Friday, November 15, 2013

KOFFIA 2013: My Experience by Priscilla

KOFFIA 2013 eventually comes to an end and the opportunity to work for KOFFIA has been a memorable and brand new experience for me. I am neither a Korean nor Australian, I’d only been living in Australia for four months and started working here from the beginning of June. My Korean film background is not very impressive at all but I’d like watching the Korean drama, movies and entertainment TV show.

Whenever I told my friends in Hong Kong I assisted in marketing the Korean film festival here, they’re all very excited and followed by a lot of questions, for instance, “Will you meet any of the famous Korean artists or celebrities during the event? Which Korean movies / drama have you watched recently? Do you like Song Joong Ki? He is very handsome"blah blah blah... and the conversation never ends. No doubt, Korean movies and culture are very popular among Hong Kong people too and I believe that the Kwave is spreading quickly in other countries as well, perhaps we will see more Korean Film Festival organised in different places soon.


Back to my experience for KOFFIA, it’s hard to describe in just a few sentences but I'd have a couples of happy “First Time” memories to be recorded here.



For the first time on my first day of work in Australia, I couldn’t help myself to stop dropping tears in the KCO library, thanks to the fairy tale romance movie <A Werewolf Boy>.

For the first time I’m not only doing B2B but B2C marketing and I realise social media has become one of the important channel to promote the event to the new generation audiences.

For the first time I’m the only one in the office who couldn't understand Korean but maybe I have slightly improved my spoken Korean after this few months, from “Annyeong” to “Sugo haseyo” level.

For the first time I learned Kpop dancing in another country, all because of after watching <9 Muses of Star Empire> and I found that it’s not that easy to dance well at all.

For the first time I attended the opening ceremony of a film festival and met all the gorgeous KOFFIA volunteers.

For the first time I had a chance to taste the soju with colleagues but I still couldn’t figure out why Korean like this so much,”Gun bae”!

For the first time I did a live radio interview with one of the Chinese media from Melbourne and the presenter thought I was a Korean speaking in mandarin.

For the first time I watched two mysterious and alternate Korean independent thrillers in a week - <Pieta> and <Pluto>, it excited me a lot and undoubtedly I could see the creativity of the movies itself which presented a different faces of Korean cinema.


Last but not least, for the very first time I don’t want to say goodbye on my last working day. It’s my pleasure to meet all of you here especially my colleagues and thanks for all the opportunities given, I wish I could come back for the 5th, 10th, 20th,30th…KOFFIA in the future. 

By Priscilla Chu

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