SEOUL, June 6 (Korea Bizwire) — A South Korean civic organization is challenging false claims that “pansori,” a Korean genre of musical storytelling, is from China.
The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) introduced pansori as traditional Korean one-person opera that uses a drum, ballads, dialogue and choreography to deliver a story.
The civic group added that pansori was listed as a South Korean intangible cultural asset in 1964 and a UNESCO intangible heritage in 2008.
A Chinese network of cultural heritage websites and China’s digital museum for intangible cultural heritage, however, claimed that pansori is a cultural asset of the Korean Chinese people, and therefore a Chinese cultural asset.
In response, VANK produced English posters that say pansori is not Chinese but a Korean cultural heritage and began distributing them on Saturday.
Image Credit: Yonhap / National Gugak Cente / photonews@koreabizwire.com