The Korean word of “arirang,” a well-known Korean folk song, was advertised on the front page of the European edition of the Wall Street Journal.

“Arirang” was published in the Nov. 21 issue of the economic daily. It is the fifth Korean expression advertised in the newspaper by Seo Kyoung-duk, a Sungshin Women’s University professor who is famous for publicizing Korea abroad. The four other Korean words or expressions were “Dokdo,” “How are you?,” “Thank you” and “East Sea.”

In an effort to publicize Hangeul, the Korean writing system, he has made the advertisements in the Wall Street Journal under the title of “Basic Korean” since October last year.

The arirang advertisement was intended to help get the song adopted as world heritage at the UNESCO meeting in Paris next month, Seo said.

Its focus is three big Korean letters of the word arirang. Below it is the Romanization of the word and a brief explanation of its meaning. The Korean letters were written by Lee Oi-soo, a famous Korean novelist.

At the bottom of the ad is the website address www.Basic-Korean.com and an explanation describing Hangeul as one of the world’s most scientific writing systems that is also easy to learn.

About 1,000 people chipped in for the arirang advertisement through an online donation arranged by Incujector, a local fund-raiser, and DCELL, a Korean design company.

By Chun Sung-woo (swchun@heraldcorp.com)