THE 1988 TOURNAMENT OF ROSES PARADE : First Korean Float Brings Pride to Growing Community

When the Rose Parade rolled down Colorado Boulevard, Sunhie Yoon was thrilled to be there. She laughed and jumped up and down when Garfield, her favorite cartoon character, appeared. She shouted “Wow!” when she saw a group of acrobats dangling from the masts of a pirate ship.

But she reserved her most vigorous applause and widest smile for a float that featured Olympic athletes, drummers, dancers and seven flowered female figures that fluttered fans and turned from side to side.

“Korea,” she said as she watched it go by. “I’m glad to see that in this parade.”

Yoon, a registered nurse who lives in downtown Los Angeles, was one of many area Koreans who attended the Tournament of Roses Parade for the first time Friday. The event held special meaning for them this year because, for the first time in its 99-year history, the parade featured a Korean float.

Broadcast in Korea

Because of the float, the parade reached many Koreans in Asia for the first time, as well. In a special 15-hour New Year’s Day broadcast, Korean Television Enterprises Ltd. included a 45-minute live remote from the Rose Bowl grounds, featuring interviews with the people who made it possible.

“Most of the Koreans who own TV sets, which is most Koreans, would have seen it,” said C. K. Han, one of the program’s coordinators.

The idea for the float, a celebration of this year’s Olympic Games in Seoul, came from the Korean Chamber of Commerce of Southern California.

“For years, we talked about why there was no float from Korea in the parade,” said Goon Suk Han, the group’s president. “We saw floats from Malaysia, Singapore, China, but none from Korea. We watched the parade on TV, but there was always something missing for us.”

For the last four years, Han and other members of the Chamber of Commerce have been working to get a float in the parade, but it took the prestige of the upcoming Olympic Games to clinch the interest of the float selection committee.

Even after receiving its tentative approval, Han worried that the Korean-American community might lose its chance. The Chamber of Commerce had planned to ask Korean Airlines for the $200,000 that would be needed to build the float, but it was told by the float selection committee that the parade already had too many airline sponsors.

“They told us if the Korean community would sponsor it, it could go in,” said Chase Rhee, a Pasadena-based businessman who helped raise the funds. “A few years ago we never would have be1701716065Korean community has come.”

Han said donations came in from all over the Los Angeles area and from South Korea.

“Even the children broke open their piggy banks,” he said.

Koreans from all over Los Angeles contributed time as well as money to make the float a success, Han said. For the past week they milled around Pasadena’s Rosemont Center, decorating the float and rehearsing speeches and performances for the television broadcast.

Worries About Design

Although thrilled to be working on the float, some volunteers--as late as Thursday--were worried that its design wasn’t authentic enough.

Jennie Choo, a Los Angeles florist who said that having a Korean float in the Rose Parade was her dream come true, was concerned about the costumes the figures were wearing. The traditional ankle-length full skirts were being filled in with stripes of purple and gold flowers.

“We don’t wear stripes,” she said, fingering her own skirt, a solid green with flowers embroidered on it.

Choo, who was wearing a traditional gown for her appearance on the TV show, shook her head as she watched flower handlers put on the finishing touches.

But her daughter Marsha, a 23-year-old UCLA student who helped decorate the float, was too excited to worry about such details.

“When that float rolls down Colorado Boulevard, I’ll know that I stuck those petals on that fan,” she said.

By Friday morning, Jennie Choo seemed as proud of the float as her daughter, although she was disappointed that it didn’t win a prize.

“But it was only our first time,” she said. “We’ll do better next year.”