Cultural center to be unveiled
| • | Koreans mark 100 years in Hawai'i |
| • | Centennial events |
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
The mugunghwa, national flower of South Korea and close kin to the Hawai'i state hibiscus, is depicted blooming at the base of a monument, a fitting symbol for the Korean Cultural Center of Hawai'i that will open officially Tuesday.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
But the granite tower that rises above — which pays homage to those who gave lives, labor and money to the movement for South Korean independence from Japan — dominates the grounds. The center itself will serve as a museum with the aim of educating the public about Hawai'i's part in that freedom fight.
Dr. Woo Joon Hong, financial backer of the new Korean Cultural Center of Hawai'i in Nu'uanu, stands before the memorial to Korean patriots that dominates the grounds.
In these final days before the 10 a.m. ceremony, labor is being devoted to the task of giving the center, a historic residence at the top of Rooke Avenue, its beauty treatment.
Already, $1.5 million has been spent acquiring and renovating the 1927 building, listed on state and federal historic registers as Canavarro Castle. Its former owner is the Korean National Association, once a major player in the independence movement in Hawai'i, but it originally was built for the son of the first Portuguese consul-general here.
Now its title is held by the nonprofit cultural center, but the benefactor is Korean educator Woo Jun Hong.
He founded South Korea's sprawling academy, known as the Kyung Min Foundation. A band of his employees scurried about the grounds last week, spreading topsoil, carting bougainvillea pots and doing sundry cleanup chores.
"We have a lot of work to do," said a smiling Kea Sung Chung, who heads the center's governing council. Boxes and tools and the debris of home improvement projects are strewn about, but the basic built-to-last quality of the building shows through.
Stucco walls, wrought iron adornments and terra cotta tiles on the rooftop and underfoot provide a Spanish backdrop — a popular architectural style of the '20s — to the South Korean flag flying out front.
There are other unfinished tasks, too.
The center sits on residential-zoned land and needs a conditional-use permit for anything else. The owners, who have filed an environmental assessment but have drawn some complaints from neighbors worried about traffic and other potential problems, have not yet applied for the permit, said city planner Lin Wong.
For now, Chung said, the planning process for housing Korean students on fellowships in the nine-bedroom residence is being deferred until after the ceremony, timed to coincide with the centennial celebration.
He and Hong proudly show off what's in place: exhibits tracing the independence movement. There's also a roomful of exhibits dedicated to two Korean patriots, Syngman Rhee and Ahn Chang-Ho. Displays for each man occupies precisely half of the room.
"We're very careful that the space is the same, so they don't fight," Hong quipped, speaking through interpreter Chung.
The sneak-peek tour ended outside, in front of the 40-ton patriots' monument, designed and built in South Korea and shipped here last month. Standing guard at the four corners are granite sculptures of the kirin, a mythical creature symbolically protecting the patriots from evil. It's similar to the Japanese beast whose image graces the popular beer of the same name, Chung said.
"But this one must be stronger," Chung said with a grin. "That kirin doesn't have a horn, and this one does."
