National museum to offer foreign language tours

Chu Chin-oh, director of the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History, fourth from right, poses with some foreign language tour guides who will be working at the museum for a year. [NATIONAL MUSEUM OF KOREAN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY]

The National Museum of Korean Contemporary History announced Friday that it will operate a foreign language museum tour guide system in 2019.

The museum held a tour guide competition last year, evaluating participants on their Korean language skills, knowledge of modern history and so on, and selected 24 winners to become the museum’s foreign language guides for a year.

The selected guides were trained for 12 hours, learning more about Korean history so they can better explain Korea to the museum’s foreign visitors.

The guides allow the museum to provide tour guide services in 20 different languages, including English, Chinese, French, Russian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Mongolian, Turkish, Czech, Kazakh, Azerbaijani and Polish.

Foreign visitors with more than five people in a group can apply for this foreign language tour service by calling (02) 3703-9250.

“We believe this system will attract more foreign visitors to the museum and help international visitors learn more about Korea’s modern history,” said Chu Chin-oh, the museum’s director.

BY YIM SEUNG-HYE [sharon@joongang.co.kr]