Nigeria welcomes 6th K-pop dance competition

By Korea.net Honorary Reporter Nnenna Ukandu

Photos = Nnenna Ukandu, Korean Cultural Center in Nigeria

Korean pop songs, generally branded as “K-pop” since the mid-2000s, have earned fans around the world and Nigeria is no exception.

This "Korean Wave" is surprisingly making waves in Nigeria, too, and the yearly competition that the Korean Cultural Center in Nigeria hosts is creating more awareness among youth as the number of entries keeps increasing every year.

The Korean Cultural Center in Nigeria hosts a yearly K-pop dance competition in Nigeria to pick the best group that will represent Nigeria in Korea. So far, it has been a tough competition whereby people from different parts of the country send in entries.

For two consecutive years, Nigeria has made us proud in Korea by bringing home awards as the first-placed team in 2015 and the best performance in 2016 at the K-pop World Festival in Changwon, Korea, in those years.

This year’s competition was held on July 8 at the Nicon luxury hotel in Abuja after preliminary online screenings of 39 entries from both the student and adult categories. Seven entries were selected from each category, making a total number of 14 entries. Only the best group from the adult category would represent Nigeria in Changwon this year.

This is my third K-pop dance competition in Nigeria, and it has never disappointed us K-pop fans in Nigeria. I always look forward to this day every year because to me it’s like an entire K-pop concert. We don’t get to have real K-pop concerts here, so we can do this competition, instead.

This year’s competition ended so well. In the adult category, the group I rooted for, K-night Africa, won covering the song “Without You” by Romeo. In the student category, the group Crew 101 won by covering the BTS song “Not Today."

Guess what! We got free K-pop caps and it made my day!

I pray and hope that the Nigerian group will make us proud once again this year in Changwon.

wisdom117@korea.kr

Korea, a model of development

By Korea.net Honorary Reporter Nnenna Ukandu

Photo = Korea.net Flickr

From a war torn country to innovative leadership. Korea was one of the world’s poorest countries after the Korean War (1950-1953), with a gross domestic product per capita of only USD 79. Today the country belongs to the club of rich countries, the OECD, and is a member of the development assistance committee (DAC). Korea benefited from big injections of foreign aid, first from the U.S., then from Japan.

In the same period, the total amount of aid provided by the U.S. to the entire African continent was only USD 68.9 billion. Korea indisputably used its aid well.

Aid was injected into Korea’s planning and budget process, and the regime of Park Chung-hee didn’t squander the aid it received. Rather, it provided pointers on how development should be done.

Korea has become a symbol of a country that has achieved rapid economic growth in a short period of time. 

This brings me to the New Community Movement, or Saemaul Undong. It's a set of agricultural development policies implemented in Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. I wish the Nigeria government and non-governmental agencies here would adopt a similar set of policies to help with rural development, especially in the northeastern parts of Nigeria, which are huge challenges to the country due to the insurgency there. The slogan for this collection of Korean agricultural development policies is, "Diligence, self-help and collaboration." It follows that this encourages community members to participate in the development process. This focus on improving the basic living conditions of the people and their environment is at the early stages of the New Community Movement.

In spite of rapid urbanization in most parts of the world over the past few decades, rural development remains a major challenge for developing countries like Nigeria. According to the World Bank, "Seventy-five percent of the world’s poor and low-income earners live in rural areas, and most are involved in farming”.

National governments and non-governmental agencies are placing emphasis on rural agricultural development as a critical factor in helping to reduce poverty and in achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. If today’s programs are to achieve their objectives, they must learn lessons from the many rural development initiatives pursed over the past decades in other countries, like the New Community Movement initiated by President Park Chung-hee in Korea in the early 1970s.

Nigeria and other developing countries should borrow a leaf from the pages of this movement because of the success it achieved in Korea in a relatively short period time, helping to raise incomes and to improving living standards in rural areas, thereby narrowing the urban-rural divide.   

wisdom117@korea.kr

Korean Culture Day in Nigeria

By Korea.net Honorary Reporter Nnenna Ukandu

Photos = Korean Cultural Center in Nigeria

The Korean Cultural Center in Nigeria held its Korean Culture Day on March 23. This is usually a day where visitors and students from the King Sejong Institute learn and embrace all things Korean.

I've been privileged to eat various types of Korean cuisine, watch several Korean movies and drink rice beer, or makgeolli, all thanks to the cultural center.  As usual, I went for this March’s Korean Culture Day with my classmates from the King Sejong Institute. The theme this year was tteokbokki stir fried rice cake in a red sauce, a popular Korean street snack made from small slices of rice cake and a delicious spicy sauce.              

                                      

We watched how to make tteokbokki, and we sampled some of it afterward, too. We went to see the movie "Le Grand Chef 2: Kimchi Battle" (2010) where we enjoyed some snacks, like Choco Pies, and some drinks. We had fun watching the movie and we enjoyed the delicious tteokbokki.

We all look forward to next year's Korean Culture Day. See you there~

wisdom117@korea.kr

Living in Nigeria as a Korean

By Korea.net Honorary Reporter Nnenna Ukandu 

Photo = Nnenna Ukandu

Lee Dongwook has been living in Nigeria for many years now. He recently sat down with Korea.net to share some of his experiences about what it’s like to live in Nigeria as a Korean.

Where are you currently living in Nigeria? 

I’m currently living in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.

Where were you born? 

I was born in Korea.

Why did you choose Nigeria? 

My father signed a contract with a Nigerian, so I am here for work.

How long have you been in Nigeria? 

I have been in Nigeria for seven years.

How long do you plan to remain in Nigeria? 

I will stay in Nigeria as long as possible.

Do you ever get home sick? 

From time to time, I get home sick, especially when I am sick.

How is the cost of living like here in Nigeria compared to Korea? 

The cost of living is high in Nigeria, but the cost of living in Korea is higher.

What do you think about the locals?

I like Nigerians because they are open-minded and friendly, but most Nigerians don’t keep to their promise so it's very difficult to work together. 

What are the things you miss most about living outside your country?

Most of the time, I miss Korean food and my friends.

Are there restaurants where you can eat Korean food?

There are no Korean restaurants in Abuja and I really want to open one.

How do you purchase Korean ingredients? 

I either get them through the mail or from other Koreans.

What are the challenges you face living in Nigeria? 

The currency, the naira, currently crashed and there's a high cost to immigration.

What do you have to say about Korean and Nigerian cultures? 

Sometimes they are very similar and very different.

What can you say about Korean and Nigerian drinking and dining etiquette? 

When they meet friends, Nigerians sometimes fail to show up on time. Dining etiquette is similar in both countries, but Koreans usually don't eat until their elder begins to eat.

Do you have tips for our readers about Nigeria?

When we see things that happen in Nigeria, we should not judge them based on our opinions, because everything that happens has a reason. So let’s try to understand Nigerians with goodwill.

wisdom117@korea.kr