ONGOING GLOBAL PROMOTIONS

Nobody does the 'zombie-thriller' genre better than the Koreans, and they are here to prove us right with 'All Of Us Are Dead'. A bunch of young, high school students find themselves trapped inside the school during a zombie virus spread. The situation will put to test their friendship and integrity as each one of them tries their level best, to come out of the situation alive.

Kim Hye Soo is back with a winner! She will play Sim Eun Seok, an elite judge with a cold and distant personality, who hates juvenile offenders. However, she gets assigned to a local juvenile court. There, she breaks customs and administers her own ways of punishing the offenders.

A Kim Nam Gil drama greets us early in the year! The drama tells the story of South Korea's first criminal profiler Song Ha Young, essayed by Kim Nam Gil. He is cool, charismatic and intelligent. Once assigned a case, he digs in every detail related to the case and along with other criminal profilers try and read a criminal's mind and intentions. The drama is adapted from the 2018 non-fiction book of the same name by Kwon II Yong, South Korea’s first criminal profiler, and Ko Na Mu, a journalist.
 

A fantasy medical K-drama of a different kind, 'Ghost Doctor' is about two doctors who are poles apart but end up combining bodies and spirits after an accident. The drama will tell the emotional stories of ghost doctors who, even after their deaths, cannot leave their hospitals or patients behind.
 

Im Si Wan is a man on a mission! The talented idol turned actor plays Hwang Dong Ju the chief of taxation division 5 at the National Tax Service. He works hard to trace money that is hidden from the tax service. He is supported by a talented team which includes Seo Hye Young a man who can over everyone's heart with his affable personality and his boss is Oh Young. Meanwhile, In Tae Joon, who is the director of a regional tax office, seems to be a man who desires more than what he has and harbours greed beyond belief. Could he be a possible threat to Hwang Dong Ju?

My Hallyu journey took off when I virtually met the Global K-Pop Sensation BTS, bangtan sonyeondan. It was around the midway of 2016 year; I was just mindlessly rummaging YouTube when I hit on BTS's Dope MV and you can already make a swift guess on what occured I was trapped into the endless BTS hole with my full compliance on top. There's a saying in our Army community that "You find BTS when you most need them" and I believe that's what exactly that happened with me. My mind was clouded with depression and heart loathed with self hatred then but after meeting BTS, the "Love yourself" era in my life, too began. Then on there was no looking back, I wholeheartedly nurtured my love for  korean language by getting into KCCI right after my graduation in 2019, there I studied not just the language but with it my heart became closer to those of koreans,  their culture, traditions and what not.  The experience of studying at KCCI is one that I will cherish and reminiscence forever. I've never felt such a great joy before in my life. My life, now, is full of hope, BTS, k-dramas, k-pop, Jajangmyeon, Manhwas, Webtoons and new opportunities and I won't change it for anything. No words can describe my love and gratitude towards BTS and the things and people that ran into my life because of it. You can say that the Hallyu has changed my life for the better. 
 

- By Ritu Kohli
King Sejong Institute Student

My tryst with Hallyu began on a rather unconventional note

It wasn't a spectacular K-pop music video that changed my world, nor was it a popular K-drama. It was a rather obscure rock-ballad called 'Drifting Apart (멀어지다)' by Korean rock band 'NELL', that changed everything.
Some time in 2014, a year I can only describe as morose, 14-year-old me was going through the typical teenage angst phase. Feeling distant from everyone, in particular my friends, I turned to YouTube in order to find something that would validate, or perhaps help alleviate, my sad state of being. And imagine my surprise, when I found in my search results for "drifting apart", a Korean song that went by that very name (at least in translation). I was intrigued to say the least, and clicked on it immediately.
Listening to the song was an experience. Not only was the music really nice, but the image the lead singer created, singing about the pain of separation (that I understood thanks to the subtitles) while band members solemnly played along the instruments, really moved me. It felt like the perfect song for my situation.
I don't remember how things exactly progressed after this eureka moment, but suddenly I found myself watching my first K-drama, called "Missing You (보고싶다)", and effectively fell into the rabbit hole of Korean pop culture.
Throughout my school years I watched various dramas, listened to numerous OSTs, and kept on falling in love with all of it. In early 2018, I finally explored K-pop, found BTS, became an ARMY, and well, life became a lot brighter after that.
However, I decided to take my interest to the next level, when I opted for a Korean language elective in my university. This was where I found out about a lot of things like K-pop Contest India and the Korean Cultural Centre. Understanding the value of a language skill like Korean, I got into the intermediate class at KCCI's King Sejong Institute in January 2020 after numerous attempts, and began studying Korean deeply and seriously for the first time.
Exploring Korean deeply, falling in love with ‘satoori’, and discovering unexpected similarities between my mother tongue and the Korean language have all made my simple fascination with the language and culture evolve into a profound and powerful connection, to the extent that I am now considering applying to a Korean university for further studies.
14-year-old me, who didn't even really know what she was looking for, could've never imagined what that single YouTube search led to.
 

- By A. Varsha Anugraha
King Sejong Institute Student