By Park Chung-a
Staff Reporter


Korea as a divided country has been found to be the strongest image for foreigners in a recent survey.

According to the telephone and online survey of 9,939 foreigners aged above 20 from 70 countries worldwide on images of Koreans and Korea, conducted by KOTRA , as much as 28.7 percent of the respondents said that the division of the Korean peninsula came to mind first when thinking about Korea.

Followed by the North-South division were high economic growth (24 percent), the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup (21.2 percent), IT industry (10.5 percent) and the1988 Seoul Olympics (9.2 percent).

Among the other images were films and soap operas (7.4 percent), chaebol, or family-owned conglomerates (3.4 percent), sightseeing (3.1 percent), gatherings and demonstrations (2.4 percent), and entertainers (2.3 percent).

On a regional basis, the respondents from Europe (43.3 percent), Commonwealth of Independent States (40.8 percent) and North America (38.1 percent) chose the South-North division as the strongest image of Korea while many of those from Central and South America (31.9 percent) picked high economic growth as the most impressive aspect of Korea. The Middle East and Africa (28.8 percent) chose the World Cup.

Also, reflecting the syndrome of ``Hallyu’’ (Korean Wave), a term referring to the rush of local entertainers and cultural products that have hit neighboring countries in recent years, Korean films and soap operas were found to have strongly impressed people from China (27.2 percent) and Japan (16.3 percent).

By age, respondents in their 50s picked the North-South separation (37.2 percent) as the strongest Korean image, followed by high economic growth (32.2 percent). Moreover, the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup was found to have given a strong impression on people in their 20s (20.4 percent) and 30s (23.2 percent).

About 63.4 percent of the respondents agreed that Korea is a dynamic country.

According to the survey, foreigners still find Korea’s national security situation unstable since 48.4 percent of the respondents conjure up Korea’s negative image of bearing militaristic danger.

The survey also enumerated various possible images of Korea and for each image, KOTRA asked the respondents to grade points between zero and 100 according to how much they think the image corresponds to that of Korea. As a result, the average score on the existence of group culture in Korea marked 61.1 points, which was relatively high among other descriptions.

Respondents answered lower regarding over-consumption with 44.3 points and the ostracizing of foreigners with 42.1 points.

Central and South Americans scored high for the image of group culture in Korea, giving 73.9 points on average.

The category of the ostracizing of foreigners drew the highest numbers from the Chinese who gave an average score of 53 points.

michelle@koreatimes.co.kr