Korean Culture Fest

[Anchor Lead]

An annual Korean culture festival is held every spring in Nantes, France's sixth largest city. Next up, we will bring you some scenes from the Korean festival, which is becoming a major cultural event in the French city.

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A Korean drawing begins to the gentle sound of the traditional Korean wind instrument daegeum and goes through a heartbreaking tune from the string instrument haegeum. It eventually takes the shape of a beautiful pine tree with the feminine, soft sounds of the string instrument gayageum. This is the opening event for this year's "Spring of Korea". It's the fifth installment of the annual festival.

[Soundbite] Nantes Citizen : "It created the atmosphere of a trip by combining music and painting. It was a completely new cultural experience."

The themes for this year's festival are books, cartoons and poems. Seventeen cultural events will be held until June 1st, including exhibitions and concerts showcasing traditional Korean musical instruments. The festival has become a major seasonal festival in Nantes, with over 3,000 people participating each year. But the beginnings were tough.

[Soundbite] Lee Jeong-ju(Spring of Korea Art Director) : "When we first organized it in 2013, we were misunderstood as North Koreans, really. South Korea was unknown to that extent. Now, South Korea has been publicized so much."

The Korean spring festival in Nantes has advanced over the last five years. It is serving as a good example that a festival on Korean culture can be a success.