미지센터의 청소년 국제교류이야기

Si-hyeong Yu

Young-dae Shim

Seok-bum Cho

All pictures taken from Si-hyeong Yu's personal blog  


 When they were asked the purpose of the trip, Yu, the leader of the team who went on a trip around the world with only 26 euros in 2006, answered, “It was saddening to realize how Korean food was unknown to the world when I travelled around the world in 2006. Not only Korean food, but the country ‘Korea’ was unfamiliar to the foreigners. As someone who has majored in cooking, it was this feeling of sorrow along with our pride in Korean food that started the Kimchi Bus project." Together, they aim to change the impression of Korean food to the world. “People keep talking about the globalization of Korean food, but not many people are actually taking action, We hope that our tour will prove even a small effort can make a difference.”

The three youth became good friends as fellow students of Kyung Hee University. Knowing each other thoroughly and having common passion, they had almost no trouble preparing for the trip. These men were not only passionate, but also rather thoughtful. Instead of travelling in a professionally set package or merely participating in international competitions and exhibitions, they will be travelling in a camping car. Yu explains, “We want to deliver our message personally, interacting both physically and psychologically with the regional people. We want even those in the isolated parts of every country and those who live off the mainstream of the modern lives to learn about Korean food, and a camping car seemed perfect for the job.”

 Moreover, the name Kimchi might seem rather childish at first, but Yu explains there is a special reason why they placed it at the core of their tour. “We cannot talk about Korean food without mentioning Kimchi, and it is also the most well known food outside Korea. It has unimaginable possibilities in cuisine, we will be combining Kimchi, as a representative Korean food, and other regional foods, like a fusion--resulting in Kimchi Taco, Kimchi Kebab, and Kimchi Paellasot—so that the natives can take in Korean food more easily.” Through the tour, Yu hopes to express the flexibility of Korean food: its ability to fulfill sweetness, spiciness, saltiness, and even bitterness, at the same time providing nutritious dishes.

바게트와 김치카포나타

김치퀴슈

However, their days have not always been easy. Since they were the only interested students when they first had the idea, some of their acquaintances were doubtful of their attempt. Moreover, still young and inexperienced, getting sponsors and supporters were challenging. Yu expresses the team’s last minute tension, “We are still very imperfect. This project is not an easy one so we feel pressure and always feel nervous and worried.” Fortunately, the big problems are all behind now, and they are at the stage of completing their contracts for financial support. Afterwards, they will start training for actual cooking. The Kimchi Bus is expected to set off during the mid September after Chusuk(Korean Thanks Giving). After an opening event in Korea, the bus will go oversea to Russia, cross Eurasia, Middle East, Europe, and finally, North America by July next year.

So, how did these men become such passionate cooks (Yu says that he is not a professional cook yet, but he will be one in just two months)? Shim says that he started to cook in high school. “I sometimes cooked at home just for fun. The food did not taste good, but cooking itself was just fun. Later, I took a professional path in cooking because I believed it was something I could really enjoy without getting restricted by money.” Yu, on the other hand, says that he naturally grew fond of cooking because his parents were busy, and he had to make his own meals.

김치 퀘사디아

김치 슈크르트

Lastly, to the question of whether there are any bigger or personal goals in doing the Kimchi Bus project, Yu demonstrated great zest, “I suppose it’s also about challenging myself. How much can I achieve. After completing the 2006 trip with no money, I tasted the savour of accomplishing my goals and grew more confident about challenging myself.” Shim, in contrast, expressed hopes of promotion in his career.

In ending the interview, leader Yu closed by saying, “Many people ask what we are planning to do after the tour, but we have not gone that far yet. Right now, our mind and body are busy enough with Kimchi Bus, and we really cannot think about other things until it is over. After the trip, many changes will have occurred, and I suppose we will be acting according to those changes.”

 For more information about the Kimchi Bus, visit Kimchi Bus online page ‘www.kimchibus.com’ or Si-hyeong Yu’s blog ’www://optimist.crazytour.net/’. Also, for more information about Si-hyeong Yu’s 2006 No-money trip, read his book “26 Euro“.

Beijing’s struggle to spread its environmental spirit all over the world!

   From 7^th to 10^th of June, people from all over the world gathered in Beijing exhibition center. The world’s largest environmental exhibition was being held, and countless firms and government officials visited here to learn more about Beijing’s growing interest in the environment and its environmental market. CIEPEC (China International Exhibition Protection Exhibition and Conference) was an extraordinarily superb opportunities for a variety of people, including youth.

 In front of the entrance of CIEPEC's main hall, the place where visitors' loads were checked.

   Right after getting a free ticket, there was a quick monitor of my loads just like the one in the airport. After that, writing a register and getting a card were still required. After having finished passing through all those complex ‘entrance tests’, the world’s largest environmental exhibition center halls emerged in front of my eyes.

  Colossal main halls 1A and 1B exhibited Chinese local firms’ products, and the rest of the ten more halls exhibited the products and seminars from China, Korea, Japan, USA, Belgium, Italy, Canada, France, Hong Kong and so on. Hong Kong pavilion had a very lively and exotic atmosphere. “We dismantle computers into the pieces of components and extract useful materials from them or recycle them into another products,” said a representative of an electronic recycling company in Hong Kong, the Li Tong Group. “Our main environmental aim is to ‘reduce natural resources exploitation’. To tell you our standard operating procedures, firstly, we get goods and verify weight and quantify them. Secondly, we remove labels with customers’ intellectual properties. We dismantle, separate and sort the goods. Thirdly, we destroy them and weigh the materials. Lastly, weight verification and issue certification of destruction is carried on. An example for our company’s job can be extracting gold from electric chips and shred parts of computer components into ferrous. We wish to extract as much as we can to save one more useful raw materials and natural resources.”

   CIEPEC was a brisk and delightful exhibition. This time in 2011, CIEPEC had its 12^th exhibition in Beijing which started 24 years ago; It is held once in two years. Numerous firms revealed their environmentally friendly products at CIEPEC. Some of them had tanks which filtered polluted water into cleaner tap water, a newly-made flow meters and brand-new machines which measured the level of pollution in the air for 24 hours. Also, several seminars about their environmental strategies and policies were held at parts of each hall. The students interested in environment and environmental business as well as geography and science would be welcomed to visit CIEPEC, as they can attend seminars and wander around and listen to each pavilions’ representatives’ speeches and explanations.

   Now the CIEPEC is receiving more and more attention, as it is one of the international meetings in China, a new "star nation" which has growing markets in almost all fields. It is not a bad idea if one interested in environmental areas visit this extremely huge and enthusiastic ‘environmental festival’ with a Chinese friend beside him. CIEPEC is one of the revealers of China’s growing interest in environment, which rapidly mounted around the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. In 1993, China was refused to hold Olympic games in Beijing due to its environmental problems. Since then, Chinese government embarked on environmental plans and projects to appeal the world with the image of a better nature and environment.

Beijing’s environmental condition in 2011!

As described above, Chinese government has struggled to raise the quality of China’s environment and to obtain more concerns and helps from all over the world; for example, through CIEPEC, China drew the world's attention on its environmental market. 

    “Breathe in, and feel the delicious chemicals in the air of Beijing!” My friend shouted out loud as we had just placed our sneakers on the land of Beijing international airport in 2008. Beijing was infamous for its environmental pollution and the areas rife with garbage due to the past’s rapid industrialization. However, Beijing in the year of 2011 is not the one like Beijing in the past anymore. China and its government is striving to be ‘greener’ right now.

When I just came to Beijing as a little student in 2006, I shivered in a tiny guilt for dropping glasses of juice, used tissues, torn and ripped plastic bags and unrecyclable wastes in the ‘same’ garbage bin. As a girl whom entirely got used to separate garbage collection system, I was shocked to see people throwing away garbage without any identification for the recyclable garbage in Beijing. However, by now, more and more Beijing citizens are taking ‘greener’ actions. Beijing in 2011 has the rubbish bins with ‘recyclable’ and ‘other wastes’ sections for the most of its streets.

Beijing’s street in the middle of June had relatively clean and neat figure. Street cleaners in orange uniform were sweeping the street and there was no rubbish on the street. “It seems there is not much garbage, but it’s because we all clean it up,” said a man, one of the street cleaners. “Several people still lack the awareness to put garbage in the rubbish bin. They attach posters and advertisements onto walls and throw garbage away at any place.” Unlike Beijing citizens’ answers that the street is free from much garbage than the past, the cleaners disapproved this. However, in some places, citizens were following the ‘green action’. “Well, we separately put garbage into the bins in our house!” Two local school children said with a definite tone. “I separately throw away wastes from the kitchen and the recyclable ones,” said a housewife in a village. There has been gradual change in the view on the recycle by Beijing citizens.

  However, it was a different case for the residents in a poor local village. On the grayish and dusty cement, piles of garbage were mingled into smelly balls, and almost everyone in the village did not separately dump rubbish. Also, there was no suitable trash can for such action. Though it started to show several advances in the Beijing streets to get rid of countless garbage, several poor villages still suffer from the garbage. It seemed there should be more emphasis of cleaning garbage by Chinese government for them to live in a much more neat and clean environment. My math teacher, a ChaoXianZu(ethnic Korean immigrants living in China) explained this situation. "Clearly, as Chinese government has strived to get better in its envrionment around 2008, although people still throw away garbage anywhere, the increased number of street cleaners these days clean up all the garabage in the street. Only those local villages still need more recognition of the importance of cleaning rubbish."

An untidy road in the rural area of Beijing (top).

 
     Neat and clean road in the middle of city; a man is carrying blue recyclable bottles with his bicycle (bottom).

   API (Air Pollution Index) is the measurement of a certain place’s air pollution. 101 API shows unhealthy level, 201 a very unhealthy level, and 301 a very dangerous level. The air of Beijing usually has the API of between 60~90, 20~50 when favorable, and 100~120 when the air is heavily thick with dust and sand. Numerous people are interested in Beijing’ atmosphere, as most of them bet its poor quality. However, most of the Beijing citizens considered the air quality as satisfying and breathable. Some of them even said the quality improved after the 2008 Beijing Olympic game. Before the Olympic games, Beijing were made embarrassing as several athletes publicly announced that they were not participating in the Olympics due to the shoddy quality of Beijing’s air.

  By now, Beijing has much more sunny days with brighter and fresher air. The average API of Beijing from June 1^st to June 5^th in 2007 is known to be around 92.8, but the average API from June 1^st to June 5^th in 2011 is 63.4. There has been much change in the air quality before and after the Olympics. Since the average API from June 1^st to June 5^th in 2008, right before the Olympic game which was in August is around 57.6, it can be considered that Beijing Olympic games had served as a momentum for Beijing to endeavored to make a development its air quality; as what Beijing citizens exactly said. For example, as Beijing is always crowded, Chinese government aimed to reduce cars in China into 240,000 for the air with less chemicals and pollution.

Crowded Beijing full of cars and people; the air that day was a little foggy and stifling.

   These all show Chinese government's attempts for a higher quality of its nature, especially the one in its capital city, Beijing. Obviously, Beijing's environment has made a progress compared to the past, before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Even though several people criticize China for the  pollution in the air, rivers, oceans, forests, soil, food and so on, the fact that China and Beijing's land is too large for the total perfection evenly spread all over their land in the natural environment and the another fact that compared to speedy industrialization, Chinese government has made a great deal of efforts such as numbers of events, exhibitions like CIEPEC, prohibiting smoking inside public places, giving credits to environmentally-friendly companies, roof greening...etc cannot be ignored.

Now the world's eyes are on China, and some even expect it to be the world's most powerful country soon in the future. Its environmental issues will determine China's future of becoming a such country. Beijing's environment, will it make China number one or the last one?

 

 

Finding MoMA

The MoMA Building, fromthe opposite end of the MoMA building

In New York City, and especially in Manhattan, there are many art museums that contain a treasure trove of artistic masterpieces. Researching about many renowned museums, I have recently heard of a museum in Manhattan named the Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA. The museum was established in 1929, a time when modern art began taking root in the artistic world. I found that the museum offered free admission to visitors every Friday, and also containing many works of many renowned artists (such as Picasso and Lichtenstein). I decided to travel to Manhattan to see how impressive this museum was to sport such an incredible amount of works from famous artists. Although there were innumerable amounts of excellent works, I decided first to take a survey among the museum visitors, then showed works that left the highest impression on the viewers.

Dabbing in Paint & Politics

Left to Right: Black and Blue (Vuyile C. Voyiya of South Africa), Case History (Boris Mikhailov from Ukraine), and 1919 Majus 1 (Mihaly Biro from Hungary)

 

L to R: Vilag Proletarjai Egyesuljert! (Bertaian Por, Hungary) and Casspirs Full of Love (William Kentridge, South Africa)

 

According to a survey of 100 visitors across the building, I found that many of the visitors (73 out of 100 people) viewed works in MoMA intimately related to political ideas (as modern art rebelled against established political thought and propaganda). They especially thought that political views were more rampant in more recent artworks. In the South African gallery, there were many works that seemed to reflect the political scars left by apartheid and government oppression. In the photography section, Mikhailov’s photographs displayed the failed policies of glasnost & perestroika during Soviet ruleand their consequences on Ukrainians.  There were also some works that were more dated, such as Biro’s 1919 Majus 1.

                When I asked the visitors to spot one common aspect of these political drawings, 43 of 50 people I asked noticed was that many of the political drawings were nude, in both photographs and drawings. “When I was in the South African wing, there were a lot of nude or sexual content in the drawings”, said Jack Houston (visitor). Another visitor,Vanessa Hodsten, said that “the nudity really gives a raw feeling to the emotion of these artists as well as their uncensored ideas.” However, the visitors were dismissive about concerns of nudity in the artworks, even parents who had young children with them. “I think nudity in art is common,” said a mother of 3 young children (she declined to be named), “and I also think that the nudity here is actually for a purpose, not like those in music videos in American pop.” Many people also told me that not much color (other than photos) was used in the paintings, as well as having numerous amounts of red and black in the drawings. “Probably represents the passion of the artist,” said avisitor. “ I think since Fascism and Communism used those colors a lot for propaganda, maybe the artists wanted to have that effect too,” said another visitor.

The Cultural Revolution, in Art

L to R: Drowning Girl (Roy Lichtenstein, USA), Hope (Gustav Klimt, Austria), Golden Marilyn Monroe (Andy Warhol, USA), Secession XIV, Beethoven (Alfred Roller, Austria)

L to R: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (Pablo Picasso, Spain), The Starry Night (Vincent Van Gogh, Netherland), The Persistence of Memory (Salvador Dali, Spain)

           Although politics play an important in modern art, modern art has played an important part in changing the perception of art and culture in the world, as well as starting artistic movements across the world. Out of 100 visitors, 92 of the visitors, both tourists and citizens of NYC, had come to MoMA to view works mainly by Picasso, Warhol, and Lichtenstein. Picasso’s works were most sought by the following 92 people (43), followed by Andy Warhol (32) and Vincent Van Gogh (18). When I went to the museum, Picasso’s works were always surrounded by people with cameras. However, when I asked them to tell me what the Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was about and some insight about the artwork, many people were unable to give me insight and what they thought of the artwork. Most of the responses from my questions included “I just think it’s looks interesting”, “Picasso liked to draw weird doodles”, and “I just wanted to take my picture taken”, or avoided the question with a smile or a shrug.

               I then asked a student named Miranda, who attends the Tisch School of Arts in NYU, to tell me what she thought of the artworks. “Many of these artists have done very significant things to the human perception as well as the art circles.” She then pointed to the Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, and said “Picasso’s works were famous for Cubism, right? Well, Cubism inspired many artists to analyze and reassemble what they see into an abstract form after breaking the image into parts.  This inspired many people in society to look at ideas and objects dynamically, instead of just looking at it in only one particular view.” “In fact”, she continued, “this work is supposedly the first Cubist artwork. You can say that Picasso started this entire movement where people started to see things differently.”

          She then took me to the gallery where The Starry Night by Van Gogh was hung. “This artwork, too, shows different perspectives of color. Also, the artwork doesn't look like stars twinkling, but they look like they’re swirling along with the night sky. Van Gogh shows that to him a starry night could look like a swirl of stars, rather than the common perception of a stationary sky.” “For Dali, he took the surreal to display how time and memory relate to each other”, said Miranda while walking to the wall where The Persistence of Memory was hung. “Clocks don’t melt”, joked Miranda, “but for Dali the melting clocks show that time is invasive in our memory that symbolizes how we forget things that occurred a long time ago.”

              Miranda also explained that culture and morality today was heavily influenced by modern art. “Warhol and Lichtenstein were artists who began to draw upon American Pop culture, as well as showing Americans how mass-produced this culture is. If you look both at their works, you won’t think that they are hard to dray, and they aren't. However, themes and not skills are the essence of any artwork.” She then proceeded to the German impressionists and Austrian Secessionist galleries. “Austrian Secessionists like Klimt and Roller changed much of people’s impression of morality. You see many sexual themes in Secessionist art, and that’s because Secessionists wanted to challenge morality dominated by the Christian faith and show that people no longer had to think that Christianity was the only moral path for an individual.”

 

Art?

L to R: Trafalgar Square & The Voice (Barnett Newman, USA), Split Flap Board Flight Information Display System (Solari di Udine, Italy)

               There were many works where people lauded as masterpieces, but some of the artworks hung were questioned by many people as an actual piece of art. Many of these questioned artworks included almost blank canvases, compilation of various refuse, and normal objects. For many people, if the ‘artworks’ were not displayed as artwork, then they would have considered it junk or a failed experiment or a mistake of an artist while painting.

When I interviewed visitors whether anything artists try to create can be considered art, 134 people out of the questioned 200 said no. “It's insulting to see someone get fame because they did something ‘original’, while putting in no effort”, said one visitor. “I could sell a blank canvas saying it represents something deep”, joked another. When I asked the visitors who did not consider some artwork ‘art’ what their definitions of art were, many replied that art was something drawn, sculpted, crafted, or painted with an effort to express oneself.

However, some visitors appreciated the unusualness of the artworks. One visitor, named Sam, said that anything could be art. “ Art represent what the artist is thinking, so saying something can’t be art just because it looks simple is insulting to the artist.” Another visitor also added to Sam’s point, saying “yesterday smartphones would have been dismissed by science fiction, but now it’s daily life; I think people need to change their preconceptions about art and what is the norm.”
 

Reflections

MoMA, for many, is more than an art museum where art students hang out and tourists take pictures. MoMA contains the one of the most recent collection of art in the US, maybe even the world. Many of the artists, and the artworks themselves, have propelled culture and thought to the present. Many more artists try to propel them to new levels. For many visitors, MoMA is a place where one can reflect on both the present and the future and where one can find something more than artwork. Whether one likes art or not, it is certainly a place where one’s perceptions of modern life will change.