VANK launches campaign to promote Korea in Vietnamese

The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (or VANK), an online public diplomatic mission, said on Saturday that it has opened a Vietnamese language site (vietnam.prkorea.com) to introduce everything about Korea to students from Vietnam, a country that ranks first in the number of international students in Korea.

According to Statistics Korea, the number of Vietnamese students in Korea accounted for 37.8% of all international students as of 2020. This is 4.5 percentage points higher than that of Chinese students, the second-biggest student group. In addition, as of July 2022, 18,867 Vietnamese nationals entered the country, ranking first in Asia.

In response, VANK created a site to properly introduce Korea to Vietnamese students staying in Korea, as well as to Vietnamese residents and locals who are interested in the Korean Wave and Korea.

The site consists of sections such as "Korea," "I want to know more about Korea," "social issues," and "site description." It provides basic information about the country, such as its language, population, and climate, as well as its traditional food, clothing and housing, the Korean Wave, and tourism.

In addition, it shows the history from Gojoseon to the Joseon Dynasty, including descriptions of famous figures such as King Sejong, Yi Sun-sin, Yu Gwan-soon, and Kim Gu, and selects and explains an artifact representing each era. Stories about hanbok, Kimchi, the East Sea, and Dokdo are also covered in the "social issues" section.

Park Gi-tae, head of VANK, said, "I hope this will be a great opportunity to understand and respect each other's culture between Korea and Vietnam."

Write to Dong-Hyun Kim at 3code@hankyung.com