Look familiar? If not, then on the left you have Mahbub Alam, co-star of the recent movie Bandhobi (반두비), which challenges many Koreans’ stereotypes of and prejudices towards workers and immigrants from developing countries. Here he is in a public service commercial from the Korean Broadcast Advertising Corporation (KOBACO) below, and while it won’t change the world, in terms of the time and money invested at least it will probably prove much more effective at promoting Korea overseas than all the millions lavished on the “Korea Sparkling” slogan.

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In Korean, the commercial says:

우리는 달라졌지만…더 달라져야 합니다.

우리는 가까워졌지만…더 가까워져야 합니다.

우리의 가슴은 뜨겁지만…더 뜨거워져야 합니다.

Korea보다 더 자랑스러운Korean

코리아 브랜드 당신이 만듭니다.

And in English:

We are very different…but we need to be more different.

We are closer…but we need to be closer still.

We have warm hearts….but they need to be warmer.

Instead of being proud of Korea, we should be prouder of being Korean.

We, ourselves, have to create Korea’s brand.

Make sure to see the movie at the cinema while you still can!

Update: In case you missed it, see here for further information about the 4th Migrant Worker Film Festival (MWFF) that Mahbub Alam is the director of,  and which will shortly be touring several Korean cities, starting with my wife’s hometown of Jinju (진주) on the 26th.