A group of university students from South Korea yesterday held a mini-concert in Doha, entertaining many with the traditional and contemporary Korean songs and dances.
The students are here as part of a student exchange programme organised by Sarang Plus, a South Korean cultural centre.
As part of their visit, the students interacted with several people through cooking and dance classes over the course of two weeks.
One of the highlights of the event yesterday was a traditional song performed by Jinwon An that used to be sung for the royal family. Some also enjoyed the Korean fan-dance, while other attendees tried on Hanbok, a traditional Korean dress.
Ghada Mohammed, a Qatari student, said that many Qataris are interested in Korean entertainment.
“Many Qatari girls want to attend such events but some of them are not allowed to go out alone,” Ghada said. She volunteered at Sarang Plus to help register people for several activities that will be held at the centre soon, including Taekwondo and music classes.
Debbie Tingzon, who runs the Kpop Qatar page on Twitter and Facebook, said many were excited about the events at Sarang Plus as they don’t usually get the opportunity to interact with Koreans here. “We wanted to unite all the Kpop fans here in Qatar. I noticed that there were some people with similar interests as me in Qatar in 2010 but the number of fans has gone up over the years,” Tingzon said. The pages were started by Aya El Shaarawi in 2010 on Twitter.
Tingzon witnessed this phenomenon when Korean actor Song JoongKi visited Qatar earlier in March for the screening of his film ‘A Werewolf Boy’. The event was attended by hundreds of locals and expatriates.
“I also wanted other Kpop fans here to experience the Korean Wave culture that I was able to experience back in the Philippines, since it’s an Asian country where Kpop is huge,” she said, adding that the Korean culture was ‘unique’.
Source:The Peninsula
