Wednesday 27 August 2014

South Korea: Liberation Day flash mob





A group of people stage a flash mob in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, featuring South Korean singer Psy’s “Gentleman” dance on Thursday. The event was held to celebrate Liberation Day, marking the end of Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.


See here.

37 comments:

  1. It’s not a new thing for me to know something like this, especially when it’s related to Korea. I have read some articles related to South Korea nationalism which is I have to say that it is very impressive. It's a good thing for the Korean people to have a flash mob on their Liberation day since there is not many country to have something like that. The Korean people really respect their country so much, another example is like their love towards their country products. In my own experience when I went to Korea, people in Korea always using their own country’s brands like Samsung or Kia. The most interesting thing in this article is, they even use Psy’s song for the flash mob. In my opinion, maybe they chose Psy's song "Gentlemen" because it will give it a 'Korean feel' to the event. I wonder when will Indonesian people do something like this, because most of the times Indonesian people will only support their country when there’s some kind sports events apart from that they will act not to care about their country. I hope in the future Indonesian people will do something like this too to celebrate Indonesia Liberation day.

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  2. Do you have "flash mob" incidents in Indonesia?

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    1. Hejin, can we put a link to your YouTube clip of your cover version of "Next To You" on our music share thread?

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    2. There is one staged flash mob happened in Indonesia. It happened last year.

      The flash mob is about the people's demand to let Lady Gaga have the scheduled concert in Indonesia. Her concert was cancelled because of religious and cultural reason pointed by Muslim activist, the FPI. It's not grand scale, though.

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  3. First of all, Happy Liberation Day, Korea! They celebrate their liberation day by doing flash mob, and the way they form into Korean flag, it's creative and unique. I also find out that there's someone wearing "hanbok" on one of the pictures above. I want to wear "hanbok" someday. The song "Gentleman" by PSY is easy-listening, and the dance is kinda easy. No wonder they use the song and the dance to do the flash mob.

    I agree with Hejin's statement: " I wonder when will Indonesian people do something like this, because most of the times Indonesian people will only support their country when there’s some kind sports events apart from that they will act not to care about their country. I hope in the future Indonesian people will do something like this too to celebrate Indonesia Liberation day."

    Let's hope that one day Indonesians will do the flash mob on our Liberation Day. Maybe in Monas? It's gonna be fun.

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    1. "I agree with Hejin's statement: " I wonder when will Indonesian people do something like this, because most of the times Indonesian people will only support their country when there’s some kind sports events apart from that they will act not to care about their country."

      Flash mob "events" can be about anything though, right? It's a spontaneous bit of mass behaviour. It can be quickly coordinated using social media. The popularity and widespread use of social media should make organizing flash mobs easy. Do you think their are cultural inhibitions that have resulted in such events being rarely seen here?

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  4. The Independence-Day is a day that the nation's society will celebrate of. There are so much feeling mixed in celebrating the Independence Day: happy, affected, proud and others. In this article we see that Korean Independence Day celebrated with what we called with 'flashmob'. It is one kind of celebration that now is happening in many continents in world. Flashmob is giving the feeling of being surprised. Flashmob is used not just for celebrating independence-day but also for celebrating any other occasions.

    Faculty of Economics and Business 2013's students also did the flashmob in the Cultural Event that held in Plaza FEB at 13th of September 2013. We mixed the Indonesian song 'Garuda di Dadaku', dangdut song 'Goyang Caesar' and the Korean song 'Gangnam Style'. It was not easy to practice the flashmob with big amount of people but finally we made it. We had a lot of fun in doing the flashmob and we are so proud of ourselves that we did it!

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    1. "It was not easy to practice the flashmob with big amount of people but finally we made it."

      Where did you rehearse it? I thought flash mobs were spontaneous and improvised. Was anybody surprised by the "event"? The definition below says a flash mob is where people gather for an "unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse". Does your stunt on 13th September qualify according to this definition?

      "A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression. Flash mobs are organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails. The term, coined in 2003, is generally not applied to events and performances organized for the purposes of politics (such as protests), commercial advertisement, publicity stunts that involve public relation firms, or paid professionals. In these cases of a planned purpose for the social activity in question, the term smart mobs is often applied instead." [wiki]

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    2. No sir, I wouldn't call it a “surprise”. We were told to make a flash mob for the closing of the student week in the Cultural Event 2013. Silvio and I along with a few more students were the ones in charge of making the flash mob. We were told to make a flash mob with all of the FEB 2013 's students involve in it. We decided to hire a coach, who is a professional dancer, to make the moves and teach us. We practiced in Graha Sabha. It was such a hard work to make all of our friends to come to the practice. There are more than 400 of us! We only practiced 3 times because we only had a week. Only less then half of us that actually did come to the practice. We were a bit pessimistic. But on the actual day, almost everybody came to the event and joined the flash mob. It was amazing and way more than what we had expected. We blew all the seniors' expectation. All of us were very proud of ourselves.

      “I thought flash mobs were spontaneous and improvised”. Clearly that was not what happened in this event. All of the seniors already know that there's gonna be a flash mob that evening. They just didn't expect it would be that massive. I don't think that we can make a spontaneous flash mob Sir. At least some of the people had to practice first, prepare the movements and then do it in public. Making people join and dance is a hard thing, especially in Indonesia. That's why flash mobs in Indonesia are all well prepared, with a certain number of people.

      Here's the link of our flash mob: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRDDf6W7rDg
      At first, the Plaza was empty. Then one by one came and suddenly stayed still. Then we all danced.

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  5. Liberation Day is similar to Independence Day and should be treated as a public holiday of its country. I believe that Liberation Day is where a country seperates itself from the hands of another country. It should be considered as a day where we recall our ancestor’s hard work and effort to liberate our country. Because of that, we should celebrate with activities that symbolize the characteristic of our nation. We celebrate ours with competitions such as eating ‘kerupuk’, ‘balap karung, ‘tarik tambang’ and so on. Frankly, not all of us appreciate Liberation Day as it should be appreciated; some people think it’s a waste of time to join those festivities. We should alter those opinions and help grow the nasionalism spirit within them. Because without the effort our ancestors have done, we are nothing. But in one’s opinion, flashmob is a creative activity where it shows our hard work, patience, and solidarity through practicing the dance. And everyone is familiar with Psy’s Gangnam Style as it numbers of viewers in Youtube rocketed. South Korea has set a trend by doing something new and fresh to contribute to their country’s celebrated day with organizing a flashmob.

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    1. "We celebrate [our Independence Day] with competitions such as eating ‘kerupuk’, ‘balap karung, ‘tarik tambang’ and so on."

      Do you mean eating or cooking? How many "kerupuk" do you think I would I have to eat to win a competition?

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    2. It's a race Sir haha. Whoever finish the "kerupuk" first, wins. Only one kerupuk haha

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  6. I like how Korean people celebrated Liberation Day by doing flashmob. In my opinion, that's a unique activity. That's also related to Korea itself. Korea is well-known for its boy-band or girl-band that we know it as K-pop or Korean Pop. That is good to do something in Liberation Day that related to your country. It show us that Korea proud of its product.
    I love looking the pictures. Those shown their togetherness and nasionalism. But sadly, those kind of togetherness is not happened in Indonesia. Like Tsamara said "not all of us appreciate Liberation Day as it should be appreciated; some people think it’s a waste of time to join those festivities.". We should learn from Korea that we need to increase our nasionalism spirit. Flashmob isn't an easy activity to do, but why some Korean people could do it. It's no other because of their spirit is big to celebrate their Liberation Day together .

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    1. The more I think about this, the more I wonder if an event like the one in the photo story from the Korean Herald is a genuine flash mob. Look at this definition:

      Flash mob: "a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression."

      If it's a rehearsed celebration of a Liberation Day or an Independence Day, does this definition really apply?

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  7. This is the unique way to celebrate liberation day in korea, in Indonesia we usually held a flag ceremony if there is an important national day such as the Independence day or the Liberation day of West Irian which is held on 1st of May. Flash mob is an activity that takes a lot of people to dance with the same movement. Today a lot of event use flash mob as their opening or closing. Because flash mob is very fun to do, so many people is likely to join it.

    The movement of flash mob is very easy to do because it’s impossible to train a lot of people with professional dance. Therefore flash mob In Korea using PSY song which is can easily make the movements of the flash mob and thenfollowed by the participants. I think Korean people love doing this because many boyband and girlband from there are clever to dance
    -anne

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    1. Psy's "Gangnam Style" dance was like riding a horse. How would you describe the "Gentleman" dance?

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  8. Many ways to celebrate the independence day, in Indonesia we always do the ceremony, make small contest, party, and many more. I think doing flash mob is a unique way to express the happiness together . They can make their relationship closer than before if they're practice together regullary. And they can show to the world that Korea not only famous with the boybands and girlbands or with their romantical drama. They show us the friendliness and kinship among them. Altough the flashmob duration is short and the movement is very simple, it shows the good action in respect to their independence day. Flashmob is a simple way to do, and also we can having fun together. Flashmob used in almost every events, I don't know what makes flashmob become popular haha maybe just because it doesn't require hard movement line breakdance or another modern dance. I think I should give a standing ovation for them, hehe

    Thank You,
    Sheba

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    1. "Altough the flashmob duration is short and the movement is very simple, it shows the good action in respect to their independence day."

      I wonder what the older generations think of it.

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  9. Nowadays, independence day can be expressed in many ways. If Independence day of Korea is celebrated with flash mob, it's one of many ways to make young people feel excited about celebrating their nation's day. As you can see now, there are not many young people or even adults respect their ancestors' sacrifices for this big nation. Although we still have traditional team work games like "Panjat pinang" and "Bakiak", it seems like we still don't show enough affection towards others and this country.

    So I think Korean people have given us a great idea of how to celebrate your independence day that is fun to watch and to do for all ages. I surely hope that us, young generation of Indonesia to celebrate and proud of our own beloved nation's independence day. We don't need to jump into war field, just need to appreciate what our ancestors have given us, freedom, and independence.

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  10. Its nice to see how koreans celebrated their Liberation Day, they celebrate by doing something fun and a lot of people could join in. This way, many people would be encouraged to take part in celebrating the Liberation day. They even used the song "Gentleman" by PSY which is originally from South Korea, these kind of things would encourage the people's sense of nationality.
    Many people don't appreciate Independent day in Indonesia because they feel that it will give no effects even if they don't participate in festivals in Independent day. Even though we as Indonesians should give more respect to the heroes who fought to death before independency, we still skip monday-flag ceremony because we were so lazy to line up every monday morning when we were students. So I think Indonesian should take a good example from South Korea about how they appreciate their Liberation day.
    And about flashmob, in Indonesia there are groups of flashmob too but most of them just disturbing public's activities

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  11. Flashmob has become a common thing in all over the world even in Indonesia. It’s easy, fun, yet it gives such an amazing effect because it is done by a lot of people. I used to watch a television program by Howie Mandel, where he planned spectacular flashmobs for his clients. They all gave this amazing blast to the viewers. They sure seem very complicated to do, but when you take a closer look at the dance moves, they actually are not that hard. In fact, they are quiet easy to do. It is the huge amount of people that is able to give the ‘wow’ factor of the flashmob. And since arranging dance moves for a huge crowd is not easy, they make it simple for them.
    The students in FEB also had a chance to create a flashmob for the student week event. It was really hard at first because we had to synchronize our moves with all of the students. But eventually with the help of a professional dancer we were able to dance an amazing flashmob. It was a lot of fun to do.

    Winnie

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  12. I think it’s really cool for us to see the Korean people celebrating their Liberation day by doing flash mob, because we don’t see it that much here in Indonesia. I've rarely seen people who are very enthusiastic in celebrating their Independence Day. I mean, there are lots of people who just don’t care about anything, not even their country. Also to bring bunch of people who want to do something together like dancing in public it’s not easy, because you have to create the atmosphere, you have to encourage them to do so and there might be some people whose joining you to dance, but of course there would be people who just don’t do the dance.

    If you compare it with Indonesian people you will be ashamed, because nowadays, Indonesian people are so dismissively. Most of us just concerned about ourselves rather than others, much less to the country. I think South Korea is a good example for us to see what the solidarity and patriotic is. By doing the flash mob they actually share their togetherness and happiness, and it’ll create the awareness and caring for each other.

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  13. South Korean and entertainment, nowadays this two are very closely related. What we see in TV, radio, billboards all are filled with South Koreans. And I think it’s not odd to see Koreans to celebrate their independence day with any kinds of entertainment and in this case Flashmob. In my opinion South Korea is the mecca of entertainment in Asia since their artist are getting more and more famous year by year. But in contrast to this I think of this trends keep on going on their real culture, values, etc. might be eroded by this K-Pop culture which I think this will result to the extinction of real “South Korean” culture which that also means they will lose their identity as a nation. I’m not saying K-Pop is bad as I reckon that South Korean main selling point is their entertainment. This event in my opinion is a very unique way to celebrate the independence day of a country where most of other countries are usually celebrate their independence day in traditional way like in Indonesia. We usually or always celebrate our independence day with many variations of games and ceremony.

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  14. It’s not really surprising to see Korean citizens chose to ‘dance together’ while celebrating their independence day. South Korea is well known for its Pop Culture or K-POP. Their music industry is growing really fast and it suddenly becomes one of the most important factors why the country can be as big as now. Like what we often see in the internet or even in our local television, K-POP has been dominating our entertainment industry. They also gain a lot of Indonesian fans. There are a lot of promotors in Indonesia who tried to bring them here and hold many concerts every year.  On top of all, Korean people really love their country so much. Most of them give their full support for their pop culture that successfully takes over the music charts in various countries. Not only K-POP, the tradional culture is also being spread worldwide through drama and film.

    The flashmob is such a brilliant idea for me, because they can show everyone their identity through that event. They used PSY's booming song that everyone knows, and it was also combined with hanbok, their traditional clothes. They really represented their country very well with those attributes and performance.
    Flash mob is a good thing to do. In that way, young generation can express their creativity and they can participate more. And besides, it seems really fun and refreshing.

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  15. South Korea has their own style to celebrate their liberation day, they performed flashmob to celebrate it. It was great how South Korean people gathered together to perform flahmob. In Indonesia we knew our independence day is on 17th august, we usually celebrate our independence day by holding a contest, the contest usually contains of balap karung, tarik tambang, panjat pinang, etc. Although every country has their own style to celebrate their independence day, but I believe the main purpose is to be grateful to what they have now.
    I’m proud to be in the faculty of economics and business UGM this year, because we also did flashmob in order to do SIMFONI’s task. We gathered and dance together. At the first it seemed hard to do the flashmob with hundreds people, but finally after a week practiced finally we did it.
    I hope for the next Independence day, Indonesia also do the same thing like South Korean did for their Liberation day. It sounds great how Indonesian gathered and do the flashmob together.

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  16. People of different nations also commemorate their respective Liberation Days in many unique and entertaining ways. For me, it’s not something surprising if people in South Korea celebrate their Liberation day with flashmob. Maybe today Seoul is the paradise for people who like to dance. Infact, Korean music and pop stars are so popular, K-pop is a highly commercial industry throughout the world. In Korea, Liberation Day is called Gwangbokjeol. This literally translates to “Restoration of Light Day.” When I was senior high, I ever read the article from koran Sindo about the uniqueness of the Liberation Day celebrations in South Korea. People are suggested to raise Korean National Flag during the celebration of Korean Liberation Day. Korean Liberation Day is a holiday in South Korea so that they use this moment with family to visit several interesting places. Special on this Liberation Day some public museums and places of interest even allow visitors to enter without any entrance fee during the day, and people may use some public transportation such as buses and intercity trains for free. I hope someday Indonesia can also be like that (provide free services) every 17 August.

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  17. It is important to celebrate our Independence Day. It's worth to celebrate because it took over more than three hundred years of being colonized by other countries. Freedom is something worth celebrating and remembering. And we have many ways to celebrate it and it has become one of our characteristics. Schools and districts always have a little competition of their own, and the more people participate, the merrier. I am proud to be an Indonesian, and that’s the main factor why we have to celebrate. Nowadays people are less nationalistic rather than years before. Some people don’t even want to celebrate seventeenth of August and it's such a pity, because they missing out on so much. in my opinion, flash mob is a great and creative way to celebrate this eventful day. South Korea has set many trends from K-Pop, to clothing, and probably celebrating Liberation Day with flash mob. But, we should input our values as well

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  18. I think it's very nice to see the Korean people having a flash mob to celebrate their Liberation Day. For me, the South Korean's nationalism is very commendable and also creative. It doesn't matter if the dance moves are simple, as long as it involves many people and can symbolize diversity and togetherness.
    In contrast, Indonesian people aren't as enthusiastic as the Koreans when it comes to celebrating their independence day. My friends in high school often felt indifferent when it comes to having flag ceremonies or 'Pesta Rakyat' (having events/games to celebrate independence day) on 17 August. Thankfully, my school tried to add a bit of variety to the celebration by adding a Kirab (cultural parade). The whole school was asked to parade near bundaran HI while wearing Javanese costume and a kuda lumping, and did a flash mob in there. It was quite a fun experience.

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  19. Doing flash mob to celebrate a country’s liberation day is such an interesting thing to do. And it happens in South Korea. South Korea is well known for its K-Pop music, and Psy’s Gentleman is definitely a right song to do flash mob. As you know that Psy is one of the most famous Korean artists in the world. His dance is great and unique. I think the song is also so right to be used to have some fun. In Indonesia, I think we have never done flash mob for celebrating our country’s liberation day. But, if we do it next year, it will be so much fun. However, I still wonder about the song that we will use if we do flash mob to celebrate Indonesia’s liberation day. Will we use our country’s dangdut music, like Caesar song? Because, just like Project Pop’s saying “Dangdut is the music of my country”. From my point of view, a lot of people in Indonesia from under, middle, and upper class like dangdut music, and can be united by it. Well, what do you guys think about it?

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  20. Wow, it is indeed a creative way to celebrate Liberation Day or Independence Day. Flash mob is a very hard thing to do, especially if they don’t have the mass and time to practice. Therefore, this means that the Korean people are very compact and have large intention. I’m curious, were all the Korean people took part on this Flash mob? And did the real Psy join this too? I think it will be so hilarious if the real Psy were joining this Flash mob.
    I remember when I was still in Elementary School; entire friends, my teachers and me were lining on the side of the road and held a mini flag of Indonesia to celebrate Indonesian Independence Day. But since Junior High School, mostly I celebrate it with attending many races and contests, Such as Tarik Tambang, Balap Karung, and Bakiak Race. I wonder if Indonesian could do flash mob too to celebrate the Independence Day. But maybe it will be so much harder because our population is too much for that. Thank you for reading.

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  21. South Korean and Japanese people are widely known for their creativity and their uniqueness, I can't help but to smile while reading this article that supports the theory of South Korean being creative. Though it is a bit unconventional for celebrating the independence day of your country, but I think it will be really fun to look at and really fun to do, making something modern to celebrate something old, is very creative. The selection of the song, PSY's Gangnam Style, is really a wonderful idea too, because Gangnam Style is one of the main spreader of the Hallyu wave or the culture of South Korea around the world. What's admirable about this kind of celebration is the fact that they use and merge and found out a way to mix together pop culture and traditional culture. As we can see in the picture, the people of South Korea that celebrates their independence day with the flash mob, danced to PSY's song, yet some of them still wore a hanbok which is the traditional clothes of Korea, and somehow it still fits to what they're doing.

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  22. To see such enthusiasm from the South Koreans towards their Liberation’s Day make me feel ashamed. Even I, as an Indonesian citizen often didn’t pay much attention to our independence day. I used to participate in the events held annually on that day. There are lots of games and competitions which purpose is to unite the people particularly in the area. It would be nice to see young Indonesians nowadays to celebrate the Independence Day showing their creativity and actually put their heart into it. My high school conducts events of sports and culture annually. In order to promote our event, we held flash mobs in some malls in Jakarta. I joined two flash mobs and I tell you this: it was a lot of fun! Even though the practice sessions were hard, tiring, and it’s tough to synchronize our movements, it’s such a great experience. When people asked me whether or not I’m embarrassed to perform in public like that, I would proudly answers no. We did the flash mob together, people were entertained when they see us, and we successfully promoted our event. What are there to be embarrassed about?

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  23. Wow that was great. Flash mob is something interesting, because we didn’t even know when it will happen and what will happen. This kind of flash mob is interesting, because using Independence Day as the background is not something common to do a flash mob.

    In high school, I have a job as Marketing in my school event. One of the most used publication system is flash mob. Look at this flash mob : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJXG8qQNncM.
    This flash mob is about an event called LBB (Lomba Baris Berbaris) Padmanaba. To attract some people, we do the flash mob in the zero kilometer of Malioboro Street.

    Because of this flash mob, we can attract a lot of people to joining our event, and we can publicly introduce our school to the public. This kind of publication getting a positive feedback from the people around. They didn’t even know that something like that is happening in the zero kilometer. And like the name said it is flash (Fast), and mob (A lot of people)

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  24. South Korea and flash mob do not surprise me really. South Koreans do this quite often and to my knowledge the song they use for the flash mob is the booming Korean pop with its choreography. Imagine if they were doing flash mob with their national anthem, heck if that would not be awkward.
    From my point of view, the South Koreans did this flash mob because the want to celebrate their Liberal Day, they were happy and wanted to dance together and had fun. They were dancing with them holding two small flags and wearing a tee that had the South Korean flag print on it. This showed that they were proud of their country, showed their nationalism and patriotism.
    Celebrating Independence day in Indonesia by doing flash mob though, has never been heard of. Usually Indonesians do this more Indonesian. Like ‘panjat pinang’, I enjoyed watching this competition because it is stupid funny.

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  25. Just like what Tata mentioned on her comment on the article above, independence or liberation day can be expressed in many ways. Every country has its own way to celebrate its liberation day. From the article above, the Korea citizen chose to do flash mob. I am not surprised by the article because in my opinion, South Korea people are like to dance and sing. It is proven by the K-pop genre that become so famous not only in Korea, but in so many country including Indonesia. But doing flash mob during the liberation day is quite unique and unusual. I wonder how long they prepare for it. It must be not easy to gathered people to practice to dance together.
    In the picture above, they look so happy while they are dancing. I think their face express their feeling to their country. How happy and proud they are to become a Korean. Well then, happy (belated) liberation day, Korea!

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  26. The idea of doing flash mob on liberation day is great. This a good way of uniting people of the nation. Indonesia should follow South Korea to make a more creative independence day.in the future. This could be really exciting, especially if all citizens of the country participated. Eventhough Indonesia already have its own way of celebrating independence day they should still do something like this but make it more unique and more in a Indonesian way. This may affect on the nation's wealth. By doing things unique or classic about the country it can encourage you to care more. Just for example, South Korea doesn't use things or brand from other countries to celebrate days like these, but Indonesia still have lack of careness of this. That's why the country itself is still developing. I'm not saying the way Indonesian's celebrate it bad, but I just think it needs a slight difference to the previous independence day.before.

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