hankyoreh

By Jung Dae-ha, Gwangju correspondent

The Yeosu Expo opens on Saturday with the theme of “The Living Ocean and Coast”. Organizers expect millions of visitors to the 300,000-person city in South Jeolla province.

The principal venue for the event is a 2.7 million square meter area around the New Harbor of, including a 250,000 square meter fair site in front of Odong Island. The expo will run until August 12.

Why the sea? Visitors to the Theme Pavilion can watch a fantasy video showing the friendship between a boy and a dugong who explore the deep ocean. Together, they save the world by opening up a deep spring that is blocked by marine pollution. The dugong, an endangered marine mammal of which just over 100 individuals survive today, serves as a symbol for the crisis facing the oceans. There is also a sequence where the boy from the film appears on the stage with the dugong. The scene captures a message that runs through the Expo: the coexistence of humankind and the oceans. www.expo2012.kr

A total of 80 exhibition facilities were developed by 106 countries and ten international organizations to embody the spirit of the Yeosu Expo, and over 8,000 cultural and academic events will take place throughout the event. A “Yeosu Declaration” and “Yeosu Project” to be adopted during the Expo bear a call for human beings to “realize the value of the oceans.”

The Expo event is considered one of the top three “global village festivals” alongside the Olympics and World Cup. Korea first took part in 1889 under the reign of King Gojong, when it showed a gat (traditional horsehair hat), ramie fabric, mats, and cauldrons at the Paris World’s Fair that year. Authorized by the Bureau of International Exhibitions, the Yeosu Expo is South Korea’s second after the 1993 Daejeon Expo. The new event poses the question of what meaning the oceans hold for humanity.

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