PUAC announces winners, holds online awards ceremony for 2021 

Overseas Peaceful Unification Song Contest 

The Peaceful Unification Advisory Council (Executive Vice-Chair Jeong Se Hyun, Secretary-General Bae Ki Chan) held an "online awards ceremony for the 2021 Overseas Peaceful Unification Song Contest" on August 4 (Wednesday) and announced the winners.

The competition, which evolved from the "Unification Song Lyric Rewriting Contest" held in the Americas last year, was held for all 43 overseas chapters. The event, departing from last year’s format in which participants rewrote lyrics of popular songs, was held as a kind of "creativity contest" in which council members wrote lyrics, and arranged and sang songs provided by professional composers. It resulted in the production of original videos featuring the passion, efforts and aspirations for peace of overseas council members and reflecting the characteristics of each region.

A total of 11 chapters won awards out of the 34 videos submitted to the contest. The final evaluation looked into various criteria such as lyrics, videos, and the number of views on YouTube. Five specialist judges made the evaluation.

The online awards ceremony was delayed for about three weeks due to the "Step Four Social Distancing Measures" and held online on October 4 (Wednesday) at 10 am. Bae Ki Chan, Secretary-General of the PUAC, said in a congratulatory speech, "This competition was a great success as it drew more than 130,000 views, 15,000 likes, and 2,500 comments on YouTube." He added, "The PUAC will make further efforts to develop the song contest, and I thank the overseas council members who gave courage and hope to us who are exhausted with Covid-19 through cheerful and exciting songs and dances."

The Beijing Chapter which won the Special Award, received favorable responses for the "Unification Frog” video in which its council members were dressed in unique frog costumes.

The Qingdao Chapter, which won the Encouragement Award, produced a video on a tale of "I sense unification when I recall the past seeing what my grandmother left," which viewers said it looked almost like a movie.

The Excellence Award went to the Western Southeast Asia, Moscow and New Zealand Chapters. Song Young I, chair of the Women's Committee of the New Zealand Chapter who participated in the video production, said: "It was the most rewarding work I had done while serving as a council member since the 19th PUAC. Elderly people around me who watched the video shed tears of aspiring for unification.”

The video produced by the Vancouver Chapter, which won the Best Award, featured the famous Korean vocal group "Uangel Voice", drawing high attention from online users. It registered more than 40,000 views. As the title "Power One Korea" indicates, the Dallas Chapter produced a powerful and joyous video which again showed off its capability following the winning the Best Award of the "2021 Overseas Council Members’ Vlog Contest."

The Australia Chapter, which won the honor of the Grand Prize, produced a "United Korea" video which received good marks for its high completeness, especially in the songs and movements of the participating council members. The video received hot responses, getting more than 50,000 views, 130,000 likes, and 2,200 comments on YouTube.

Choi Soon Mi, a professor at Ajou University's Unification Research Institute, said in an after-evaluation commentary, "The judging panel had difficulty selecting award winners as the candidate works had sparking ideas and many of the videos were of high qualities for which ranking was not easy.” "I once again realized through the competition Koreans’ passion for unification and it was a meaningful time to get to know the passion and efforts of people living on the other side of the earth."

Secretary-General Bae Ki Chan said, "I would like to express my regrets to the chapters that failed to win an award. The videos produced by council members will be used for peaceful public diplomacy in various places."

The entire award-winning works can be viewed on the YouTube channel.

<Winners of 2021 Peaceful Unification Song Contest>

- Grand Prize: Australia (United Korea)

- Best Award: Vancouver (Day of Peaceful Unification), Dallas (Powerful One Korea)

- Excellence Award: New Zealand (A Dreaming Country), Western Southeast Asia (You and I Become One), Moscow (Together Us)

- Encouragement Award: Chicago (Come Flower Wind), Qingdao (Seeds of Unification), Shenyang (Thread Leading into One)

- Special Award (Lyrics): Atlanta (We Want Unity)

- Special Award (Video): Beijing (Unification Frog)