(Yonhap Interview) Hanoi hopes to spread 'Vietnamese wave' in S. Korea

HANOI, May 29 (Yonhap) -- Vietnam is planning to open its first cultural center
in South Korea to spread a "Vietnamese wave" among the Koreans, amid the rising
popularity of South Korean television shows and other cultural content in
Vietnam, its prime minister said.

"As 2009 is Vietnam's year for cultural diplomacy, we are going to launch many
cultural exchanges and promotion events in many countries, including the Republic
of Korea," Nguyen Tan Dung, the prime minister of Vietnam, said in an interview
this week with Yonhap News Agency.
"We hope that Vietnam's intensification of cultural activities in the Republic of
Korea in the coming future will trigger a 'Vietnamese Wave', going along with the
'Korean Wave' in Vietnam," Dung said, referring to a boom in Korean pop culture,
which enjoys a massive audience throughout the pan-Asian region.
To this end, the Vietnamese government is considering establishing a culture
center in South Korea to better promote exchange of rich cultural heritage and
contents of both nations, he said.
South Korea opened a cultural center in Hanoi in 2006, its first in Southeast
Asia and seventh worldwide, responding to the growing popularity of Korean pop
culture there. South Korea forged formal diplomatic relations with Vietnam in
1992.
"All these will contribute to enhancing the friendship, understanding and mutual
trust as well as to promoting long-term and stable cooperation for the benefits
of our people and for the sake of peace, stability and development in the
region," said the prime minister.
South Korea is also now home to some 25,000 Vietnamese women, many of whom have
married locals and later become naturalized South Korean nationals.
"The majority of them are leading happy and stable lives. The community of
Vietnamese people in Korea has actively built a bridge to strengthen the
cooperation between our two countries," Dung said.
His government considers such people as an "integrated part" of its population
and tries to provide them with support "to integrate into local communities," the
prime minister said.
Sharing some of his thoughts ahead of a scheduled summit between South Korea and
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Dung said that his government
"supports a comprehensive partnership" between Seoul and the regional bloc and
approves the upgrading of this relation into a "Strategic Partnership".
The prime minister and the leaders of nine other ASEAN countries -- Brunei,
Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and
Vietnam -- are scheduled to attend the special summit from June 1-2. Designed to
commemorate the 20th anniversary of their dialogue partnership, the meeting is
expected to set the stage for future cooperation.
"We strongly believe that given the joint efforts and mutual trust between ASEAN
and the Republic of Korea, as well as Vietnam, our comprehensive partnership will
further develop in the future," he said.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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