As his students, ages 4 to 57, trotted out on stage, James Lee shouted encouragement.
“Believe yourself – you can do it,” the master of the U.S. Tae Kwon Do College yelled as his pupils kicked through wooden boards. “Do it again,” he said cheerfully when one of the smallest boys on stage failed to break a board.
A standing-room only crowd of more than 375 people gathered in the EMU Ballroom Sunday night to celebrate music, dance, food and even cinema during 2006 Korea Night. The annual event is sponsored by the Korean Student Association.
The evening started with a meal of beef bossam, a roll made with lettuce, rice, beef and a savory sauce and served with kimchi, a popular side dish made with pickled cabbage. With Korean music videos playing in the background, some guests followed the bossam-rolling instructions printed in the program while others went straight for the candy.
Oregon Sen. John Lim gave the opening remarks, encouraging Korean students to value both the richness of their culture and the opportunities available in the United States.
“Even though I came to U.S.A. without a penny, I could work hard,” he said, recounting his rise from a janitor to a senator.
Instead of using an emcee, the KSA decided to use popular Korean movies to introduce acts that ranged from traditional dance to “Swimming Dogs,” a rock group.
“Our production team, including me … dubbed English over the movies,” said Young Min Yu, an accounting junior and co-director of KSA. “We had to stay up all night for a couple – no, a few – days in a row and people were acting like zombies, but it was fun. We were trying to make it really fun to listen to and watch.”
The clips depicted Korea through several epochs, from the Chosun era to the present. While the lips never matched the dubbing, the youthful voices over the images of grizzled soldiers amused the audience. The crowd was diverse, which pleased economics senior Chanew Jung, co-director of KSA.
“That’s what I aimed for,” he said, adding that one of KSA’s objectives this year is to reach not just the Korean community, but all of Eugene.
Although one young boy chatted throughout his performance while another kept getting tangled in his own costume, a group of young children from Korean Central Church performing a fan dance proved to be a crowd favorite.
Lee, who told the audience that he is a ninth-level black belt, performed an elaborate fighting sequence to a driving dance beat that climaxed with a 360-degree kick and broken boards. There are only 100 people with ninth-level black belts in the world, he said.
But the highlight of the evening, several KSA members said, was a triangle point dance performed by 10 members of the group.
Yu said the event was the culmination of months of work and fundraising.
“Since we didn’t have enough budget, we had to fundraise a lot of money – over $3,000, close to $4,000 – just from small local communities and the school departments,” he said, adding that members wrote letters to several groups.
Both Yu and Chanew said they were very pleased with the evening’s events.
“I was preparing so long, but I love it,” Chanew said. “I love Korean culture and I’m very proud of it. I want to share the culture … and we have so much to do.”