Major Korea-Japan cultural festival to return as bilateral ties warm

Featuring cosplay, pop music and dance performances, an event to boost friendship between South Korea and Japan will be held physically in Seoul for the first time in three years.

The Korea-Japan Festival, held online during the Covid-19 pandemic and amid frayed bilateral ties, is slated to draw both Koreans and foreigners keen to experience the two countries’ cultures on Sunday.

Kazuo Chujo, director (minister) of the Public Information and Cultural Centre at the Embassy of Japan in South Korea, which is organising the event, said this year’s theme is aptly named Joy of Reunion as it will finally allow Japanese and Korean participants to interact face-to-face and enjoy each other’s culture.

“We hope that people in Korea who wanted to travel to Japan, but could not due to the pandemic, will come to the festival to experience Japan and inter-exchange programmes between Japan and Korea,” he said.

The festival’s return is the latest in a series of signs that indicate a warming of bilateral relations that had sunk to rock bottom due to various disputes over their history.

An annual study released earlier this month showed that South Korean favorability towards the Japanese has increased to 30.6 percent, up from 20.5 percent last year, while Japanese favorability towards the Koreans rose from 25.4 to 30.4 percent in the past year.

Jointly conducted by the East Asia Institute in South Korea and Genron NPO in Japan, the survey also showed an increase in numbers for people in both countries who think that their bilateral ties are important, and who think that efforts are needed to improve ties.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES