1. [An Ambitious 2008]
On December 31, 2007, at the Imjin Gak Pyeonghwa Nuri, many people gathered to greet the New Year.
On New Year’s Eve, the crowd surged the music hill of Imjin Gak Pyeonghwa Nuri, where a splendid New Year’s ceremony was held.
Despite the weather being below zero degrees Celsius, groups of family and friends that gathered at the ceremony seemed to not mind the chill.
Spectators cheered when the peace bell rang in the New Year.

Gyeonggi residents, I wish that in 2008 you achieve all your goals and be healthy

The residents made wishes and were alive with new hopes.

I wish I do well on the state examination this year.

I just want my family to be healthy and well off.
I want to move to a nicer house and it would be nice if my sons kept on doing well in their studies.

In the New Year hopefully everyone’s wishes will come true.

2. [50-year history of Korean engraving]
Fifty years have passed since the modern art of engraving was introduced to Korea, and an exposition commemorating the fiftieth anniversary was held.
An exhibition of Korean-modern-engraving that displays works that dates back to 1958 was held at the National Museum of Contemporary Art.
The exhibition was largely divided into two parts. On display were about 400 works of more than 130 artists.
The first part of the exposition has chronologically organized the works from 50s through the 80s, which is a period when new art techniques were experimented with vivaciously.
The second half of the exposition displayed works from the 90s on and makes use of various techniques.
People were amazed at how diverse the printing technique is and how artistic they looked.

The techniques and materials of engraving were more diverse than I thought. I realized that print is very abstract and amazing.

Over fifty years modern printing became more substantial, yet has also become more creative.

This exhibition was planned to head Traditional Korean Art in the direction of modern printing that takes on a new form.

Though in the past printing blocks were just considered as no more than a means for printing and an unpopular category of art, the creative spirit of artists is changing people’s thinking and reshaping the potentials of the modern art of engraving.

3. [Rice is changing!]
Food tastes better when the ingredients within the food complement each other.
Various kinds of rice are being developed to complement different foods.
The Rural Development Administration announced that they have cultivated ‘snow storm,’ a glutinous rice that contains no Amylose.
The Rural Development Administration has raised Manmi rice, suitable for sushi, and Goami rice, which works well for rice cakes. Manmi rice, which is moderately glutinous can be cooked like traditional rice, however when chewed there is a certain stickiness, and it provides a pleasing aftertaste making it appropriate for sushi.
Gaomi, to be used for rice cakes, contains 27% amylose and has no sticky texture. Therefore it is easier to ground it into a powdered form and easier to process without ruining the shape of the finished product.

4. [Tourism Industry Exposition!]
The Gyeonggi International Tourism Exposition, which came to an end successfully, was highly rated in many fields and stood out proudly as the biggest tourism industry exposition in Korea.
It has been assessed that the Gyeonggi International Tourism Exposition paved the way to the biggest industry exposition in the country.
The Gyeonggi Tourism Organization announced that the scale has increased by 70% and profits increased by 300% compared with last year according to December 28 overall estimates.
Diverse displays included the world noodle festival that invited noodle experts from seven different countries, the Free Trade Agreement marketing hall, and the Hallyuwood publicity hall, was one of the main attractions that helped the exhibition to be such a success.
Internationally, it operated a B2B consultation office for foreign buyers for the first time among tourist expositions in Korea. Moreover, it concluded a memorandum of understanding for 150,000 foreign tourists in 2008.
The online publicity was very effective; the Gyeonggi international tourism exposition webpage was visited by over 120,000 people period during the expo.

5. [Responsible for Universal Studios!]
In successfully winning the investment of Universal Studios, Gyeonggi was there with enthusiastic follow up support in developing a responsible organization to push the project forward smoothly.
Gyeonggi province and Universal Studios concluded a memorandum of understanding that states mutual consent for the Universal Studio Korea resort to be built by 2012 on the Songsan Green City of Ilwon, Sinoe Street, Hwaseong City.
Gyeonggi province offered much support to further promote this business.
First, the province formed an exclusive team that only works on businesses related to Universal Studios.
This team is composed of nine groups including a general affairs group, an infrastructure group, a central ministries and offices group, a traffic measures group, and a publicity measures group will act as leaders.
By allotting different tasks related to road construction, traffic, and publicity plans according to the category among these teams, business will progress quickly and steadily.
The province is working on a plan to have people from the central ministries and offices group and other groups visit universal studio in Florida next year to research it as a model for this business.

6. [G-money]
Even small companies that have bright prospects struggle due to financial difficulties. From now on, G-money will fund these companies.
The G-money small and medium business development fund unified management system, which was formed to support small companies, will open its doors in January.
G-money is an operating system that manages all duties that the Kyonggi Credit Guarantee Foundation, the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, and the Kibo Technology Fund have previously done for the progress of small companies.
As a result, a base for supporting companies and information sharing has been developed.
Moreover, it became possible for companies to verify transactions at any time through the G-money website.
Other useful information guiding application centers and closings of subscriptions can be seen at a glance.
G-money is being watched carefully to see whether it will become a service that is really useful to many companies within the province.

7. [Traditional woodblock printing]
One Buddhist temple at Gyeonggi province caught the public eye because of its traditional woodblock printing. It is significant in that it holds original copies.
Cheonggye temple in Uiwang, Gyeonggi, is a traditional Buddhist temple that was founded during unified Silla Dynasty. It is a temple of great historical value; literary men of Goryeo and early Joseon dynasty visited it and it preserves various important cultural assets.
Traditional printing methods were made public for the first time here at Cheonggye temple, which is Tangible Cultural Property 135 of Gyeonggi province.

< interview - Yun Han Taek, Gyeonggi Culture Foundation>
Many cultural contents are preserved in the temples of Gyeonggi province. We should excavate and preserve…

The first stage of printing requires washing the print using sun dried salt diluted in water; the second stage calls for stain ink to be smeared on the typeface; the last stage involves a lot of care that includes drying out the press.
18 different kinds of Buddhist scripts are to be printed on 466 presses total including the Myo Beob Yeon Hwa Gyeong.
Although the presses that are going to be used are from the Joseon dynasty, the technique of printing was passed down from the Goryeo dynasty. Furthermore, it includes some Confucian scriptures and the Thousand-Character Text along with Buddhist scriptures.
This printing, which preserves some original copies of important cultural assets, was of great value because the process was wholly and traditionally inherited from Korean heritage.