The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said it has appointed government officials Park Young-hye and Wi Myung-jae as directors of Korean cultural centers in Osaka and Kazakhstan, respectively.
 
They become the first female officials appointed directors of Korean cultural centers overseas.
  
Holding a master’s degree in Korean-Japanese translation from Graduate School of Interpretation & Translation Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Park, 43, joined the public service in 1997 and worked at the Bureau of Public Information, Japanese Embassy to Korea and the Culture Ministry’s Media Policy Bureau. 
 

Wi, 46, received a doctoral degree in humanities from the Gorky Institute of World Literature and joined the public service at the Unification Ministry in 1998. She has worked for a research center studying Far East affairs in Moscow and the Unification Ministry.

There are 24 Korean cultural centers in 20 countries. The one in Osaka opened in December 2009 and the one in Kazakhstan opened in March 2010. By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)