2023 Korean Culture Festival: FEEL KOREA | Festival Highlights (Extended Version)

The craze about all things Korean (‘K-everything’) sweeping the globe, so-called ‘the Korean wave,’ had a celebratory event in South Africa as a three-day long immersive Korean Culture Festival was held last year (30 November-2 December 2023) at the Korean Cultural Centre in Pretoria.
The annual festival organized by the Korean Cultural Centre in South Africa (KCCSA) returned this year with the slogan ‘FEEL KOREA’ as it invited visitors to have an immersive experience of being in Korea.
The 2023 edition was partnered with Netflix and KOTRA (Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency), offering an unparalleled wide range of Korean cultural experiences: from K-pop to K-beauty, K-food to K-art, and K-content from Netflix to ‘noraebang’ (a Korean equivalent to karaoke).
The programme of the festival included K-pop performances; a market for Korean food and products-from Korean cosmetics (now commonly nicknamed as ‘K-beauty’) to K-pop merchandises; a Korean media art exhibition; and traditional Korean culture experience, to name a few.
In collaboration with Netflix, one of the world’s leading entertainment streaming services, the festival offered special screenings of the most popular Netflix TV shows from Korea, as well as a sneak peak of other Korean shows launching on the streaming service soon around the theme of ‘Lovers and Rivals’ in a screening room with a snack bar filled with Korean snacks for K-content fans. Visitors also were invited to live out their K-pop idol dreams by singing their favorite songs from K-drama original soundtracks in specially-built noraebang booths as well as to challenge themselves to break the right shape out in a Korean honeycomb candy like in the record breaking smash hit Squid Game (with Squid Game: the Challenge currently streaming) and enjoy some exciting surprises for fans at the event.
Last day of the festival, 2 December, featured the final round of the National K-Pop Cover Dance Competition which commenced earlier last month. The day’s winners received cash prizes of R22,000.
The festival was attended by more than 3,000 people, making it one of the biggest annual Korean culture events in South Africa.
Korean Cultural Centre in South Africa (KCCSA) | 주남아공한국문화원
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