The center opened up online classes for Korean-style cooking, taekwondo, and traditional Korean dance through its official YouTube channel on June 1. (image: Korean Cultural Center)
SEOUL, July 1 (Korea Bizwire) — In Italy, various Korean cultural programs are gaining popularity after having been replaced with online content following the coronavirus outbreak.
The Korean Cultural Center in Rome closed its building and stopped all offline Korean cultural programs in March in accordance with local government instructions as the coronavirus spread.
After that, the center worked for a month to open an online Korean language class on April 20.
The center opened up online classes for Korean-style cooking, taekwondo, and traditional Korean dance through its official YouTube channel on June 1, enabling people to access a variety of Korean culture content simply by going online once every week.
The courses allow students to freely discuss with instructors in real-time.
The number of participants has jumped after the courses went online.
So far, an online course on Korean cooking was viewed 2,200 times, and taekwondo 1,700 times, which is an outstanding level of participation considering that offline courses were only able to accommodate 10 to 20 people due to limited space.
A Korean movie screening program, watched by 100 or so people offline, was able to attract an audience twice as big after going online.
The center, encouraged by the popularity of its online offerings online, is conducting online surveys for local residents for the first time in three years, in which participants have asked to open up additional courses on Korean history, Korean tourism hotspots, and others.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
