Arirang Broadcasting Station, Day 3

Today, we went to the headquarters of Korea's first international broadcasting station: Arirang! 

As soon as we reached the premises, we were shown to the set of a live broadcast of "Heart to Heart", a talkshow that features both locals and foreigners who have a passion for Korea. Lucky for us, today’s show featured an insightful conversation with Roger Sheperd, the first ever person to hike the Baekdu Daegan - a mountainous trail along Korea’s peninsula.

After a good 45 minutes or so on the set, our tour guide briefly introduced Arirang and its history to us before commencing a tour of the building which included radio studios, editing rooms and TV sets.

Finally, the tour was ended off with a visit to the immaculate set of Arirang's "Korea Today", a news programme to keep people abroad clued in on happenings Korea.

The visit to Arirang was definitely an eye-opener as it showed how different working in the media was compared to doing hands-on work in school; the equipment used, albeit similar to ours, was on a much larger scale and the professionalism shown by the staff and presenters were indeed worthy of our respect.

More importantly, Arirang's focus on providing entertainment internationally was extremely laudable. Koreans rarely speak English, so seeing many of the presenters speak near-perfect American English was darn right impressive. 

Communicating fluently with foreigners showcases Arirang's efforts in reaching out and in promoting Korea to the rest of the world. Aside from Arirang Korea, there are also other global channels such as Arirang World and Arirang Arab.

After watching many programmes on Arirang TV (my favourite being "Pops in Seoul"), it was simply gobsmacking to visit the very grounds where all the magic happened. 

Bucket list #11, check.

Annyeong!

Gumihos and the Saram (Zoer Ng, Ryan Lok, Kelly Choo, Zhu Yuan Laura, Kimberly Teo and Felicia Tan)

Article by Felicia Tan

Video edited by Kelly Choo
Video shot by Kelly Choo & Kimberly Teo
Photos by Ryan Lok 
Hosted by Zoer Ng & Zhu Yuan Laura