It’s not typical to encounter a club with people discussing the history of jeans. However, at Jefferson’s Korean Culture Club (KCC), karaoke nights and Chuseok celebrations blend tradition with trends to spread Korean culture to the entire school.
“KCC is [Jefferson’s] Korean Culture Club where we try to spread the Korean culture to students of all grades,” sophomore KCC social media manager Luke Kang said. “We [especially] want to reach out to non-Korean students and teach them some of the [older] traditions or modern Korean traditions that we know today.”
Meetings are packed with a variety of activities to keep students engaged. The KCC recently celebrated “Chuseok,” a major Korean holiday celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, marking the fall harvest. Celebrations are focused on family gatherings and a large feast.
“We could do a karaoke meeting for K-pop, or a trivia meeting about the language or the food,” Kang said. “My favorite meeting this year was definitely the Chuseok meeting, where we got to share traditional foods like songpyeon, which is [a type of] rice cake.”
KCC spreads more than traditional culture; in fact, KCC has also been a consistent performing group at Jefferson’s annual iNite, a night of cultural performances organized by Jefferson club Namaste.
“My specific role as an iNite coordinator is to run [KCC’s] iNite, which is a whole separate event [from the club meetings],” senior KCC iNite coordinator Kyungsup Hwang said. “We perform trending K-pop songs every year, and this time we’re planning choreographies for songs like ‘Gabriella’ and ‘Golden.’”
KCC’s strong turnout and energetic performances have made it one of Jefferson’s most active culture clubs.
“I think what makes KCC special is that we always have maximum attendance,” Hwang said. “It’s modern, it’s fun and iNite gives us a way to connect people through K-pop and performance.”