Korea Center opens in Tokyo to promote Korean culture, art

SEOUL, June 15 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean government said Monday it will open a
Korea Center in Tokyo this week to promote the country's traditional and
contemporary culture there.

The Tokyo Korea Center, opening on Thursday, is an eight-story building housing a
307-seat theater, an art gallery and a library of books and documents on Korean
culture and art, Seoul's culture ministry said in a press release.
The building, located in Shinjuku, central Tokyo, is modeled after a traditional
Korean house overlooking a garden and has wooden floors, the ministry said.
The center's opening ceremony will be attended by South Korean Culture Minister
Yu In-chon and his Japanese counterpart Tamotsu Aoki, with some 300 officials and
culture representatives from the two neighboring countries.
The South Korean government has been building large culture centers unifying
small-scale state-run culture institutions abroad since 2006.
The Tokyo Korea Center is the fourth such state-run institution to open overseas
following centers in Los Angeles, Beijing and Shanghai. Construction is underway
for the New York Korea Center, slated for completion in 2012.
hayney@yna.co.kr
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