What does Korea have to offer its foreign visitors?

According to those who took part in 10 Magazine’s Second Annual “Korea Awaits” video contest, it’s strange food, ancient palaces and temples, noraebang, mountains, scuba diving, soju, and so much more.

“We often find that foreigners and expats enjoy different things here that Koreans either don’t know about or don’t understand. So, we wanted to give an avenue to foreigners who live in Korea to explain what they enjoy,” said 10 Magazine managing editor Stephen Revere.

And explain, they did. Through song, dance, photography, and even comedy, the contestants shared with viewers exactly what they feel are the best parts of Korea. Competition was tight, with a grand prize of a trip for two to Europe up for grabs.

“This year we had 17 videos and last year we had 45. But the quality was much lower the first year. I think people saw our winning video from last year and knew they had to work harder,” Revere said.

He said while there were more videos last year, it was easy to tell who the top three videos would be, but this year it was more difficult to tell who would win.

And the top prize went to Fabien Tran Minh, a film student from France who created a moving, non-verbal piece titled “2 Minutes in Korea,” that focused on showing real people in Korea, the culture and his everyday experiences.

“I wanted to show some moods and things that people don’t show about Korea,” he said at the awards ceremony on Oct. 12. “Most people show tourist things. I wanted to show what it feels like to be in Korea.”

The 23-year-old studies at a university on Jeju Island and said he always has a camera with him, filming anything he finds interesting to show his friends and family in France. And that footage became the premise of his video. However, he said even though he didn’t film anything new, it still took two or three weeks to make since he had multiple hard drives of video to go through.

Tran Minh was surprised to find out he had won.

“I thought maybe I would get fourth or fifth place,” he said. “I was just hoping I could at least win one of the hotel rooms so I could bring my girlfriend to visit Seoul.”

Now the two are planning to visit his home in France.

The contest took place over a six-week period. Revere said they advertised online, on Facebook, through the magazine and other outlets. After the close date, all videos were posted on 10 Magazine’s Youtube page and linked to the website for the readers to vote on their top 10 favorites. From there, a panel of judges from Chrystler, Lufthansa German Airlines, Cheil Communications, Newsweek Korea and Between restaurant chose the winner and ranked the remaining nine.

The other top videos received gift certificates to local restaurants, tickets to the production JUMP! and vouchers for a two nights’ stay at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Times Square and the Imperial Palace Hotel located in Gangnam.

The publication plans to leave all the videos up on Youtube and its website to help further promote Korea.

By Emma Kalka (ekalka@heraldcorp.com)