Seoul city to present taekwondo events at Cheong Wa Dae

The Seoul metropolitan government will offer taekwondo demonstration performances on Saturdays and Sundays from July 16 to August at the parkland in front of Cheong Wa Dae’s main building. The city plans to continue to expand taekwondo-related events starting with the demonstration performance of the Korean martial art.

The performance will take place for 30 minutes from 5:00 p.m. on weekends. Details including the program can be found at the Cheong Wa Dae’s public website (www.opencheongwadae.kr).

The taekwondo performance will be presented by a taekwondo demonstration team from Kukkiwon (World Taekwondo Headquarters), which exchanged an MOU with the Seoul metropolitan government in May. Inaugurated in 1974, the demonstration team has toured around 20 countries worldwide to promote Korea

Pn culture through demonstration performances.

“We decided to launch a taekwondo performance program to promote taekwondo and increase its competitiveness by using taekwondo performance as a tourist attraction,” a city official said.

The city plans to create a promotional video on the taekwondo performance conducted at Cheong Wa Dae and provide fam tour to overseas tourist agency people next month. It also plans to present regular taekwondo performance at Gwanghwamun Square and other sites beginning September. Special performances including taekwondo demonstration will also take place at Media Façade at the Sejong Center for Performing Art Seoul on Sept. 2 to commemorate Taekwondo Day on Sept. 4.

“Just like Changing the Guard ceremony at the Buckingham Palace that attracts numerous tourists in the U.K., we hope that taekwondo performances to be staged at Cheong Wa Dae and Gwanghwamun Square will become flagship tourism attractions for Seoul,” said Choi Kyung-ju, director general of Seoul city’s tourism and sports bureau.


Seng-Hyun Kang byhuman@donga.com