night (13th), and Arabian Night (14th). It was quite a feat to find such an array of international communities in Gwangju that many may not know about, and there was a great turnout – around 400 people attended – consisting of both Koreans and international residents who were very eager to know about the various international communities in Gwangju.

In short, we sang, we danced, and we fundraised. The experiences that allowed us to know more about these various regions in depth were the highlight of the week.

GLOBAL GWANGJU

Probably the most anticipated (and the biggest and busiest) events to end the week were the Global Gwangju days, lasting from October 15–16. Forty booths featuring Global Food, Global Culture, Global Community, and Embassies and Organizations participated to make this event very, well, global. It is not your everyday sight to see many international visitors in one spot selling delicious foods from their countries. We loved the amazingly delicious brownies from the Canadian booth, and we tasted sambousa from the Yemeni one. We got to try making a lovely phone charm at the Ukrainian booth, and learnt taekwondo from the master himself, Mr. Kim Jae-min, in the taekwondo and taekkyon booth. It was amazing to see such an impressive turnout, which we estimated was probably more than a thousand people! We loved all the interaction, the sharing, and more importantly, the happiness shown on each of the participants’ faces in each booth!

“Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to participate in this event. We were able to introduce Ukraine through our booth, and it was a very good experience and fun for our friends who have recently come from Ukraine. I hope to participate again when there is an opportunity, and I would like to prepare a more interesting and meaningful program.” – Li Daria (Ukraine, Global Culture)

“It was our great pleasure to be a part of this event, where we Nepalese students got a chance to demonstrate our costumes, culture, traditions, art, and crafts at our booth. Nepalese people with their cultural dress added to the beauty of the booth. We would like to thank the Gwangju International Center for providing such an amazing opportunity.” – Rajaram Shrestha (Nepal, Global Culture)

“Thank you to the GIC members and everyone for organizing and participating in this festival. We had a lot of fun. Hope to see everyone in the next one.” - Woldeamnuel Minwuye Mesfin (Ethiopia, Global Food)

gwangjunewsgic.com Gwangju News, November 2022“Thank you for giving us this wonderful opportunity. It was so beautiful to reconnect with the community. Seeing all the smiling faces really warmed my heart. I wish I had more time to meet all the other sellers! I hope you all enjoyed the experience!” – Kelly Jean Kim (Canada, Global Food)

With the nearby events happening at the same time (Chungjang Festival and Buskers World Festival), this year’s event really brought many people of Gwangju to truly experience the beauty of diversity. What is more, this is the very first GIC event where we truly “went green.” We basically did not use any disposable containers in the selling of the foods, which meant a great reduction in trash! This concept is still very new to Korean events, but we believe that with the right steps, we can make a change, and hopefully other event organizers will follow suit!