.21-century Korea Cultural Exchange: Theory And Practice

After stepping into the 21st century,we often heard such words:"The 21st century is a cultural century. In a cultural century,the soft power determines the strength of a country.""Soft power" is a concept relative to the tangible hard power, such as military power or economic power and so on. Soft power refers to the ability gained through charm and spontaneous self-identity instead of through compelling force, which was put forward first by Joseph S.Nye, dean of Kennedy School of Harvard University, in 2004. After entering the 21st century,the whole world has been changing slowly from an age of hard power to an age of soft power based on culture. The culture here refers to all fields in relation to man-made products based on human rational and emotional faculties, including education, knowledge, art, science, technology and so on. The 21st century will be a cultural century dominated by the soft power.China is no exception. It will take its long history and tradition as the foundation,and strive continually for enhancing its soft power. At the Executive Meeting of the State Council in July 2009, China passed the guiding document "Program for Revival of the Cultural Industry". It shows the Chinese government has begun to go all out to enhance the soft power. In order to popularize the Chinese language as the core of the soft power, to the whole world, up till April 2009, China has established 324 Confucius Colleges in 81 countries all over the world, and this data will still increase year by year. China is just trying to use its soft power to get onto a new height in the development of the country. Korea has also realized the importance of the soft power, and is endeavoring to upgrade the country's image and show the image of a cultural Korea to the whole world. Although soft power is a concept relative to hard power, they are not opposite to each other. Namely, a country's economic power is the foundation of the soft power, but economic power does not always move together with the soft power. So to speak, the resources of soft power are not fixed resources,but changeable resources. The fixed resources are limited, but the changeable resources are unlimited. It is an unavoidable trend for Korea, a country with poor resources, to choose the soft power with limitlessly changeable resources. The reason is so simple: only by innovating this kind of limitless resources that can be exploited continually,can we use our soft power to face the world.Since the establishment of diplomatic relations,the exchange between the two countries has been developing in a benign way and become diversified. Yet, owing to the influence from the mass media, in fact, people still feel the exchange between the two countries focus more on the amusement field, such as teleplays. In the short period of 17 years, many things happened in the process of cultural exchange between the two countries. At times, they try to establish a good friendship from an attitude of mutual learning, but sometimes they also misunderstand each other and do not trust each other, and even debase or accuse each other. In my opinion, the causes of the contradictions arising in the cultural exchange fall into two aspects. First, it is the lack of mutual care and concern, and the other is their failure to realize that the times have changed and are still in constant change now. Nowadays we have already entered 2010,and we should be clear that the condition now is quite different from that in the time of establishment of diplomatic relations 17 years ago and in 1999 when we looked forward to the 21st century. And, we should take that as the basis to show concern to each other and seek win-win solutions through mutual cooperation.The cultural market is just like the general market: a big market will come into being naturally in a place with many people. China's culture market is also growing larger and larger after the economic market, and will reach a stage of fast development and sharp inflation. China has already had the conditions for building a huge cultural market:First, its population is big. Along with the growth of its economic power,the proportion of the middle class goes up, so, people's demand for culture will go up naturally, too. Second,the long history has brought up the rich cultural resources. Now China has begun to melt these rich cultural resources into its modernization process. Third,the diversity brought about by the "vast territory and abundant resources, and 56 ethnic groups". Diversity is a motive power for the development of mutual exchange. Fourth,along with the economic growth,Chinese government has also begun to lay stress on the cultural aspect and drawn a great blueprint. China's culture market has already got the all kinds of conditions for fast growth.Along with the expansion of China's cultural market, the cultural exchange between the two countries will be more extensive and deep-going in future. But one possibility is: with the change of the times, the exchange in some fields will weaken slowly while the exchange in other fields will rise gradually. Along with the change of the situation, mutual complementation in some aspect in the past may become competition, or even lead to conflict. But in some new fields,exchange and cooperation will also arise because of mutual needs. The 21st century is both a century of culture and a culture of Asia. Asians should try not to let this saying just rest on the polite praise by the Westerners. For welcoming the day when Asia can reach the whole world, the cultural cooperation between China and Korea should never stop for a single moment.