Bo-mi Son, an administrator at Korean culture preservation institute in South Korea provides her perspectives on globalization and culture. (Please note this interview was translated into English from Korean.) 

1. What do you think of the impact of cultural globalization?

If I consider globalization as import of other cultures, I think that globalization serves a very basic role of letting people clearly recognize the boundary of our own culture and traditions. This was the starting point to look back on ‘our culture’ and to find what has been forgotten, by admitting the differences between other cultures and our own culture. Being too globalized will result in only following/imitating other cultures, not identifying our own culture; thus, this will negatively impact both sides. However, a certain degree of globalization is necessary to develop our own culture, through comparing it with different cultures. 

Namdaemun Market – Seoul South Korea

2. What strategies do you recommend to let the world know about Korean culture?

I think that changing the Korean mode is not the real Korean culture. The most traditional and original form can appeal to the people of the world and that is the strongest essence of our culture. Even though the original form should be preserved, we should spread and globalize our culture using modern methods of public relations.

Accepting other cultures without preparation or imposing our culture on others will result in stubbornness to our culture, not globalization. Thus, the foundation for the correct globalization is to understand our traditions, food, clothing, and housing, to modernize our tradition in a way that we can collaborate, and at the same time to translate our tradition correctly and spread it through the precise route.

* Picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/imcomkorea/2934808052/

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