Park Seo-jin transformed his sister into a tiger and golden Buddha statue for a 3 million won prize at the costume play competition.
Park Seo-jin entered the '국중박 분장놀이' (National Museum of Korea costume play) for the third year running on the July 18 episode of KBS 2TV's Salimnam. Three million won hung in the balance.
The siblings toured the National Museum of Korea. Over 6 million visitors came through in two consecutive years, landing it 3rd globally and 1st in Asia for museum attendance last year. Park Seo-jin's relationship with museums had shifted. He became interested in history after learning the meaning behind folk paintings and starting to draw them himself—a far cry from seeing them as mere artifact storage.
For the contest, he recreated the Joseon-era folk painting 호작도 (Tiger and Magpie) by transforming his sister Hyo-jung into a tiger. Then he pushed further. Gold wrapping cloth and chocolate snacks became a golden Buddha statue modeled on the 금동연가칠년명여래입상. "The canvas is so good," he said. "If I draw well, I can win the grand prize." Their final piece was Kim Hong-do's 씨름 (Wrestling), a composite video with both siblings playing multiple roles.
Eun Ji-won watched the finished work and said it looked like a winner. (Hyo-jung spotted an Australopithecus exhibit and told her brother it looked like him before plastic surgery—he did not argue.)
Trot singer Oh Yu-jin, 18 years old this year, appeared as a special guest. She had been too excited to sleep the night before.
Salimnam airs every Saturday at 10:35 PM on KBS 2TV.
