They may not have been the latest K-Pop sensation. But a group of young people from South Korea nevertheless stole the show when they dropped by Burlington’s city hall earlier this week.
Hailing from Gwacheon, a suburb of Seoul with a long-standing sister city connection to Burlington, these 20 students made quite an impression when they appeared at a regularly-scheduled work session of Burlington’s city council on Monday.
The mere presence of this ebullient bunch was enough to enliven council’s otherwise dry proceedings that afternoon. But the experience also proved enlightening for Burlington’s elected leaders when Kathy Hykes, the city’s mayor pro tem, asked the visitors to share some of the things that make them proud of their home country.
The handful of students who rose to this challenge invoked everything from Seoul’s state-of-the-art buildings and its incomparable subway system to Korea’s eclectic cuisine and the pervasive “kindness” of its people.
Meanwhile, one young woman struck an entirely different chord when she expressed her pride in Korea’s musical exports – and particularly the K-Pop acts that have left audiences swooning all over the globe. The city’s leaders got an equally unconventional response from another Korean teen, who gave each member of the council a fist bump when she accepted the gift bag that city had prepared for each of the visiting students.
