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Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Asia Culture Center

Familiar Strangers:
Overseas Chinese Community and Food Culture in Gwangju

An archiving exhibition that sheds light to the overseas Chinese community in Gwangju and their food culture

Familiar Strangers: <br>Overseas Chinese Community and Food Culture in Gwangju
  • DateApr. 25 (Tue) – Jun. 4 (Sun), 2023
  • Time(Tue, Thu, Fri, Sun) 10 AM – 6 PM
    (Wed, Sat) 10 AM – 8 PM
    * Closed on Mondays
  • PlaceSpecial Exhibition Hall 2
  • Age LimitAll ages
  • Price Free
  • TicketFree admission
  • Contact+82-1899-5566

Gallery

About
ACC Exhibition
Familiar Strangers: Overseas Chinese
Community and Food Culture in Gwangju
Overseas Chinese are immigrants from China who have been keeping a unique culture of their own living on the same land with Koreans.
They are familiar faces around us; a friendly chef of a Chinese restaurant, an auntie who owns a grocery store, or a friend with an unfamiliar name.
They are such familiar faces that we see every day that we did not even realize that they are Asian immigrants.
Today, the culture that we enjoy is what it is thanks to their contribution through their unique presence, life, and food culture that have been with us for more than a century.
Familiar Strangers is an attempt to highlight the overseas Chinese community and their culinary culture with a focus on Gwangju overseas Chinese community.

We hope this exhibition will serve as an opportunity to rediscover overseas Chinese in Gwangju as a case of immigration and settlement that contributed to the enriched diversity of our society.
Composition
1.The Overseas Chinese Take Root in Gwangju
 
There is no concrete documents that show the exact date of overseas Chinese community and culture rooting in Gwangju. Only records created in the early 1900s show some evidence. Through this, we can only assume that the migration of overseas Chinese to Gwangju and Jeollanam-do began with the opening of the Port of Mokpo in 1897.
At first, Chinese from Shandong province, China, temporarily visited Gwangju to work at large construction sites, but they gradually expanded their businesses in dry goods store, casting factories, Chinese restaurants, and vegetable cultivation and settled in the area.
But it was not an easy process. There were two anti-Chinese movements in 1927 and 1931, and from 1931 to 1937, the Sino-Japanese War raged. As the Chinese Civil War ended with the victory of the Communist Party in 1949, they became refugees, forever displaced from their homeland.
During this period, many overseas Chinese settlers left Gwangju, but some remained as our neighbors to this day.
2.The Table of the Overseas Chinese in Gwangju
 
What kind of food can we find on the tables of overseas Chinese in Gwangju?
Most overseas Chinese settled in Gwangju are from Shandong province. In the early settlement period, majority of their food culture centered in the one from Shandong province. Meanwhile, some of these people were from low classes, dreaming of making riches and returning home to better their poor and difficult circumstances. Therefore, the root of their culinary culture was in the working class of Shandong province.
Since their settlement in Gwangju, the community had to bridge the gap between their unique culture and the reality with the limited ingredients and circumstances. In recent days, they are also accepting new food culture from China that was introduced to Korea. As a result, their culinary culture is not the one of the original Shandong province or frozen in time of the early settlement period. They created a unique food culture of Gwangju overseas Chinese community.
3.Virtual Reality on the Overseas Chinese Community and Food Culture in Gwangju
 
The Asia Culture Center collaborated with Gwangju University in 2022 and produced two sets of virtual reality content that allows users to experience the overseas Chinese community in Gwangju and their food culture.
The first is metaverse content that recreated the school grounds of a overseas Chinese primary school that was pulled down in 2017 and placed the overseas Chinese community and food culture. And the other is the video material that recorded the rituals of overseas Chinese community and their cooking processes in 360-degree virtual reality.
Visitors can experience these overseas Chinese community and food culture content offered through advanced technology with table PC and wearable video devices.
Place Info.

ACC Archive&Research, Special Exhibition Hall 2

Copyright(C) National Asian Culture Center. All rights reserved

38 Munhwajeondang-ro, Dong-gu, Gwangju 61485, Republic of Korea

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