Exhibits from the "Seoul Style 2002: Life As It Is - with the Lee Family" exhibition. (National Museum of Ethnology)

Since the drama and passion of the 2002 FIFA World Cup kicked off on May 31, cultural exchanges between Japan and South Korea have been in full swing. From the time when it was decided in 1996 that the two nations would cooperate in putting on the first World Cup ever to be co-hosted, a variety of cultural exchanges, including some involving cultural assets and traditional arts, have been taking place between the two neighbors. This year has been designated the Year of Japan-Republic of Korea National Exchange, a fact that is providing further momentum.

Real Face of Two Nations Seen in Exhibit
Recently museums have played host to a number of exhibitions on a larger scale than what has been seen before. The National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka and the National Folk Museum of Korea in Seoul have worked together to plan and put on a special exhibit simultaneously in both countries. The aim of this ambitious project is to reveal a typical family's everyday lifestyle to people in the other nation. The exhibition in Osaka is titled "Seoul Style 2002: Life As It Is - with the Lee Family" and runs until July 16. Its counterpart was the exhibition titled "The Country Next Door: Japan," which was held in Seoul until May 6. The exhibitions have been widely discussed in the media and have proven to be quite popular among the general public.

Another exhibition, titled "Seoul Pop 2002: Korean Popular Culture," opened on May 25 at the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo and introduces a wide variety of Korean popular expression found in everyday life, including television, street fashion, advertisements, movies, and music. Following its run at the Setagaya Art Museum, this exhibit is scheduled to go on to the Takamatsu City Museum of Art (site is Japanese only) and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum before winding up in February 2003. And a fashion show called "Korea-Japan Fashion Festival" was held in Korea on May 25 and in Japan on June 22. Attracting the most attention were the street fashions of young people in the two countries. Young designers took part in the exhibitions, and the event was broadcast on the Internet.

Exchanges Through Opera and Theater
There have also been a number of joint performances of opera and theater featuring stars from the two countries. An opera based on Chunhyangjun, an eighteenth-century Korean love story, was performed at Shinjuku Bunka Center in Tokyo on June 21 and 22. The show featured a Korean cast on the first day and a Japanese one on the second day. Interestingly, though, all the cast members used the Korean language. A Japanese-language opera based on the same story was performed at Kanagawa Kenmin Hall in Yokohama this April. It was truly a joint production, as it was paid for by the Korea Foundation and Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs and featured performances by Japanese soprano Mami Koshigoe and South Korean tenor Choi Sung-Ho. And at the end of July, the Fujiwara Opera Company, located in Tokyo, will put on a joint production of Puccini's Madame Butterfly with a South Korean opera company at the New National Theater Tokyo. The Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, led by the world-renowned South Korean conductor Chung Myung-Whun, will accompany singers from France, Italy, Japan, Spain, and South Korea.

Another opera, titled Sono kawa o koete, gogatsu (Across the river in May), was performed at the New National Theater Tokyo on June 3-13, and all aspects - composition, production, and performance - were handled jointly by Japanese and South Koreans. This opera tells the story of Koreans and Japanese enjoying a picnic together in modern-day Seoul in spring, and it reveals some of the differences between the two countries.

Japanese Songs Heard on South Korean Television
Popular actresses Norika Fujiwara of Japan and Kim Yun-Jin of South Korea were chosen to serve as goodwill ambassadors for this year of cultural exchange, and the two have appeared together in a commercial for cosmetics manufacturer Kanebo. Kanebo simultaneously released its new products all over Asia, and the commercial was shown not just in Japan and South Korea but in Taiwan and Hong Kong as well.

Popular singers from around the world performed at a pre-World Cup celebration held in Seoul on May 30. The concert featured Cho Yong-Pil, Lena Park, and Brown Eyes from South Korea and Chemistry and Sowelu from Japan. The performances were broadcast live across South Korea, and it was the first time that Japanese songs had been heard on television there since the end of World War II. While the World Cup lasted only a month, exchanges between the two neighboring countries look set to continue into the future.