[The contestants are participating in the golden bell competition. Photo Credit: Yujun Lee]

On May 19, 2024, the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council San Francisco Chapter (PUACSF) held the 2024 Peaceful Unification Golden Bell competition for overseas youth at Branham High School in San Jose, California.

This event, aimed at fostering knowledge about Korean unification, saw enthusiastic participation from students across the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Peaceful Unification Golden Bell competition, an annual event since 2011, challenges students worldwide with questions about Korean unification, including government policies, history, and significant events.

It is organized by the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council, a constitutional organization formed in 1980 under the President of the Republic of Korea.

This year’s competition marked its 14th iteration.

The San Jose event served as one of the preliminary rounds leading up to the final competition in Korea in July 2024.

Various PUAC chapters around the world, including the San Francisco chapter, independently hold their preliminary rounds, and one qualifier from each chapter advances to the final round.

This year, 52 students from the San Francisco Bay Area competed in the local round.

In addition to the Golden Bell competition, PUACSF also hosted an essay contest on peaceful unification, witheight students submitting entries.

The event commenced with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the national anthems of the Republic of Korea and the United States, performed by the Silicon Valley Korean Children’s Choir.

Chum-kyun Choi, President of PUACSF, opened the ceremony with a speech.

He encouraged the participants and expressed gratitude to the members of PUACSF for their support, particularly those involved in the fundraising gold competition that enabled more prizes for the participants.

Following Choi’s speech, the participants recited an oath of honesty before the competition began.

Questions were displayed in both Korean and English to accomodate all participants.

The competition began with true or false and multiple-choice questions of varying difficulty, gradually increasing in complexity.

As many participants got eliminated, there were two repechage rounds which gave the students who got eliminated early a second chance to compete.

As the number of participants narrowed down to three, Jung-taek Lim, the Consul General of the Republic of Korea in San Francisco, who visited the competition, posed questions to the remaining participants as a special guest.

His question, “In what year did the Republic of Korea join the United Nation?” led to the identification of the winner, Yujun Lee, who correctly answered 1991.

Lee will now advance to the final round in Korea.

The award ceremony followed the competition, with participants receiving prize certificates and prize money from PUACSF.

Han-il Kim, President of the San Francisco Korean Association, presented special awards, such as tickets to a San Francisco Giants baseball game.

The event concluded with the K-pop dance performances of students from nearby schools, a Korean traditional dance performance, and a saxophone performance.

It capped off a day that celebrated knowledge, culture, and the spirit of peaceful unification.