[웹 단면]03korea by KOCIS

CONTENTS

Korea in Brief

Korea & I

Korea Monthly Update

A German Baker in Korea

Special Issue

Policy Review

PyeongChang 2018 Test Events

Greener Cars, New Growth Engines

Cover Story

Brand Korea

Korean Webtoons Entertain the World

New Brand Mark for Cultural Goods

Popular digital art form brings together creativity and technology

For Korea and Iran, It’s Business as Usual

Diplomacy

Travel

Geojedo: Island Getaway

One Step Closer to Science Fiction

Creative Economy

People 1

Elsevier Chairman Youngsuk Chi

Global Korea

Korea Helps Build World’s Biggest Geothermal Plant

30 People 2

Professor Emanuel Pastreich

Flavor

Tangpyeongchae

32 Arts & Entertainment

Korean Animators

Korean Keyword

Deom

March 2016

KOREA

Publisher Park Young-goog, Korean Culture and Information Service Executive Producer Han Seong-rae Email webmaster@korea.net Magazine Production Seoul Selection Editor-in-Chief Robert Koehler Production Supervisor Lee Jin-hyuk Producer Kim Eugene Copy Editors Gregory C. Eaves, Eileen Cahill, Hwang Chi-young Creative Director Lee Yusin Designers Lee Bok-hyun, Jung Hyun-young Photographers aostudio Kang jinju, RAUM Studio Printing Pyung Hwa Dang Printing Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission from KOREA and the Korean Culture and Information Service. If you want to receive a free copy of KOREA or wish to cancel a subscription, please e-mail us. A downloadable PDF of KOREA and a map and glossary with common Korean words appearing in our magazine are available by clicking on the thumbnail of KOREA at the website www.korea.net. Publication Registration No: 11-1110073-000016-06

Korea in Brief

Korea Monthly Update © Image Today

Gov’t to Transform Pangyo, Sangam Districts into Asian Silicon Valleys The government plans to turn Gyeonggi-do’s Pangyo area and Seoul’s Sangam area into Asian Silicon Valleys by drawing local and overseas startups to those districts. The plan, which calls for KRW 80 trillion (USD 65 billion) in investment, aims to create new growth engines including smart cars, healthrelated industries such as surgical robotics and the energy sector, particularly electric cars. The initiative also calls for creating 760,000 jobs in the healthcare sector by increasing the number of medical tourists to 400,000 per year from 280,000 now and by helping Korean hospitals to expand overseas. The Ministry of Health and Welfare has created a KRW 150 billion fund to help Korean biotech businesses to export their technologies overseas.

The Visit Korea Committee has announced the start of its K-Travel Bus service, which brings international visitors to popular tourist destinations in the Korean countryside. Day trips to mountainous Gangwon-do, the site of the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games, cost just USD 5. One-night, two-day trips to sites in Chungcheongnam-do, Gyeongsangbuk-do and Jeollanam-do cost USD 170–180. The price includes transportation, lodging, admission to sites and a guide.

KOREA _ March _ 4

New Tour Bus Takes International Visitors to the Countryside

Korean Cosmetic Exports Hit Record High Korea exported more than USD 2.92 billion in cosmetics in 2015, an all-time high, as interest in Korean beauty techniques surged overseas. Cosmetic exports to China were especially brisk, recording USD 1.19 billion, a 99.2 percent increase from 2014 and accounting for 40 percent of total cosmetic exports. Hong Kong and the United States were Korea’s second- and third-largest cosmetics export markets. Chinese consumers were particularly enthusiastic about “cushion compact foundations” that give makeup a more natural look.

Year of France in Korea Celebrates 130 Years of Ties The Year of France in Korea kicks off on March 23 with a National Dance Company of Korea performance of an exclusive work created by renowned French choreographer José Montalvo. Celebrating 130 years of ties between Korea and France, the Year of France in Korea will feature over 90 cultural events through December. Highlights include an exhibit on French luxury and savoir-faire at the National Museum of Korea, an exhibit dedicated to philosopher Roland Barthes at the Seoul Museum of Art, a focus on France at the 2016 Seoul International Dance Festival, a performance by the Orchestre de Paris at the Seoul Arts Center, and a French film retrospective at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival.

Ten Most Innovative Economies 8 United States 2 Germany 5 Switzerland 10 France

9 Denmark 3 Sweden 7 Finland

1 South Korea 4 Japan

6 Singapore Source: Bloomberg

Bloomberg Names Korea World’s Most Innovative Country Influential U.S. media group Bloomberg has named Korea the world’s most innovative country. Korea scored 92.1 points, more than a point over second- and third-place finishers Sweden and the United States. Korea ranked especially highly in the categories of R&D intensity, high-tech density, manufacturing capabilities, tertiary efficiency and patent activity, finishing in the top three in those categories. Wrote Bloomberg, “In the world of ideas, South Korea is king.”

Employment Site Offers Services in 17 Languages Many of the services offered under the government’s Employment Permit System for non-citizens are now available online not only in Korean, but also in 16 other languages. The Employment Permit System offers job information and other employment-related services to non-Korean employees and Korean employers. Workers from the Philippines, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Cambodia, China, Bangladesh, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and East Timor can now make use of the site in their native languages. The site also includes a Korean dictionary of employment and labor terms, an FAQ section, and a list of available jobs.

KOREA _ March _ 5

Special Issue

Success in PyeongChang Test events for 2018 Winter Olympic Games show host nation Korea is up for the task _ Written by Lee Kyehyun Photographs courtesy of PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games

KOREA _ March _ 6

“Today, we have put PyeongChang on the world map for World Cup alpine skiing.” So boasted Cho Yang-ho, the president of the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games as the first day of the International Ski Federation Alpine Skiing World Cup came to a close on Feb. 6. Hosted at the newly completed Jeongseon Alpine Centre near the mountain resort town of PyeongChang, the World Cup was the first in a long series of so-called “test events” held to assess Korea’s new sporting facilities and familiarize the international sporting community with the country prior to the 2018 Winter Olympics. As Olympic host city PyeongChang’s coming-out ceremony, it couldn’t have gone better. Norwegian skier Kjetil Jansrud, the reigning Olympic super-G champion and downhill bronze medalist, wrote on his Facebook page, “I guess you never get a second chance to make a first impression. And PyeongChang just aced it. This will be a fantastic venue.”

Getting things right

PyeongChang and other nearby towns will be hosting 28 test events through April 2017. These sporting events aim to ensure that competition venues, many of which are newly built, are operationally ready for the Olympic Games. They are also an opportunity for athletes and officials, many of whom are visiting Korea for the first time, to familiarize themselves with both the venues and

1 Downhill at the Audi FIS Ski Cross World Cup 2 Winners of the SG event of the Audi FIS Ski Cross World Cup 3 Audi FIS Ski Cross World Cup organizing committee holds a press conference

the host country. Some 3,000 athletes from around the world are expected to take part in the test events, as are over 10,000 volunteers. That the first test event even took place at all was something of a minor miracle. In December of last year, the International Ski Federation began to express concern that the Jeongseon Alpine Centre might not be ready to host the World Cup event due to unseasonably warm weather and, more critically, delays in constructing the gondola system. Amazingly, however, the Korean side was able to get the venue ready on time, thanks to a trip by organizing committee chief Cho to Austria to meet with the president of Doppelmayr, the company that designed the gondolas, and a nose-to-thegrindstone approach that saw construction teams work 24 hours over the winter holidays. On Jan. 20, the International Ski Federation cleared the venue for the event.

A world-class venue

Nestled on the slopes of Mt. Gariwangsan, a lofty peak of over 1,500 meters famed for its thick, ancient forests, the Jeongseon Alpine Centre is purpose-built to host the 2018 Winter Games’ alpine speed events, notably the Downhill, Super-G and Combined. With 3,500 seats and room for another 2,500 standing, the venue can accommodate over 6,000 spectators. The men’s downhill starts from an elevation of 1,370 meters and runs 2.85 kilometers to finish at an elevation of 545 meters, a vertical drop of 825 meters with an average slope of 35 percent. The women’s course, meanwhile, runs nearly 2.39 kilometers with

KOREA _ March _ 7

Established names and local favorites

a vertical drop of 748 meters and an average slope of 31.3 percent. The Super G runs for about 2.22 kilometers with a vertical drop of 630 meters and an average slope of 31.4 percent. Whatever concerns there may have been about its state of readiness, the new center certainly won over the athletes who participated in the World Cup event. At the post-race press conference, the top three finishers in the men’s downhill race, Jansrud, Dominik Paris of Italy and Steven Nyman of the United States, agreed that the venue was a “fun” place to ski. “It’s a fun course. It’s not the longest but it’s a good downhill,” said Paris. “The turns are good. We can have a lot of fun here.” Nyman added, “This was a lot of fun to ski on.” Officials were extremely satisfied as well. Gunilla Lindberg, chair of the International Olympic Committee’s Coordination Commission for the 2018 games, praised the test event. “You know, in the world of sports, it’s very difficult to reach the maximum score,” she said. “However, I am giving it 100 points.” Even the International Ski Federation was impressed. Federation president Gian Franco Kasper said, “We have an excellent downhill course here, according to the athletes and coaches. It’s a downhill which is really made for the Olympics.”

1, 2 Promotional hall for the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Gangneung

At the men’s downhill, Jansrud won the gold with a practically perfect run that clocked in at 1 minute and 41.38 seconds, beating second-place finisher Paris by just 0.2 seconds. It was the sixth victory of the season for the Norwegian team. The gold medal winner in the Super G event in the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia, the 30-year-old skier has also been named Winter Youth Olympic Games Ambassador for his efforts to inspire and mentor young athletes. In the next day’s Super G event, former overall World Cup champion Carlo Janka of Switzerland trounced the field with a time of 1 minute and 28.16 seconds, beating second-place finisher Christof Innerhofer of Italy by 0.82 seconds. Several of the pre-event favorites, including Jansrud, Paris and Andrew Weibrecht of the United States, had difficult runs on a course that proved tougher than the previous day’s downhill due to an overnight snowstorm that deposited 10 centimeters of snow on the track. The loudest applause from the 1,000 fans who showed up was reserved for Korean skier Kim Hyeon-tae. Kim did not perform especially well, finishing last, with a time more than seven seconds behind Janka’s. Still, he finished the race, which is more than can be said for some of the pre-race favorites. He told journalists after the race, “It was a great pleasure to race with world-class athletes and I’ll take this as a great experience and work to improve.” Innerhofer told the Associated Press that the upcoming Olympics would be “a big opportunity for the Korean people to gain more passion for skiing, to train and nurture more athletes.”

KOREA _ March _ 8

3, 4, 5 Facilities at the newly built Jeongseon Alpine Centre, where the alpine speed events of the 2018 Winter Games will be held

Venue goes viral

The next test events, the 2016 FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup and Audi FIS Ski Cross World Cup, began on Feb. 18 at Phoenix Park Ski Resort. The events brought to PyeongChang some of the world’s top skiers and snowboarders, including the American duo of freestyle skier Joss Christensen and slopestyle snowboarder Jamie Anderson, both of whom are defending Olympic champions. Even before the events, however, the venue was generating considerable buzz, especially through social media, as athletes posted their rave reviews of the slopestyle course. Posting a video of a test run to Facebook, McRae Williams of the United States called the course “by far the most innovative” he’d ever encountered. Taking to Instagram, Luca Tribondeau of Austria wrote of the course, “Craziest slopestyle course I’ve ever seen.” JF Furrer, a coach for the Swiss freeski team, told freeski culture magazine Downdays, “This slopestyle is unreal, there are so many options and transitions, and I’ve never seen anything like it.” Roberto Moresi, International Ski Federation race director, said of the course, “It is very creative and different from the usual course, at least from the past courses that FIS has been using in the past years. It is very variable. There are a lot of options to choose during the run.” He added, “Athletes are saying that it is even better than expected. They are really enjoying and having fun on the course.”

KOREA _ March _ 9

Cover Story

Korean Webtoons Entertain the World Popular digital art form brings together creativity and technology _ Written by Colin Marshall

__ While plenty of other countries have produced artists who create comics for the Internet, Korea has made ‘webtoons’ into a national phenomenon, in large part thanks to the country’s exceptionally developed information technology infrastructure.

KOREA _ March _ 10

College romances, historical battles at sea, students with superpowers, vampires, secret agents, the lives of convenience store workers: People enjoy all these and more. From the sweet to the satirical, the mundane to the fantastical, one in three Koreans reads webtoons, whether at home or during commutes and coffee breaks. Visually and thematically rich comic strips wholly created for and adapted to the Internet, webtoons are the latest generation of a beloved art form, and one whose innovations all come straight from Korea. The comic strip began in 19th-century Europe, found its form in early 20thcentury U.S., and realized new storytelling possibilities in mid- to late 20th century Japan. Now, Korean artists and writers have pioneered a thoroughly 21st-century form that embraces the potential of digital art and information technology to take the comic strip, both the creation process and the reading experience, to a whole new level. Webtoons, the most popular of which have gone on to become major television dramas, stage productions and motion pictures, have proven themselves in Korea not just by

winning large readerships, but by making the leap into more established art forms. Now they face their next challenge: Can they succeed in the global market? Most countries have produced writers and artists who create comics for the Internet, as well as readers who enjoy them, but in Korea webtoons are a national cultural and economic phenomenon. One reason is a well-developed IT industry that has given rise to a variety of platforms that facilitate the creation, consumption and distribution of digital content. Other countries’ Web-based comics, which don’t benefit from a comparable infrastructure, haven’t received the same amount of domestic attention that, in Korea, has made webtoons into multiple media–spanning cultural properties, and thus potential objects of international interest as well.

Purpose-built for the Internet Age Back in the 1990s, well before the coinage of the term “webtoon,” Korean comic artists began publishing on the Web: Wellknown newspaper cartoonists such as the

KOREA _ March _ 11

Chosun Ilbo’s Pak Kwang-su got their start in part because readers used email to share their work. In the early 2000s, Korea’s first generation of webtoon artists, which included Shim Seung-hyun (“Papepopo Memories”), Kwon Yoon-ju (“Snowcat”) and Jeong Chul-Yeon (“Marine Blues”), gained a new distribution channel with the advent of Lycos Korea and Yahoo Korea. Then the big homegrown Internet portal companies, Daum and Naver, created specialized portals for comics. Daum did it in 2003, Naver did it the next year, and smaller players followed with Internet comic services of their own. In just a few years, access barriers would vanish with the rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets, which have since made it possible for 80 percent of the Korean population to read webtoons anywhere, at any time. As the smartphone rose, so did the term “webtoon,” coined to draw a distinction between comics created for conventional print media and those made expressly for consumption online.

__ Yoon Taeho’s ‘Misaeng’ highlights the suffering of the young and directionless.

Non-traditional content finds its place

KOREA _ March _ 12

As the concept of webtoons entered the consciousness of the reading public, the portals developed their own systems to incubate new talent. The artists and writers interested in exploring subjects that wouldn’t have found a place in Korea’s traditional comics industry, hollowed out in the late 1990s by the economic ravages of the Asian financial crisis and the strictures of the Juvenile Protection Act, which put an end to the publication of adult comics. The new webtoon landscape offered the freedom to deal with a wider range of themes than ever before, satisfying readers’ desire for deep emotions, complex psychological dimensions, social criticism, and even realistic details of everyday life. Whereas in the United States, creating comics for the Web is a hobby with a very low probability of becoming a job, the presence in Korea of portals like Naver,

__ ‘Noblesse’ by Son Jeho has become a hit on overseas comicsharing sites.

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__ pu A Bri Ha rcha tish p s Co Il-kw ed t rod mb on he uct Kim in rig io ’s Ch atio ‘Thr hts t n com ee an n pa -St o g-n ny ag am e .’

KOREA _ March _ 13

which began commissioning artists for its dedicated webtoon section in 2005, quickly professionalized the industry. This in turn gave incentives to more ambitious, thoughtful and elaborate projects. At least 120,000 aspiring comic artists have sent their work out into the world through Korean portals, whose numbers have multiplied and whose operators now include mobile providers like SK Telecom and KT. About 500 artists have created series that not only continue to this day, publishing once or twice per week, but have done so for more than 300 episodes. This has created a robust domestic webtoon market, the estimated value of which the KT Economic Research Institute placed at KRW 420 billion won in 2015 and projected to reach KRW 880 billion by 2018. It is not just premium portal memberships that create value, but also sales of merchandise and adaptation rights, increasingly in countries outside Korea. The webtoons with the highest profile in this market tend to come out of the three big portals: Naver, Daum, and the more recently established Lezhin Comics.

Wiredness meets creativity

KOREA _ March _ 14

The factors that make this possible converge, to a unique degree, in Korea. The country’s sheer “wiredness,” much publicized in the international media, has created an efficient information technology infrastructure for webtoon readers and creators alike. The resultant abundance of content forces each comic to find and capitalize on its specific niche, a situation that encourages experimentation and innovation of diverse material. Readers can, and do, enjoy the fruits of these labors on their smartphones during moments of free time throughout the day, drawn in by the stories but also by their ability to leave comments and communicate with their fellow fans and even the creators themselves, exchanging opinions, interpretations, and speculation about their favorite series as well as sharing them

__ Webtoon artist Ju Homin drew on Korean mythology for his work ‘With God.’

with friends. All this technological know-how, however, couldn’t have built the wide world of webtoons by itself. Korea has produced many avid readers, but also a large number of young creators whose artistic skills exceed even their technological savvy. Throughout the webtoon’s short life so far, they have continually pushed the form forward, incorporating each new aspect of the technology into the very composition and structure of their work. This began when single Web pages and their theoretically infinite length freed them from restrictions of one paper page at a time, turning the reading experience into one better resembling that for long, unbroken scrolls. Artists have used this advantage to create impressive aesthetics and dramatic ends. Creators went on to develop other techniques to heighten the sensory experience for their readers. Choi Jong-ho, better known by his pen name of Horang, used darkening backgrounds and animated apparitions to heighten the horror of comics like “Ok-Su Station Ghost” and “Ghost in Masung Tunnel.” The newest webtoons make use of a host of effects impossible on paper, such as voices and other sounds, animation, and even threedimensional imagery and kinetic effects using the smartphone’s vibration function.

Online and silver screen success

Kang Do-young, perhaps the most famous webtoon creator of them all, goes by the pen name Kang Full. Without any formal education in comics, Kang became one of the first generation of Korean Internetbased comic artists in 2002 when he began publishing his work on his personal website. His first long-form series, “Love Story,” drew a record 2 million hits in one day and provided the source material for the 2008 feature film “Hello, Schoolgirl.” Since then, film industry interest hasn’t let up. Other pictures based on Kang’s webtoons include 2011’s “Pained,” 2012’s “The Neighbor,”

Revenue of Korean Webtoon Industry (units = KRW)

880.5 billion

revenue forecast

420

billion

210 100

billion

billion 2012

2014

2015

2018

Source: KT Economic Research Institute

Number of Viewers of Film Adaptations of Webtoons (units: x 10,000) 923 (2013) Secretly, Greatly (Hun) 700 Fist of Legend (Lee Jong-kyu) 174 Horror Stories 2 (including The Cliff by Oh Seong-dae) 49

540 (2012)

330 (2010) Moss (Yoon Tae-ho) 330

171 (2008) 112 (2006)

Fool (Kang Full) 97 Love Story (Kang Full) 74

26 years (Kang Full) 300 The Neighbors (Kang Full) 240

164 (2011) I Love You (Kang Full) 164

Apartment (Kang Full) 84 Dasepo Naughty Girl (B-rate Dalgung) 48

Source: Korean Film Council

Evolution of Production and Viewing Formats for Webtoons

The “Z” format of conventional comic strips

Application of the scroll format of web browsers

Smarttoons that utilize the touch function of smartphones

With standard webtoons, you scroll downward to read them. Newer forms are growing popular, however, including the “cut-toon,” in which you touch the screen to go to the next page; the “moving toon,” featuring screen movement and sound; and the “smart toon,” in which you can view content by zooming in and out. Webtoon artists have actively embraced mobile platforms and social media, too.

KOREA _ March _ 15

Line Webtoon Exhibition at the 2015 China International Comics Festival

KOREA _ March _ 16

Located in Seoul’s Myeong-dong district, Webtoon Gongjakso sells webtoon merchandise.

Naver Webtoon Studio at the Seoul Design Festival 2014 © Yonhap News

‘Misaeng’ was the best-selling book of 2014, selling over 2 million copies. © Yonhap News

__ Webtoons have become ‘one source, multi-use,’ spawning books, games, characters, films and dramas.

A bookseller looks at the webtoon booth during the 2014 London Book Fair. © Naver

“26 Years,” and most recently the animated Korean-Japanese co-production “Timing.” Yoon Tae-ho, another of the webtoon movement’s leading lights, brought the form a burst of attention in 2012 with “Misaeng” or “Incomplete Life,” which also shed light on the societal problems inherent in the precarious internship existence. Yoon rendered the problem realistically in comic form, and it was all too recognizable to the underemployed and directionless masses of Korea’s younger generation. With 600 million hits online, the series became a television drama in 2014, in turn making the comic series into an even bigger hit. The protagonist’s name even became a nickname for legislation to help irregular workers. Around that same time, “Secretly, Greatly,” the film adaptation of the artist Hun’s series “Covertness,” about the lives of young North Korean spies in a small South Korean town, drew 7 million viewers and set several box-office records: the highest single-day opening for a domestic film, the most tickets sold in one day for a domestic film, the biggest opening weekend, and the highest-grossing webtoon-based film. The list of webtoons adapted into movies and dramas goes on: “Moss,” by Yoon Tae-ho, a psychological thriller set in the rural countryside; Yoon’s “Inside Men,” which addresses political corruption in Korea; Kang Full’s “Love Story,” about a romance between a high school girl and an awkward office worker; “Shut Up Flower Boy Band,” Choi Yeji’s series following the exploits of a fictional K-pop band; romantic comedies like Soonkki’s “Cheese in the Trap,” Chun Kye-young’s “Pretty Boy,” and Yoo Hyun-sook’s “Peep at Him Every Day,”; stories rooted in more somber emotions like Ryu Che-rin’s “We Broke Up” and Lee Jong-hoon’s “Cat Funeral”; Seok Woo’s “Orange Marmalade,” which puts a Korean spin on the kind of humanand-vampire love story popularized by “Twilight; Hyde, Jekyll, Me,” Lee Choong-ho’s reinterpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale; Man Chwi’s supernatural story of “The Girl Who Sees

Webtoon artist signing event at the 2015 China International Comics Festival

KOREA _ March _ 17

Smells”; and Kian84’s high school styleand-superficiality satire “Fashion King.” Those, according to the Korea Creative Content Agency, count for just a few of the more than 70 webtoons for which adaptation rights have already been sold. The success of webtoon-derived content in other media hasn’t happened by accident. The art form now bears the label “one source, multi-use.” This means it was created for one medium, but by design is adaptable for many others. The adaptability of webtoons goes beyond movies and television dramas to encompass video games, design, merchandise – Naver has opened an online shop called Webtoon Studio – and even the musical “Secretly, Greatly” makes its stage debut this year.

International success awaits?

KOREA _ March _ 18

__ Several webtoons have been turned into successful movies, including ‘Secretly, Greatly,’ the recordbreaking film adaptation of the artist Hun’s series about the lives of young North Korean spies in a small South Korean town.

One question above all others looms over the webtoon business: How can all this turn from a national craze into an international one? In many ways, the transformation is already underway. Korean language learners have long relied on webtoons as study material, and some series have even appeared in other languages as illegal fan translations. Not failing to take notice of this demand, domestic websites have established platforms in other countries and partnered with foreign content providers to enable Korean webtoons to reach a global audience. Naver and Line have begun to offer comics in English and simplified Chinese. Lezhin launched its U.S. operations in 2015 and also publishes on qq.com, China’s most popular Web portal. Spottoon, a collective platform launched by 23 leading webtoon artists and The Hankyoreh newspaper, aims to offer 23 series to audiences worldwide in a variety of languages as well as media such as film, drama and cartoons. And North America now has its very own Koreanstyle webtoon portal in the Silicon Valleybased Tapastic, whose investors include DaumKakao and SK.

Quite a few webtoons have already demonstrated international appeal. Recently, the British production company February Film purchased the rights to Ha Il-kwon’s “Three-Stage Combination Kim Changnam,” the story of a boy and his robot girlfriend in a futuristic dystopia. The Japanese game developer Square Enix holds remake rights for Ju Ho-min’s “With God,” which is set in the afterlife and looks at the challenges faced by the recently deceased. Shooting will begin later this year for a Korean film adaptation. Studio Caramel’s “Dieter,” which follows the travails of an overweight girl fighting to slim down by any means necessary, has a four-country publication contract in Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. Webtoons have yet to make serious inroads into foreign markets, however, which represent an enormous opportunity. The Korea Creative Content Agency estimated the value of the global comic book market in 2013 at USD 8.8 billion and the digital comic book market at USD 1 billion. It makes sense that webtoon providers would want to find a way into the U.S. market, given its estimated value of USD 600 million, but even more that they would want to find a way into the USD 3 billion-strong market in Japan, the country that buys the most comics in the world. Webtoons have generated unprecedented enthusiasm for comics among domestic readers. If this enthusiasm translates into higher regard for comics as an art form as well as entertainment, and if the rest of the world catches up to Korea’s level of connectedness, all the factors will be in place for a globalization of Korean webtoons as well as the Korean webtoon model. When the world inevitably grows tired of American-style superheroes, it will surely welcome all these high-style high schoolers, courageous admirals, besotted vampires, ghosts floating between this world and the next, rock guitarist spies, and disgruntled part-timers. The comic strip’s Korean century has, after all, only just begun.

Interview

‘YouTube for Comics’ Tapas Media CEO Chang Kim helps bring Korean webtoons to the global masses _ Written by Felix Im

What makes Korean webtoons so popular? To Chang Kim, CEO of Tapas Media, it’s all about the storytelling. “Webtoons are just awesome stories, told in a visual format,” he says. “That’s why the people who enjoy webtoons are not just traditional comic fans, but those who may not have read comics before but are still drawn to great stories. The quality of webtoons’ stories has been proven by the fact that there have been tens of TV dramas and movies made based on webtoons.” Founded in 2012 with offices in Seoul and San Francisco, Tapas Media is a startup specializing in building platforms for bite-sized content for mobile readers. It currently operates a service called Tapastic, an open publishing platform for global webtoon creators. Its creators call it “YouTube for comics.” In addition to the publishing tool itself, the service also offers social features, an ad revenue-sharing program, and a content marketplace where creators can sell their content on mobile devices. Tapastic’s content is in English and most of its creators are based in the United States and other English-speaking countries, but it does have some Korean webtoons through

translation. “We’re constantly looking for high-quality Korean webtoons that we can introduce to the global audience through Tapastic,” Kim says. For a Korean webtoon to appeal to an international audience, it needs a good story to which anyone in the world can relate. This doesn’t mean devoid of cultural context. “Korean cultural nuances are completely acceptable, I think,” says Kim. “People watch Japanese animations that sometimes have pretty strong cultural nuances and connotations without too much trouble.” Like television, webtoons consist of serial stories, told in “seasons.” Unlike print comics, webtoons are optimized for digital devices, often featuring fullcolor images in vertical strips that can be read by scrolling down. Efforts are underway to make the genre a more global one, which is just great for Kim. “We’re hoping these efforts will lead to more recognition of webtoons as a genre, which will be beneficial to Tapastic,” he says. “We’re trying to become the premier place for global webtoon creators and audiences alike.”

KOREA _ March _ 19

Travel

Island Getaway Shake off your cabin fever on Geojedo, where the colors of spring come early _ Written and photographed by Robert Koehler

KOREA _ Marchof _ 20 Islands Hallyeohaesang National Park, seen from the Byeongdaedo Observatory

KOREA _ March _ 21

Tunnel of camellia trees, Jisimdo Island

Every spring, a little piece of paradise descends from the heavens and lands in Gonggoji, a remote cape that juts into the emerald water from the southeastern corner of the island of Geojedo. Passing through a tunnel of flowering camellia trees, you descend a steep hillside until you reach a series of flaxen terraced fields overlooking the sparkling sea and the green islands beyond. Basking in the warm morning light, endless fields of yellow daffodils gracefully sway to and fro in the breeze of early spring, as if thousands of golden stars were performing a synchronized court dance against a backdrop of blue. You breathe deeply: The scent is intoxicating. Beauty is something you experience a lot on Geojedo. Located on the southeast extremity of the Korean Peninsula, Korea’s second-largest island is a place rich in visual allure, especially in spring,

KOREA _ March _ 22

Korea’s secondlargest island is a place rich in visual allure, especially in spring, when the blooming blossoms transform the isle into an impressionist landscape.

when the blooming blossoms transform the isle into a landscape seemingly ripped from an Impressionist painting. The islets and beaches along the southern coast, including the breathtaking rock islet of Haegeumgang, are so scenic, in fact, that they’ve been included in Hallyeohaesang National Park.

Where nature and heavy industry meet

Guarding the bays of the southern Korean coast like an unsinkable aircraft carrier, Geojedo has long been a spot of strategic as well as scenic interest. In 1419, the island was the staging area for the Joseon Dynasty’s anti-piracy expedition to nearby Tsushima Island. During the Japanese invasion of 15921598, the brilliant admiral Yi Sun-sin led Korean naval forces to repeated victories

Windy Hill, a popular scenic spot overlooking the fishing port of Dojangpo

in the surrounding waters. Visitors today can find the ruins of several old fortresses around the island, testifying to its military importance over the centuries. Blessed with several deep natural harbors, Geojedo is best known today as a center of the Korean shipbuilding industry, the world’s largest. Indeed, the island plays host to two of the world’s largest shipyards, the sprawling Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering yard in the port of Okpo and the equally massive Samsung Heavy Industries yard in Jangpyeong-dong. These yards produce some of the world’s biggest ships. The gargantuan Triple-E series, the largest container ships in the world, are built at Daewoo’s Okpo yard. To tour the yards, you’ll need to make an appointment three days in advance. Because of the shipyards, a large number of expatriate engineers, naval architects

and other industry-related workers live on Geojedo, giving the island’s urban centers a surprisingly cosmopolitan vibe. In the Gohyeon and Okpo districts, for instance, you’ll find plenty of shops, restaurants and hotels catering to an international clientèle.

Spring colors

Thanks to Geojedo’s southernmost location, spring arrives early. The camellias announce the end of winter when their pink blossoms bloom in late February. They are joined in March by a colorful procession of other flowers, including canola, plum and daffodils. One of Korea’s lesser-known gems, Gonggoji is the labor of love of an elderly couple who have spent the last 40 years beautifying their farmland with thousands of plants, most notably

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1 2 3 4

Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering’s massive Okpo shipyard The Busan–Geoje Fixed Link at night Cliffs of Haegeumgang Famous European-style gardens of Oedo

One monument of particular note is the one dedicated to the SS Meredith Victory, a U.S. cargo ship that picked up 14,000 refugees from the northern port of Heungnam just before the city was overrun by communist forces.

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daffodils, which transform their hillside fields into a riot of color in March. Rustic stone walls line terraces and keep out wild boars. While the flowers are beautiful enough, the fields provide inspiring views of the sea and the surrounding islands. Not a tourist site per se, Gonggoji charges no admission fee, but visitors can purchase a potted daffodil to help fund the owners’ horticultural hobby. Also in the southeast corner of Geojedo is the small, densely wooded island of Jisimdo, which is also called “Camellia Island” for its many camellia trees, which cover about 70 percent of it. An especially popular strolling spot is the so-called “Camellia Tunnel,” where the trees have formed a picturesque canopy. The island is just a 20-minute boat ride from the port of Jangseungpo on the main island. A bit further away is Oedo-Botania, a privately owned island that has

been transformed by its owners into a European-style botanical garden, complete with tropical plants and Mediterranean architecture. It’s a fun place with outdoor sculptures, scenic staircases, observatory decks, a lounge and even a tiny Christian chapel. The views alone are worth the KRW 11,000 price of admission.

WHERE TO STAY Geojedo has a pretty wide range of accommodations, including plenty of hotels and motels in Gohyeon-dong and Okpo and plenty of scenic B&Bs along the coast. The bestequipped digs on the island can be found at the Daemyung Resort at Geoje Marina, near Geoje Haegeumgang.

Diamond of the sea

The island’s best-known scenic spot, Geoje Haegeumgang consists of two rock islets, one large and one small, located just off the end of a narrow finger of land extending from the southwestern corner of the island. The big island is essentially a series of dramatic cliffs, dozens of meters high, topped by gnarled pine trees and other patches of greenery. It’s so impressive a sight that the islets were named Haegeumgang, or “Sea Diamond,” after the spectacularly beautiful Geumgangsan Mountains in what is now North Korea. The government designated the spot as Place of Scenic Beauty No. 2 in 1971. To properly see Geoje Haegeumgang, take one of the tour boats that depart from the pier near the Haegeumgang Information Office and the Haegeumgang Tourist Hotel. A trip around the islets takes around 50 minutes. It’s a dramatic voyage, with the boat taking you right under the cliffs and into the caves hewn into the rock by the sea. Near Haegeumgang are a number of other places of scenic interest. One popular destination is the so-called Windy Hill, a grassy and, true to its name, windy hill overlooking the sea and the fishing village of Dojangpo. At the very top of the hill is a windmill. The promontory has been featured in several TV programs and commercials. Not far from there is Sinseondae, a scenic seaside rock formation. In spring, the fields around Sinseondae are covered in bright yellow canola blossoms.

WHAT TO EAT A springtime specialty on Geojedo is anchovies, which spend the winter months growing fat and deliciously oily for the springtime harvest. You’ll find plenty of restaurants serving anchovies in the port of Oepo. Anchovies are served raw, boiled in a stew, or served in a tasty salad seasoned with tangy red pepper sauce. Two other specialties are meongge bibimbap, a bowl of rice mixed with sea urchin, and dodari ssukguk, a soup made of ridged-eye flounder and mugwort.

GETTING TO AND FROM GEOJEDO To get to Geojedo, first take the KTX from Seoul Station to Busan. From Busan’s Central Bus Terminal, it’s an hour’s bus ride to Geojedo via the scenic Busan–Geoje Fixed Link.

Reminders of a painful past

In addition to its scenic beauty, Geojedo is home to several sites that testify to Korea’s dramatic and often painful recent past. During the Korean War, Geojedo was the site of a sprawling camp that held thousands of North Korean and Chinese POWs. It was a notoriously unhappy place, with the prisoners dividing into pro- and anti-communist camps that often violently clashed for control of the facility. During one uprising, communist prisoners even succeeded in taking the camp commandant, U.S. Brigadier General Francis Dodd, hostage. The camp was closed at the end of the war. Although not much remains from the old camp, the site is now a historical park with display halls and plenty of miniatures. One monument of particular note is the one dedicated to the SS Meredith Victory, a U.S. cargo ship that picked up 14,000 refugees from the northern port of Heungnam on Dec. 23, 1950, just before the city was overrun by communist forces. On Dec. 26, the ship unloaded the refugees on Geojedo. Miraculously, despite the overcrowded conditions and freezing weather, not a single refugee was injured during the voyage. Jisimdo, the beautiful “Camellia Island,” has its own tragic history, too. During World War II, Korea’s Japanese occupiers turned the scenic island into a fortress, forcefully evicting its inhabitants and scarring the landscape with gun emplacements and concrete bunkers. Some of the bunkers, battery emplacements and buildings are still there. One old, Japanese-style commander’s home has even been turned into a café.

Geojedo

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People 1

Bridging East and West Through Publishing The first Korean to have led the International Publishers Association, Youngsuk Chi brings cultures together _ Written by Robert Koehler Photographed by RAUM Studio

Youngsuk Chi at the Hagajae Museum

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The son of diplomats, Chi grew up all over the world, an upbringing he credits for his mastery of several languages and an appreciation for the beauty of cultural differences.

Elsevier chairman Youngsuk Chi is a busy, busy man. Sitting down with your correspondent at a café near Seoul’s Changdeokgung Palace, he explains he’s in Korea for just 15 hours. Flying in overnight from Malaysia, he’ll chair a meeting of the government’s Korea Future Education Committee, take care of a few business matters and then depart again for Singapore. He’s never too busy to give back, however. “Whenever I’m in Korea, I take some time to do some personal mentoring,” he says, adding that he mentors over 450 young people around the world. “It’s so time consuming, but there’s nothing that I do that’s more rewarding than helping young people have a place to turn to, to talk, to really discuss and confer.” Interviewing Chi is a bit like listening to a TED talk. The chairman of one of the world’s largest publishing concerns and, until recently, the president of the International Publishers Association, which represents over 50 members from around the world, he is irrepressibly positive and very aware of his good fortune. “You’re talking to the luckiest person you’ll ever meet in your life,” he says.

Bridging industries, cultures

The son of Korean diplomats, Chi grew up all over the world, an upbringing he credits for his mastery of several languages and an appreciation for the beauty of cultural differences. As an executive, he has been lauded for his ability to bridge cultures and operate in vastly different cultural environments throughout a three-decade professional career. “What helps me is that as a diplomat’s child, I see the positive angle in everything,” he says. “I see positive in the differences. I don’t accentuate the negatives. That has really helped me do what I do.” He describes himself as the

“quintessential generalist,” someone who sees the bigger picture and is able to mobilize resources. He’s put his generalist talents to work in a surprisingly diverse range of industries. Earning a bachelor’s degree in economics from Princeton University and a master’s degree in business administration from Columbia University, he began his career in the finance sector with American Express International Bank, but later moved to the distribution, information technology and publishing sectors. While his résumé spans industries, it is the people who unite his career. Each of his jumps was initiated by people he met along the way. “For me, the industry, the location, the sector, the title, really doesn’t matter,” he says. “What matters to me is when I wake up and go to work, who’s around me. Bottom line is, I really like the people I deal with. I like the people that I walk into the office with, I like the customers I see, I like the competitors I see, I like the suppliers, I like them all.”

Globalizing publishing

It is Chi’s career in publishing for which he is best known. Earlier in his career, as chief operating officer of the Ingram Book Group, he co-founded Lightning Source, the first ever print-on-demand distributor and e-book services provider. After Ingram, he served as president and COO of Random House. He joined academic publishing giant Elsevier in 2005. As founding chairman of Random House Asia, he led the eventually successful effort to make Random House the first foreign trade book publisher with local-language publishing in Japan and Korea. He explains that publishing should benefit from globalization. “A great author in one country has no reason not to be equally desirable in another country,” he says. “In each of these countries are hidden voices. Voices

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2014 Australia Research Impact Forum keynote

KOREA _ March _ 28

that can only come out accurately in the local language, whether that’s Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese or what not.” Chi wanted to play the role of cultural bridge to help this globalization along. “We’re not striving to have a monotonous global society,” he says. “We’re striving to have an extraordinarily rich and diverse global society. And literature, music, film are wonderful tools for that dissemination of culture.” Breaking into local-language publishing in Korea and Japan was not without its challenges, however. On the technical side, the local translation sectors are still developing. The technical issues, however, were nothing compared to the cultural and structural barriers, including skeptics who were stuck in their ways and entrenched interests who felt threatened. These problems took longer to resolve. Chi says, “The technicalities can be overcome, like with a business plan, but cultural change is not a business plan.” Change requires resilience, luck and timing. He points out that while the seeds of the Korean Wave, for instance, were planted years ago when the government began to invest in the cultural industries, the timing was very much a matter of luck.“We got lucky with certain things just hitting at the right time,” he says. “Gangnam Style could not have been timed better. That one incident had more diplomatic impact to introduce Korea to people than years of work by our diplomats.” Chi observes that there is greater overseas interest in Korean literature nowadays. Since the early 2000s, he has been advising that Korean authors write about not just what they want to write about, but also what the public wants to read. Now, it seems they are. “The topics that our writers in Korea are writing about are starting to hit some chords,” he says. “And again, it’s all about timing.”

The Year of Elsevier at the National Library of Russia

He also notes that many Korean writers have lived abroad, and this gives them the ability to write in a way that transcends borders. He points to the success of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. “Why is he so popular?” he asks. “Because he has a totally Japanese mindset crossed over with a Western mindset. Because he lived half of his life overseas. So he has absorbed all of this. He’s able to write – in English and Japanese – bicultural characters, bicultural elements. That’s fascinating. And we’re getting people like that.”

Embracing change

Chi was president of the International Publishers Association during a time of great changes in the publishing industry brought about by advances in digital technology. “The publishing industry after 1440 and Gutenberg hadn’t changed much,” he says. “Then the digital age came and turned everything upside

Chi observes that there is greater overseas interest in Korean literature nowadays. Since the early 2000s, he has been advising that Korean authors write about not just what they want to write about, but also what the public wants to read. Now, it seems they are.

down.” While change frightens many people, Chi considers it “fun” to be in the middle of it, to have a hand in deciding the future. As head of the International Publishers Association, for instance, he argued before the World Intellectual Property Organization which aspects of copyright law should change and which aspects should be preserved. “There’s so much change I can actually have a say in. How lucky is that?” he says. “It’s a lot of responsibility but it’s also a huge privilege.” One of his greatest accomplishments as head of the International Publishers Association was to come to an agreement with rights holders that created exceptions and limitations to copyright standards for visually impaired people worldwide. “With digital, there is no longer any excuse because every book can be digitally available to a blind person,” he says. “Shame on you if you are a publisher and don’t digitalize.” The Korean publishing industry, too, should actively embrace change, he advises. “I think people devoted to publishing in Korea, like people devoted to publishing elsewhere, are very noble,” he says. “My only advice to them is to take that sense of nobility, passion and obligation toward society, together with some of the modern tools that are available to them, to modernize our publishing industry here in Korea.” Korean publishers should become more technology-friendly, he says. Modernization, however, means not only adopting the latest gadgets, but also consolidating the industry and changing mindsets. “We need publishers to be more global in their thinking in terms of what they publish and how they publish,” he says.

Chi was president of the International Publishers Association during a time of great changes in the publishing industry brought about by advances in digital technology.

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People 2

An Intellectual’s Intellectual Professor Emanuel Pastreich looks at Korean society from a different perspective _ Written by Jacco Zwetsloot Photographed by RAUM Studio

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A quick glance at Professor Emanuel Pastreich’s résumé might lead one to think he is a Renaissance man. His official website lists research interests as diverse as Chinese, Japanese and Korean literature; science and research policy; science and technology in society; and comparative Asian culture. To that he also adds governance and politics, environmental issues and education. He brushes off any characterization of himself as a polymath, however, by saying, “My real field is Japanese literature of the 18th century.” However, this is not something he writes about much these days. “In a more general sense,” he says, “I have worked on Korean and Chinese narrative and Confucian thought, and more broadly I am interested in the role of the intellectual in society.” Pastreich has lived and taught in Korea since 2007, having started out at the SolBridge School of Business and moved to Kyung Hee University in 2011. He now teaches courses related to several of his research interests. On top of his busy teaching schedule, he runs the first truly pan-Asian think tank. When asked about his current projects, Pastreich referred the interviewer to the website of the Asia Institute (www.asiainstitute.org), of which he is the founder and director. Among other things, the institute is concerned with the economy, energy and the environment, technology convergence, and long-term solutions to the harm caused by the damaged reactors at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. Clearly Pastreich is a man of many passions. Yet he remains modest, saying, “I am a slow reader and a slow writer and I forget just about everything.”

Some friendly advice

Not content to stay locked in an ivory tower, Pastreich has advised several Korean governors and mayors over the years on the internationalization of

In the arena of public diplomacy and soft power, Pastreich believes Korea should present itself as the result of a long and continuous process and rich traditions spanning thousands of years, rather than something that sprung up suddenly in recent decades.

local governance in Korea. Recognizing his expertise, the central government invited Pastreich to sit on the Presidential Committee for Cultural Enrichment. This body, created by President Park Geun-hye in 2013, reports directly to her. In 2015 Pastreich served as a special member. This year he is a full member, responsible for a subcommittee on traditional culture. He explains the body’s function as “a way of enlisting experts in multiple fields for a frank discussion about what the government can do to enliven and diversify Korea’s culture with the hope it will revitalize the economy and society.” Because he is clearly a friend to Korea, Pastreich can sometimes offer a note of constructive criticism, suggesting directions that have not been tried either at all, or not enough. In the arena of public diplomacy and soft power, Pastreich believes Korea should present itself as the result of a long and continuous process and rich traditions spanning thousands of years, rather than something that sprung up suddenly in recent decades. “I want to end that ‘Miracle of the Hangang River’ narrative,” he says. “There is no miracle. Koreans have a complex culture and tremendous know-how.” Furthermore, rather than focusing its energies on marketing, branding and soft power, Pastreich prefers projects that “make Korean culture relevant to ordinary people in Korea, and around the world as a universal value.”

More support for Korean studies Asked in which areas Korea is a world leader, Pastreich first thinks of sports. “Of course,” he says, referring to Korea’s performance in recent Olympic events and world championships. He also points to classical music, saying, “Great musicians in the classical field come from Korea,” and Chinese studies, in which he calls Korea “a major

player.” One area where he believes Korea could do better, surprisingly, is Korean studies. Pastreich says this field of academia remains underfunded, driving away talented scholars. “The assumption is that you do not have to fund Korean studies,” he says. Since coming to Korea, Pastreich has published no less than five books, three of them in Korean. One volume that came out in 2013, titled “A Different Republic of Korea,” became a best-seller and caught the eye of President Park. She appreciated his frank talk about Korea’s strengths and potential. “In a limited sense,” Pastreich comments, “an American making certain arguments in a novel way had a real appeal to Koreans.” His next book, which he has been researching for some time, will show how Seoul is not one city, but rather two cities that compete with each other, even for the same space. “We call the cities Gangnam and Gangbuk [southern and northern Seoul],” he explains. “But in a sense, the two visions for the city go back to Jeong Dojeon and Muhak’s [influential figures during the early Joseon period] arguments about the city at its founding.” As well as writing his own books, Pastreich has translated some works from literary Chinese, once the written language of Korea’s intelligentsia and elites. “I translated 10 short stories, works of the Silhak scholar Park Jiwon,” he says. “The translation work was quite difficult and not well paid, but I found it rewarding.” Despite rejecting the suggestion that he might be a Renaissance Man, Pastreich continues to show every sign that he might be one, through his work to bring humanities together with governance, technology, and science.

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Arts & Entertainment

From Obscurity Into the Light Korean animators rise on the global storyboard _ Written by Pierce Conran

Ethnic Koreans make it big in America

Born in Korea, Jennifer Yuh (born Yuh In-yeong) emigrated to the United States when she was 4 years old and entered DreamWorks Animation as a storyboard artist in 1998. Rising to head of story, she earned an Annie Award for Best Storyboarding in an Animated Feature

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Though most don’t realize it, the Korean animation industry, which is the world’s third largest, has had an enormous impact on global animation. Since the late 1960s, studios from the United States and Japan, not to mention other countries, have outsourced countless TV episodes, as well as feature work, to Korean companies. However, rather than creating their own work, the animators at these companies were largely cogs in assembly line productions. In early 2016, however, the release of two major U.S. animations, Disney’s “The Good Dinosaur” and DreamWorks’ “Kung Fu Panda 3,” perhaps herald a new dawn for Korean animators, as both of these hit films were directed by people of Korean descent.

Production for 2008’s “Kung Fu Panda.” She won another Annie in 2011, this time for directing “Kung Fu Panda 2.” At the time of its release, the film became the most successful animation ever at the Korean box office (a record since snatched by Disney’s “Frozen”) with 5.06 million viewers (USD 41.15 million), while it grossed USD 665.7 million worldwide. Yuh stayed on as director for the third installment, which is off to a great start in Korea with approximately 1.6 million spectators (USD 10.4 million) in its first four days. Born to Korean immigrants in New York, Peter Sohn (Sohn Tae-yoon) began his career at Pixar in 2000, drawing storyboards for “Finding Nemo” (2003). After rising up through other projects, Sohn directed the short “Partly Cloudy,” shown before “Up” (2009), and was given his first feature directing credit on “The Good Dinosaur” when “Up” director Bob Peterson stepped down from the role. Just over three weeks after its release in Korea, the film has accrued 1.31 million admissions (USD 7.94 million).

Outsourcing capital of the animation world

Korea’s outsourcing industry made international headlines in 2010, when Banksy satirized its involvement in “The Simpsons” in one of the show’s opening couch gags. The slave-like conditions depicted in the segment, featuring wretched pandas and unicorns alongside the haggard Korean animations, are of course a far cry from the central Seoul offices of Akom, the company that employs 120 animators who, over the course of three months, turn

Creative talent at work

On the creative side of the industry, Korean animated film came into being with the release of the hit “Hong Gildong” in 1967, produced by the Segi Company. Segi was largely responsible for the early success of Korean animated

the storyboard, camera and coloring instructions and voice tracks they receive from America into the episodes that are eventually broadcast on Fox TV. In Korea, locally produced animated films are sporadic, and until recently only a few TV shows broke out beyond local markets, but the country became involved in overseas animation even before it had its own industry. Outsourced animation began in Korea when the Tongyang Broadcasting Industry became a subcontractor for a Japanese show in 1966. Since then, Korean animators have largely been responsible for the painstaking inking and painting work that has gone into numerous hit animated shows, including “The Simpsons,” “The Boondocks,” “Family Guy” and “Justice League Unlimited,” to name but a few.

films, as they imported foreign animation and then used the profits to produce more domestic films. Production dwindled in the mid-’70s before being reactivated in the late ’70s and reaching a peak in the early ’80s. Once animation began to appear on TV in 1987, however, the feature animation industry was relegated to the supporting bench. With the explosion of the local content industry around the turn of the millennium, as domestic ratings and foreign exports grew and grew across the film, TV and music industries, investors and producers suddenly became more bullish when considering Korea’s creative animation industry. Films such as “My Beautiful Girl, Mari” (2002) earned acclaim, while “Wonderful Days” (2003) proved an ambitious but costly failure, and works of varying scale were gradually presented in the marketplace over the next few years, including “Yobi, the FiveTailed Fox” (2006). A turning point came in 2011, with the release of “Leafie, a Hen Into the Wild.” Featuring the voices of local stars Moon So-ri and Choi Min-sik, the film was a smash, drawing 2.2 million viewers and earning USD 12.14 million. Even more successful have been some of Korea’s top animation TV properties. Launched by SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System) in 2003, the Pororo the Penguin character, known affectionately as the “children’s president” in Korea, has been exported to over 125 countries and was estimated to have a brand value of USD 734 million in 2012.

Jennifer Yuh

With the explosion of the local content industry around the turn of the millennium, TV and music industries, investors and producers suddenly became more bullish when considering Korea’s creative animation industry.

Peter Sohn KOREA _ March _ 33

Korea & I

Tradition, Far From Home German baker Micha Richter of the Bakerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Table delights customers foreign and domestic with a family art _ Written by Micha Richter Illustrated by Kim Yoon-myung

It is 5 in the morning in the Land of the Morning Calm. As I turn the key to open the door of the bakery with sleepy eyes, I think about my father and grandfather doing the same thing for many years but thousands of miles away in Germany. An idea born out of circumstances, I went back to my professional roots as a baker around four years ago and opened the Bakerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Table in Gyeongnidan. Being at the right spot at the right time and having a good product helped to transform what was a three-person operation into

KOREA _ March _ 34

a business that produces so many baked goods that we use 3 tons of flour a month.

Thinking back

Coming this far has not always been easy and still holds surprises every day. Finding the right ingredients, equipment, and most of all the right staff has its challenges and can be frustrating at times when young kids have interests other than pursuing a career where hard labor is a daily component. I think back to the

days when I was an apprentice at the age of 16, traveling 50 kilometers every day to reach my place of work, and compare it to today, when it seems kids can’t figure how to get from point A to B. Maybe times are changing and nobody wants to walk the extra mile anymore, literally speaking. For me, that was always a part of the profession, to be in on time even if you have to start at 5 a.m. and it’s raining outside. My motorbike and I were always good friends. This is a job into which you must put your whole heart. The competition also never sleeps, especially when they see that an idea is bearing fruit. There are lots of copy-andpaste candidates trying to take a little more away than just some bread and photos. It’s shocking to see how far people will go sometimes. Like they say, though, an imitation is “never as good as the original.” Nonetheless it’s still frustrating to know how little creativity is out there sometimes. Changing laws in Korea also help to make life interesting, and one always has to be on edge to keep up. Changes happen really fast, and it is somewhat challenging to get all the right information at the right time. For me, as well as for other foreign business owners, there may be a language barrier at work, too.

Baking with love and passion

Of course, there is a bright side to all of this. Seeing happy guests and customers returning is a deeply satisfying experience, especially in a country where bread is not exactly a staple food. Having a lot of locals come and try some European fare, day after day, is exciting. Whether they’ve lived in Germany, just visited the country, or have simply passed our shop on the street, Koreans who come to the bakery really make my day. It is nice to be able to make them happy by feeding them something I love to make and doing the same work as my father and grandfather far away. Of course, the non-Korean customers who frequent the shop are great, too. Hearing a German say that our bread is better than the bread in their hometown is just as good a reason to keep doing what we are doing: baking with love and passion. I am really happy, therefore, to have a profession that allows me to be in a country far away from home and still do the thing that was handed down to me by my grandfather and father. Tradition can be a very nice thing.

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Policy Review

Greener Cars, New Growth Engines Korean government announces a five-year plan to boost eco-friendly vehicles _ Written by Lee Kijun

KOREA _ March _ 36

Lee Seongjae was lucky. Last year, he was selected in a random draw for a government subsidy toward the purchase of an electric car. The car cost KRW 43 million, and the subsidy covered KRW 20 million, but there was a problem. Lee lived in an apartment complex, and the only place he could install a charging station for his new car was the shared parking lot. At first, the other residents didn’t want it there because they were afraid it might raise their electricity bills. Lee was persistent, however, and in the end he succeeded in persuading his neighbors to accept the charging station. Environmentally friendly vehicles, such as electric cars and hydrogenpowered cars, are extremely expensive without subsidies. For example, the conventional gasoline-fueled Chevrolet Spark costs about KRW 10 million, whereas the Spark EV (an electric car with similar specifications) costs nearly KRW 40 million. Also, like Lee, more than half of Koreans live in apartments and lack private space where they can install charging stations. The majority of apartment dwellers, if they wish to use electric cars, are forced to rely on public changing stations. However, changes are on the way so that people who want to buy eco-friendly cars won’t face as many obstacles as Lee. First of all, the Korean government intends to expand subsidies for the purchase of environmentally friendly cars. Only 3,000 people received such subsidies last year, but that number is set to increase to 8,000 this year. The government will also revise statutes to provide a legislative framework for the establishment of charging stations and green-car-only parking lots in apartment complexes. Also on the way are 1,400 new charging stations in public places, such as expressway service areas, and charging towers in metropolitan areas that can accommodate more than 100 cars. These changes are part of a new five-

KIA shows off its electric car, Soul, at the 2015 International Electric Vehicle Expo at the International Convention Center Jeju.

The ministry aims to have more than 1 million environmentally friendly cars, such as electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles, on the road by 2020. That’s a 20 percent share of the domestic car market.

year plan announced by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in December. The ministry aims to have more than 1 million environmentally friendly cars, such as electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles, on the road by 2020. That’s 20 percent share of the domestic car market. As of this year, eco-friendly cars offer only 44 percent of the price competitiveness of ordinary cars, but the target for 2020 is 72 percent. That means more drivers can go green.

A critical moment for the industry

“We should take climate change as an opportunity to secure a new engine of economic growth, not a burden,” President Park Geun-hye said in November at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. “We don’t have much time to wait.” The automobile industry is seizing the opportunity, and green vehicle sales are taking off both domestically and on a global level. Between 2010 and 2014,

average annual growth in Korea’s gasolinebased automobile industry was 3.2 percent, while the corresponding figure for eco-friendly vehicles was 20 percent. “This is a critical period for the future of the global automobile industry,” said Kim Su-hee, a deputy director with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, adding that electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles were making inroads into the market. Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil, a multinational oil and gas corporation, forecasts that eco-friendly vehicles will account for 30 percent of the market by 2025 and 50 percent by 2030. The ministry said the policy reforms could prevent the release into the atmosphere of 3.8 million tons of greenhouse gases per year, a significant increase over this year’s target of 200,000 tons. Korea is the 10th-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. Emissions per capita stood at 12.3 in 2014, higher than the corresponding figures for Italy (5.5), the United Kingdom (6.5) and Japan (10.1). The auto industry is one of Korea’s

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Key Strategies to Promote Green Cars 01 Promote technological innovation for economically competitive cars.

5 years of R&D Investment of KRW

Increase electric car performance by 150%

150

• Boost energy density of batteries, improving heating and air-conditioning

billion

• Optimize power converters, weight reduction for chassis

40% price reduction for hydrogen vehicles

• Domestically produce fuel cell stacks, improve high-pressure storage vessels • Upgrade devices to supply hydrogen/ oxygen

02 Establish and expand an infrastructure that emphasizes low costs and high efficiency. Expand low cost, high-efficiency

charging stations. Expand construction of charging stations for highly populous regions.

Electric Cars

Hydrogen Cars

Rapid rise in public charging stations.

Construction of charging stations for hydrogen vehicles.

2020 2025

1,400 stations 3,300 stations

2020 2025

80 stations 210 stations

03 Lay the foundation for a world of green cars.

Government subsidies and tax benefits

Improving payment methods

Increased benefits for green car drivers

Optimizing legal ordinances and policies

• Enact policies to ease green vehicle purchases and lower prices. • Construct and expand the number of charging stations, increase subsidies for station management.

• Establish an efficient pay-as-yougo system for electric cars. • Set fair prices and taxes for hydrogen energy cells.

• Improve green car facilities at apartment complexes. • Introduce license plates specifically for green cars.

• Establish benefits for fusion charging stations. • Operate a comprehensive management center for hydrogen charging stations.

Source: Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy

KOREA _ March _ 38

most important export sectors. In 2015, Korean car exports recorded KRW 485 million, making automobiles the nation’s No. 3 export item. Still, exports were down 6.4 percent from 2014. In light of the trend toward tighter carbon emission regulations around the world, the development of new eco-friendly cars is an important task. In 2015, new cars registered in the European Union couldn’t emit more than 130 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer on average. By 2021, that requirement is set to become stricter at 95 grams per kilometer. Even China, Korea’s biggest trade partner, is trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To make green cars more competitive, therefore, the government will invest KRW 150 billion into research and development. “Our goal is to improve the performance of eco-friendly cars 2.5-fold and to reduce the cost by 40 percent,” said Kim from the energy ministry. The battery pack capacity could be doubled with R&D from the current level of 27 kilowatt hours to 54, and the energy intensity of electric motors stands to improve 10 percent. Also, at present, consumers only have 11 green car models to choose from. Through R&D, that number is set to increase to 27 so that consumers will have a much wider selection. The energy ministry expects Korea to produce 1 million eco-friendly cars in 2016 and export 640,000. If the plan succeeds, ministry data suggests, it will create a KRW 18 trillion export market. “The eco-friendly automobile industry is tightly connected to other sectors, like batteries and electronic components, so it’ll create new jobs,” said Mun Seung-uk, a senior official with the ministry. “In the future, this sector will become a dynamic force for new economic growth.”

Brand Korea

Outstanding Heritage Products Get New Certification System New logo reflects the Korean spirit of harmony and working together _ Written by Kim Eugene

In an effort to market Korea overseas and to share Korea’s valuable traditions with a wider world, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is implementing a new certification system for “outstanding cultural products.” By promoting these goods with a single, unified logo, the ministry hopes to generate a premium – a “Korea premium” – on Korean traditional products and heritage items. In December, the Ministry of Culture began work with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to recognize outstanding consumer goods in the categories of Food and Cuisine, Hanbok, Crafts and Traditional Culture. To qualify for the designation, items must be approved by the Minister of Culture after undergoing extensive screening by a panel of experts to determine, among other things, their safety, environmental friendliness, quality, artistic completeness, cultural value and export potential. Products that pass the test will be identified with a new logo that embodies the class and sophistication of Korea. The mark, which replaces earlier marks designating outstanding traditional handicrafts, was selected with public

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s new logo for outstanding heritage products is based on the bow of Korea’s traditional clothing, the Hanbok.

participation after a contest in May and June to uncover “the DNA of the Republic of Korea.” Choe Jin-a’s “Korean nation,” the winning drawing, became the official logo after earning top marks both for aesthetic appeal and symbolic significance. Choi’s work uses a Hanbok bow to represent values central to the Korean people: harmony and working together. The Ministry of Culture is also considering how best to work with institutions both in Korea and overseas to promote exports of these outstanding cultural heritage items, including overseas “shops within shops” and displays at duty-free shops. In the case of Food and Cuisine, the ministry is joining hands with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to expand exports through the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture plans to promote exports of Hanbok, handicrafts and other items by expanding the domestic distribution network, such as duty-free shops, as well as by operating pop-up stores overseas and participating in major international trade fairs.

KOREA _ March _ 39

Diplomacy

For Korea and Iran, It’s Business as Usual End of international sanctions on Tehran could prove a boon to Korean companies _ Written by Jin Lee

Iran’s South Pars Phase 4 & 5 Gas treatment facility, built by Hyundai Engineering & Construction

KOREA _ March _ 40

Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, shake hands prior to their meeting in Tehran on Nov. 7, 2015.

For many Korean companies, Iran is the new land of opportunity. As the international community lifts sanctions on Tehran, businesses around the world are scrambling to enter Iran, one of the region’s most potentially lucrative markets. With a long history of success in the Iranian market, Korean exporters and trading firms are especially well-placed to take advantage of the world’s embrace of Iran and the business opportunities that will follow. The reopening of the Iranian market comes at an especially good time for Korean construction companies, which hope to overcome sluggish international sales by participating in Tehran’s anticipated overhaul of its aging infrastructure.

Korean construction companies have earned a solid reputation in Iran, having participated in many of the country’s major construction projects, including the development of the massive South Pars gas fields.

Bringing Iran in from the cold

In mid-2010, the United Nations, United States and European Union implemented a regime of sanctions on Iran with the goal of ending Iran’s nuclear weapons program. In September of that year, Korea joined the effort, slapping sanctions on 126 Iranian individuals and entities, including Tehran-based Bank Mellat, whose Seoul office handled

about 70 percent of Korean exports to Iran. The United States had accused the bank of engaging in proliferation-related activities. Prior to Seoul’s implementation of sanctions, Korea and Iran enjoyed a fruitful and growing relationship. Some 25 major Korean conglomerates and 2,000 small and medium-sized enterprises were operating in Iran. The country was the sixth-largest export market for Korean construction companies, which were deeply involved in Iranian oil- and gasrelated infrastructure projects such as offshore oil and gas rigs. Iran was Korea’s fourth-largest source of crude oil. Korean electronics and automobiles, led by brands such as LG, Samsung and Hyundai, were very competitive in the Iranian market. Even Korean cultural exports were proving popular, with Korean television dramas like “Jewel in the Palace” and “Jumong” not only becoming local hits, but also sparking local interest in other aspects of Korean culture, including food. As expected, the sanctions slowed bilateral trade considerably. Since 2010, Korean construction companies have

KOREA _ March _ 41

Kim Il-eung, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East bureau, briefs executives of companies trading with Iran about the lifting of sanctions and subsequent international trends at an explanatory session held at COEX on Jan. 21, 2016.

signed few deals with Iran. Exports of Korean cars fell to just one-tenth of their pre-sanction numbers. Exports of Korean steel and other industrial goods nosedived. However, on July 17 last year, Iran, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Germany and the European Union reached a landmark deal in Vienna in which Iran agreed to certain limits to its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of nuclear weaponsrelated sanctions. The agreement went into effect on Jan. 16. On that day, Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced that Seoul’s sanctions on Iran were officially lifted.

Land of opportunity

The lifting of sanctions on Iran has many in the government and the business community very, very excited. In announcing the end of sanctions, the

KOREA _ March _ 42

Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said, “With the lifting of sanctions, Korean companies are expected to win major projects in social overhead capital, construction and shipbuilding. Expanded exports to Iran and imports of crude oil from Iran could be a fresh growth driver for our lackluster economy.” In his first economic ministerial meeting after taking office, newly minted Minister of Strategy and Finance cum Deputy Prime Minister Yoo Il-ho called on his nation to double its exports to Iran in 2017, from the current level of USD 3.8 billion to USD 7.5 billion. His ministry also announced plans to extend several billions of dollars’ worth of financing and credit insurance to Korean companies participating in large-scale infrastructure projects in Iran. Even President Park Geun-hye is reportedly considering a visit to Tehran in the first half of the year.

The excitement is understandable. With a GNP of USD 406.3 billion as of 2014, Iran has the second-largest economy in the Middle East. The country is 7.5 times the size of the Korean Peninsula and boasts the world’s fourth-largest crude reserves and second-largest reserves of natural gas. Its population is large, young and well-educated. It’s a market with great potential buying power, a fact underscored by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Europe in January, during which Iranian firms concluded several major deals, including a USD 438 million deal with Peugeot Citroën, a USD 6.2 billion deal with Italian steelmaker Danieli, and a deal to purchase 118 airplanes from European aerospace giant Airbus. The Iranian construction market has the potential to be especially lucrative. Decades of sanctions and economic isolation have taken their toll on Iran’s domestic infrastructure, much of which is now obsolete. The International Contractors Association of Korea estimates that Iran will be taking bids for USD 130 billion to USD 145 billion worth of plants and other infrastructurerelated construction projects in the coming years. Korean construction companies have earned a solid reputation in Iran, having participated in many of the country’s major construction projects, including the development of the massive South Pars gas fields. To preserve the trust they’ve built up, Korean construction firms such as Daelim, Hyundai Engineering & Construction and GS Engineering & Construction maintained their offices in Tehran during the sanction years, waiting for a time when Iran would be open for business again. To the Korean construction sector, the lifting of sanctions on Iran couldn’t come at a better time. Overseas construction orders in 2015 fell to USD 46.1 billion, the lowest level in five years,

and orders from the Middle East nearly halved from the previous year due to falling oil prices.

Moves already underway

Milad Tower and the snow-covered peaks of the Alborz Mountains loom over the Iranian capital of Tehran.

LG shop on Jomhuri Avenue, Tehran’s electronics district

Korean steel giant POSCO is the first major Korean company to jump into Iran in the post-sanction era. The company plans to sign a preliminary agreement with Iranian steelmaker PKP in March to buy a stake in a USD 1.6 billion project to build an integrated steel mill in Iran’s Chabahar free economic zone. The mill will make use of POSCO’s eco-friendly FINEX technology, which reduces both pollutants and production costs. Korea-made home appliances, such as TVs, air conditioners and refrigerators have been a major hit in Iran, accounting for 70 to 80 percent of the local market. LG Electronics, which opened a local branch in 1989 that became a full-fledged local subsidiary in 2010, is strengthening its marketing and distribution based on its partnership with Goldiran, Iran’s biggest distributor. LG Electronics expects to see an increase in local sales of 10 to 20 percent per year as the purchasing power of the Iranian market comes alive. The impact of the end of the Iran sanctions will be felt in other industries as well. Korean refiners SK Innovation and Hyundai Oilbank plan to increase imports of Iranian oil, which currently costs USD 2 to 3 less a barrel than other sources. This will drive down oil prices even further in Korea, a boon to the economy as a whole, and to industries such as airlines in particular. Korean shipyards should also benefit from the flow of Iranian oil and gas as demand for tankers and LNG carriers increases.

Young Iranians are keen on technology.

KOREA _ March _ 43

Creative Economy

D’strict Holdings is an evolving tech firm where 120 or so employees share a common problem: Because of the unique nature of their workplace, they have trouble explaining what the company does. “We usually go for ‘creators of new spaces and experiences’ or ‘art and tech factory,’ but honestly, it’s a conundrum for all of us,” says D’strict’s global business manager, Kim Dong-cheol. “My parents still don’t clearly know what I do for a living.” When the museum Play Kpop opened last year, Kim and his colleagues got some help answering that question. Now they ask a question in return: “Ever been to the K-pop hologram complex on Jejudo? That’s ours. We built it.”

One Step Closer to Science Fiction D’strict Holdings expands the K-pop experience with holographic technology _ Written by Lim Jeong-yeo

Your favorite stars in 4-D

Play Kpop is a one-of-a-kind space where visitors can experience cutting-edge technology amalgamated with Korean popular music. The three-story complex showcases K-pop history and organizes interactive activities augmented by virtual reality features, which include hologram performances by world-class K-pop celebrities in which 4-D images dance and sing just as if the viewer were at a real concert. The expanding list of stars includes Big Bang, Psy and CNBLUE. Visitors can also have their pictures taken with the stars in hologram form. In its short existence, Play Kpop has become a popular tourist destination, and overwhelming support from Chinese fans prompted D’strict to establish a similar complex on Hainan Island in the South China Sea, China’s equivalent of Jejudo. CEO Lee Dong-hoon recently relocated to Shanghai with two other employees, and the new office is set to open in October.

Play Kpop, where fans can enjoy holographic performances by K-pop stars as well as other K-pop-related programs KOREA _ March _ 44

From corporate to K-pop

D’strict got its start in 2004, not as a hologram creator but rather as a corporate website specialist. Its name stands for “design” and “strict,” signifying the company’s high standards for its designs. D’strict began to take on a wider range of creative tasks with the advancement of its inhouse technology. From the confines of computer screens it branched out to a bigger canvas: venues. Next the company handled graphics for product launches by top conglomerates, as well as for exhibitions and music concerts. It helped build a kids’ café in Kuwait, equipping it with interactive visual tools that are both entertaining and educational. One of D’strict’s most renowned holographic spectacles was created for the American jewelry brand Tiffany’s. In preparation for the launch of the company’s flagship store in Beijing in 2010, the building’s entire façade was transformed into an enormous diamond as part of a breathtaking show that made passersby stop and stare. The work won the gold prize at the prestigious iF design awards, which recognize excellence in the field. To this day D’strict boasts 11 international awards and six national awards to its name. It also holds 25 patents. Kim modestly said, “The relative success we enjoy now can be attributed to timing. We’re here on this day not because we are better than our competitors, but because we did things first and left the impression first that we are capable of delivering what the clients are looking for.”

Overcoming tough times

D’strict’s path to success wasn’t a polished road made of marble. The company experienced tough times in 2011 and 2012 with the untimely passing of one of its founding members and the failure of a two-year, USD 12 million urban theme park. The ambitious park stayed open for only 88 days at the Korea International Exhibition Center in the Seoul suburb of Goyang. Financial difficulties followed, and many employees left the company. But in 2013, D’strict came back stronger than ever, collaborating with YG Entertainment and riding on the growing demand for K-pop. Kim, who was with D’strict throughout the theme park project, fondly looks back on the times he spent in Goyang and the people he worked with. D’strict has a strong peopleoriented philosophy, he emphasized. “Broken down to fundamentals, everything we do is done by people,” he said, “and it’s critical that we take good care of them.” Armed with a team of original creators, D’strict aims to expand its overseas presence with hologram arenas and edutainment products targeting children.

KOREA _ March _ 45

Global Korea

Bigger. Better. Renewable. Korean firm builds world’s largest geothermal plant in Indonesia

A Korean conglomerate’s project in Indonesia to build the world’s largest geothermal power plant is expected to provide electricity to some 210,000 homes and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1 million tonnes annually. Hyundai Engineering and Construction expects to complete construction of the Sarulla Geothermal Power Plant on the Indonesian island of Sumatra by 2018. The plant, which is being built in three phases, is expected to have a capacity of 330 megawatts upon its completion. The plant will also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.3 million tonnes each year. The project was first mooted in 1990, but was put on the back burner after the eruption of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Hyundai E&C, which has already completed two geothermal power plants in Indonesia, was awarded the contract in 2013.

_ Written by John Power

KOREA _ March _ 46

Hyundai E&C has been involved in a wide range of projects in the energy sector, both at home and abroad. In recent years, the company has completed power plants in Libya, Qatar, Kuwait, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Côte d’Ivoire. Between 1974 and 2010, the firm racked up more than USD 800 million in overseas orders, reported Business Korea. Apart from the project in Indonesia, it has recently been involved in other geothermal projects abroad. Last year, it completed Africa’s largest geothermal power plant, the Olkaria facility in Kenya, along with Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corporation. In September, the company signed a USD 74 million agreement to build a geothermal power plant in Sorsogon Province in the Philippines. It is the only Korean firm to have built geothermal power plants overseas. On its website, the conglomerate has emphasized its interest in renewables: “Hyundai E&C will lead the development of new and renewable energy and the establishment of a green energy network, which will become the foundation for a more prosperous future, based on our wide range of experience and technologies.”

Thailand Vietnam

Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Singapore

Sarulla

Jakarta

Sarulla Geothermal Power Project

Tapping boundless geothermal potential

Indonesia, which is located in an area of the Pacific Rim with considerable volcanic activity, is believed to have the world’s largest geothermal energy reserves. So far, it has only tapped a tiny fraction of this potential, which amounts to 29 gigawatts, according to a report by Reuters. In 2011, climate change activist Al Gore told the Climate Project Asia Pacific Summit that the country could become a geothermal energy “superpower.” Geothermal electricity production, which makes use of steam generated within the earth, is considered an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels. Power plants using geothermal energy produce only about 5 percent as much carbon dioxide as similarly sized coal-fired plants, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior. Indonesia hopes to increase the proportion of its electricity produced by renewables from 5 percent to 25 percent by 2025, in large part through the use of geothermal energy. With a population of more than 250 million people and a growing economy, Indonesia has faced a surging demand for energy in recent years. Between 2003 and 2013, energy consumption grew 43 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Despite this, about 16 percent of the population had no access to electricity in 2014, according to the U.S. body. The Asian Development Bank has predicted that the country’s energy use will grow more than 8 percent per year until 2029.

Indonesia

Location

Value

Tapanuli Utara district, North Sumatra

USD 705.7 million

Construction Period

Power Capacity

46 months: May 2015March 2018

330 MW

Source: Hyundai Engineering and Construction

Value of Indonesian Construction Orders (units: USD)

2013

2014

2015

93.4

95.1

104.9

billion

Contracts Obtained by Korean Enterprises in the Indonesian Construction Industry (units: USD) 75.9 million

99.9 million

2013

1.5 billion

2014

2015

Source: International Contractors Association of Korea

KOREA _ March _ 47

Flavor

Tangpyeongchae Springtime delicacy recalls king’s efforts to achieve political harmony _ Written by Kim Eugene Photographed by aostudio Kang Jinju

Originating in royal court cuisine, tangpyeongchae is one of Korea’s most visually appealing dishes thanks to its harmonious mixture of colors and textures. The dish is made by mixing mung bean jelly, mung bean sprouts, dropwort, stirfried beef, roasted seaweed, and strips of fried egg yolk and egg whites. The mixture is then seasoned with a bit of soy sauce. The dish is considered a springtime delicacy. The soft, smooth texture of the mung bean jelly and the sauce’s sweetand-sour flavor revive taste buds that have grown tired after a long, cold winter.

Political past

As befits a dish once served in the highest halls of power, tangpyeongchae has its origins in the politics of 18th-century Korea. Strife between competing factions of scholars and officials was a frequent problem in the days of late Joseon. Deeply concerned about this problem, King Yeongjo (r. 1724-1776) came up with

KOREA _ March _ 48

a series of political measures called the Tangpyeong Policy, or the “Magnificent Harmony Policy.” Through a balanced approach to personnel appointments, the king attempted to create peace among the factions and achieve harmony within his court. To illustrate this new policy, King Yeongjo served tangpyeongchae at a feast where representatives of the various factions were all in attendance. He explained that the strength of the dish lay in the harmony of contrasting tastes and colors: the mung bean jelly, seaweed, beef and dropwort differed greatly from one another, yet tasted wonderful together.

The art of harmony

To make tangpyeongchae, first slice the mung bean jelly into strips and parboil the strips in water before seasoning them in sesame oil and salt. Pan-fry the sliced beef in marinade, and then parboil the bean sprouts and dropwort.

__ With colors such as the white of mung bean jelly, the redness of beef, the green of dropwort, the darkness of roasted seaweed and the yellow of egg yolks, tangpyeongchae is not only aesthetically appealing but nutritionally sound. Mung bean jelly contains carbohydrates, the egg yolks and beef are protein-rich, and the roasted seaweed, dropwort and mung bean sprouts provide vitamins and minerals.

KOREA _ March _ 49

Korean Keyword

‘Deom’ Isn’t Dumb _ Written by Lim Jeong-yeo Illustrated by Kim Yoon-myung

Little extras add up to a human experience

덤 | Deom

Across Korea there is a heartwarming habit of giving customers more than what they have paid for. The extra giveaways are known as deom. Long before Korea rose to its current status as an economic power, Koreans near the lower rungs of society learned to get along by being kind and generous. At marketplaces, shop owners habitually added small goods to the bundles their customers had bought. They did these small favors out of jeong, a word for affection and attachment. There were no strict boundaries between people as every member of the community was like an uncle, aunt, brother or sister. In this giant extended family, exact calculations were considered heartless. The deom transcends the numerical scale, instead focusing on the deeper connections between people. This leaves lasting memories for visitors to Korea. Many first-timers are pleasantly surprised when they order a dish at a restaurant and receive a table laden with plate after plate of complimentary side dishes, or purchase cosmetics and get a free sample of moisturizer or facial cleanser along with the purchase. Foreign students look back fondly on the warmth of the restaurant owner who greeted them like guests and served extra portions. Tourists leave shops with fuller bags than they initially expected, stuffed as they often are with surprise gifts. On the surface, the practice of deom seems to violate the basic tenets of capitalism. When one looks deeper, however, it becomes clear that such generosity increases sales by bringing customers back.

KOREA _ March _ 50

Korean Art through Coloring

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