Gwangju and South Jeolla International Magazine
Gwangju and South Jeolla International Magazine
October 2021 #236
October 2021 #236 Plenary Speaker Gabriela Ramos: “We Need a New Deal”
THE 11TH WORLD HUMAN RIGHTS CITIES FORUM
Plenary Speaker
Gabriela Ramos
“We Need a New Deal”
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1 Gwangju & South Jeolla International Magazine
From the Editor A
October 2021, Issue 236 Published: October 1, 2021 Cover Photo Gabriela Ramos
WHRCF 2021 Plenary Speaker
THE EDITORIAL TEAM Publisher Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Chief Copy Editor Layout Editor Photographer Copy Editing Online Editor Content Support
Dr. Shin Gyonggu Dr. David E. Shaffer William Urbanski Isaiah Winters Karina Prananto Kim Hillel Yunkyoung Joey Nunez, David Foster Karina Prananto Melline Galani
The Gwangju News is the first English monthly magazine for the general public in Korea, first published in 2001. Each monthly issue covers local and regional issues, with a focus on the roles and activities of the international residents and local English-speaking communities. Copyright ©2021 by the Gwangju International Center. All rights reserved. No part of this publication covered by this copyright may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the written consent of the publisher.
Registration No. 광주광역시 라. 00145 (ISSN 2093-5315) Registration Date: February 22, 2010 Printed by Jieum 지음 (+82)-62-672-2566
Special thanks to Gwangju City and all of our sponsors.
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This year is 4354 by the Dangun calendar, the calendar followed in Korea until the Japanese colonial period, and October 3 is the date that the founding of Korea is observed. Read the story about how the Korean nation was formed and about its king, Dangun, in Blast from the Past. Our other features this issue are on the Universal Culture Center and its work with migrant workers, and on media artist Park Sang-hwa, who is part of a two-month exhibition traveling around the province. As our final feature in this issue, we pay homage to The First Alleyway, the most-loved restaurant by expats and others in Gwangju and beyond. The Alleyway regrettably closed its kitchen doors recently, and numerous regular consumers pay tribute through the written word [Do Not Go Gentle…]. There is so much more inside this issue. Lost in Honam finds Yongwolsan’s “sky road.” Our restaurant review is on “the meanest burger in Gwangju.” We have articles on GFN radio’s Hello Korea program, on the layouts of old hanok houses, on more trees for Gwangju’s environment, on school bullying, and on English teachers. And our regular columns are anything but regular: Photo Essay will knock your socks off, and Top of the Drop will keep you attuned to the latest tunes. As always, stay Covid smart, stay Covid safe, get Covid protected, and enjoy the Gwangju News.
David E. Shaffer Editor-in-Chief Gwangju News
October 2021
For volunteering and article submission inquiries, please contact the editor at gwangjunews@gic.or.kr.
To help you with that enjoyment, this issue of the Gwangju News brings you an interview with a major plenary speaker at the Forum, UNESCO’s Assistant Secretary-General Gabriela Ramos, a crusader for social justice. If you haven’t been to the Design Biennale yet, you are sure to want to go after reading our interview with a major exhibitor at the exhibition, Gwangju’s international award-winning designer Choi Tae-ok.
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The Gwangju News is published by the Gwangju International Center: Jungang-ro 196-beon-gil 5 (Geumnam-ro 3-ga), Dong-gu, Gwangju 61475, South Korea Tel: (+82)-62-226-2733~34 Fax: (+82)-62-226-2731 Website: www.gwangjunewsgic.com Email: gwangjunews@gic.or.kr gwangjunews gwangju_news
s I saunter along the sidewalks of Gwangju, I notice a tinge of yellow beginning its march over the ginkgo trees’ fan-shaped leaves, and on the ground, I navigate round the trees’ fallen fruit. These are the first signs that October is here, announcing the coming of autumn in its fullest. This is a important month for Gwangju: The annual World Human Rights Cities Forum (version 11) opens on October 7 for a four-day run, and the Gwangju Design Biennale (version 9) runs until the end of the month at venues across the city. We hope you enjoy them both to their fullest.
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Photo of the Month By Kim Hillel Yunkyoung
Harvest Time Approaching Rice field near Suncheon, 2021.
The Photographer
Kim Hillel Yunkyoung is a priest in the Anglican Church and also a portrait photographer. More of his pictures can be found at @hillelkim.
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Contents
ISSUE 236, OCTOBER 2021
NEWS 01. From the Editor 04. Gwangju City News FEATURES 06. “We Need a New Deal” – Interview with UNESCO’s Gabriela Ramos 11. Gwangju Design Biennale: Choi Tae-ok – International Award-Winning Designer from Gwangju 15. The Universal Culture Center: Working for Migrant Rights 18. Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, Dear Alleyway 22. People in the Arts: Media Art – A Universal Language Spoken by Artist Park Sang-hwa 26. Blast from the Past: The Heavens Open – Korea Is Created TRAVEL 28. Lost in Honam: If You Build It, Will They Come? Yonggwolsan’s New “Sky Road” TEACHING & LEARNING 32. Language Teaching: Understanding the EFL Teacher 35. Everyday Korean: Episode 46 – 라면이나 먹을까요? Shall We Eat Ramen or Something? FOOD & DRINKS 36. Burger Bridge: Meanest Burger in Gwangju COMMUNITY
40. Environment: More Trees, Please! CO2 and the Temperature CULTURE & ARTS 02. Photo of the Month 42. Photo Essay: A Special Day – Ordination Ceremony of the Anglican Church of Korea 46. Chapter 2. Floor Plans of Mass-Produced Hanok in Gwangju 48. Book Review: How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee 50. GFN Radio: Hello Korea – Interview with Kayla Nicholls 52. GFN Radio: Top of The Drop 54. Gwangju Webtoon: Alan and Me 56. Crossword Puzzle
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October 2021
49. Gwangju Writes: The Last Summer
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38. Opinion: School Bullying in South Korea
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Gwangju City News From the Gwangju Metropolitan City website (http://gwangju.go.kr)
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October 2021
MONTHLY NEWS
New Express Bus Stop on the Gwangju-Honam Line Gwangju City will create a simple on-request bus stop at the Gwangsan Joreum Rest Area on the Honam Expressway north-bound line in order to reduce the travel time and economic burden for residents of Gwangsan-gu (Suwan, Sinchang, Bia, and Cheomdan) when traveling by express bus toward Seoul. The site is to be located between the Gwangsan and the Bukgwangsan Interchanges, and on the other side, there will a return stop on the inbound line of the expressway, connected through an underground passage. In September, design and construction were begun as well as the installation of waiting areas, the maintenance of simple stops and connecting passages to the inbound lines, CCTV placement, and a ticketissuing machine. Completion is slated for the end of this year. In addition, the existing Gwangsan Joreum Rest Area will be relocated to near the tollgate in East Gwangju (Dong Gwangju). Until now, residents of Gwangsan-gu have had to use the Bia stop when coming down to Gwangju by express bus and the Gwangcheon Bus Terminal to take the bus out of town, causing inconveniences such as loss of time and money due to the distances involved. At the “On-site Hearing Day” held in December 2019, residents, City Hall, and related agencies examined construction plans and promoted the project by signing an agreement with the Korea Expressway Corporation. Gwangju City will pay for the construction based on the service feasibility analysis.
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With the creation of this stop, residents of Gwangsan-gu will be able to use express buses to Seoul without having to come in to the Gwangcheon Bus Terminal, which is expected to help ease traffic congestion around the terminal and improve travelers’ overall convenience when using express buses.
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Gwangju Signs Agreement for Water Industry Growth Gwangju City recently signed the GwangjuJeonnam Water Industry Innovation Agreement with the Yeongsan River Basin Environment Agency, the Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-water Yeongsan River and Seomjin River Basin Headquarters), the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation (Jeonnam Regional Headquarters), the Jeollanam-do Environmental Industry Promotion Agency, and Chonnam National University to work together to foster the water environment industry and create jobs. The agreement was designed by the Korea Water Resources Corporation to build systematic support, including cooperation with experts and know-how from each institution, to actively implement the government’s New Deal policy and foster the local water industry. The agencies that signed the agreement will actively collaborate to foster the local water industry and create quality jobs through mutual partnership, including establishing the GwangjuJeonnam Water Industry Demonstration Center. Other initiatives will include the utilization of infrastructure owned by each institution, furthering education and research, discovering excellent small- and medium-sized venture companies in the region, and supporting institutions and policies for innovative growth.
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Dong-gu is the original city center of Gwangju and is also a space that has served as a stage for major historical events such as the Gwangju Student Independence Movement, the anti-Japanese movement, and the May 18 Democratization Movement. Accordingly, Dong-gu operates the Dong-gu Cultural Walkway through storytelling that includes resources such as historical figures and places located throughout the district. The Dong-gu Cultural Walkway is a compilation of modern historical figures and stories of modern history such as The Road to Mudeung, which is the story of people who lived lives that pursued a world without discrimination. Also included in the Walkway are Mudeung-ga and the Heunghak-gwan, which were centers of the Japanese colonial era civil society movement; the Gwangju Spirit Circular Road; contemporary figures such as Lee Han-yeol, who were instrumental in creating a decisive opportunity for democratization in Korea; and the Meaningful Road, which holds the story of Gwangju Prison, where independence activists suffered hardships but now young people hang out in crowds. The Dong-gu Walkway consists of four trails. The Donggu Cultural Walkway program is being actively carried out with resident cultural commentators, and the district is also reviewing commentary programs for foreigners. Inquiries: Dong-gu Cultural and Urban Policy Division (062-608-2173)
Translated by Melline Galani.
October 2021
Park Nam-ju, head of the city’s Environment and Ecology Bureau, stated, “With this agreement, we are laying the groundwork for establishing a water industry demonstration center in the Gwangju-Jeonnam region, and enhance the competitiveness of the water industry by providing various ways to support the growth of local companies through mutual cooperation between the contracting organizations,” and added, “We will work together to secure and create jobs.”
Walking Back in Time: The Dong-gu Cultural Walkway
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
This agreement is in preparation for events such as responding to the rapidly changing water management environment, the accelerating climate change and digital transformation, and developing innovative water industry technologies in preparation for the global water market that is growing every year.
Gwangju Dong-gu (East District) News
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THE 11TH WORLD HUMAN RIGHTS CITIES FORUM
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October 2021
FEATURE
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“We Need a New Deal” Interview with UNESCO’s Gabriela Ramos
Gabriela Ramos is a plenary speaker at the World Human Rights Cities Forum to be held this October 7–10 in Gwangju. She will be speaking on "Local Governments Building the Post-COVID-19 World: Public Services and HR Challenges." Ms. Ramos is Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO, where she oversees the work being done to build inclusive and peaceful societies. Her objectives include the achievement of social inclusion and gender equality, advancing youth development, anti-racism and anti-discrimination, and ethics in artificial intelligence. Prior to her present position, Ms. Ramos served as the Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G7, the G20, and APEC in the OECD. Her work to promote gender equality earned her the 2017 and 2018 Forbes Excellence Award as well as being included as part of Apolitical’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy in both 2018 and 2019. Recently, the Gwangju News was fortunate to conduct this interview with Gabriela Ramos. — Ed.
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wangju News (GN): Thank you, Ms. Ramos, for making time for this interview. Could you first tell us a bit more about your transition from the position of OECD Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G7, G20, and APEC to that of being the Assistant DirectorGeneral of UNESCO? Was working with UNESCO something you have long aimed for, or was there a specific experience or moment in your career that motivated you toward your current post?
With these staggering facts and figures, we cannot stand by blindly when so much suffering is happening around the world. We all have a responsibility, and fulfilling it while supporting those that are in greater need is a privilege.
October 2021
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According to the World Economic Forum, only 1 percent of the world’s total population possesses over 35 percent of all private wealth, which is more than the bottom 95 percent combined![1] OXFAM reported that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the increase of wealth for the world’s ten richest men could pay for vaccines for all.[2] From the UNHCR’s data, there are 82.4 million forcibly displaced worldwide due to persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations.[3] And according to the United Nations, global hunger levels have increased because of conflict, climate change, and the economic impact of COVID-19, with one-tenth of the global population – between 720 million and 810 million – being undernourished in 2020.[4]
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Gabriela Ramos: I am a strong believer of multilateral solutions, so my career path has constantly followed this credo. The experience at the OECD was fantastic because I was able to advance the agendas I care about, the ones that are focusing on improving people’s lives. In fact, the effective multilateralism that I practiced at the OECD prepared me well for the challenging position in UNESCO. It is more challenging because we have the world in UNESCO, while the OECD has 38 members. But both institutions care about the issues I have been promoting all of my life: inclusive societies, fair distribution of the benefits of growth, women’s rights, children and youth well-being. But in this sense, UNESCO is unique, as it is an institution promoting peace through education, culture, science, and sports. This is so necessary today. As the Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO, my job includes several important work streams to promote social justice and intercultural dialogue, advance women’s empowerment and youth engagement, support the most disadvantaged groups
in society, and fight racism and discrimination in all its forms. I am also leading the work on urban inclusion by leveraging UNESCO’s member cities in the International Coalition of Inclusive and Sustainable Cities (ICCAR), a global platform of more than 500 cities around the world advocating for global solidarity and collaboration to promote inclusive sustainable development free from all forms of discrimination. The City of Gwangju is one of the stellar examples of inclusion and diversity, as advocated by the ICCAR platform.
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8 Doing it through an iconic institution such as UNESCO that has done so much for the world is a dream! GN: The topic of this year’s 11th World Human Rights Cities Forum is “Human Rights in Times of Challenge: A New Social Contract.” As a member of the Lancet Commission on COVID-19, as well as based on your experience as UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General, what do you think are the new aspects of human rights that need to be pursued, and who are the most profoundly affected by the pandemic? Gabriela Ramos: Many countries around the world were not well prepared to face the pandemic, and even some of the most advanced struggled with insufficient health services and equipment. Countries that could do it, put trillions on the table to keep the economy and the society going, but this was also related to filling the gaps in social protection systems. Therefore, the pandemic needs to bring about the necessary changes that we were considering
given the new world of work in the digital age. During the last world recession in 1930, a New Deal was enacted, and workers’ rights and protection were enhanced. We need a new deal to both mend the impact of the pandemic and to be better prepared. We need to consider payments into health systems as an investment and not as an expenditure. We need universal health coverage. We need to avoid children missing school after the pandemic. But more than anything, we need to focus on the well-being of people when defining economic and social policies, and UNESCO is at the center of this. Intangibles such as culture, education, social cohesion, science, and sports should come at the forefront, along with gender equality. The triple downfall of the pandemic is that the world is unequal in exposure, unequal in response, and unequal in recovery. Inequality did not cause the current crisis, but it certainly exacerbated it, so in proposing solutions for a sustainable recovery, we must examine how inequality is likely to make it harder to reach our postCOVID-19 goals, and that requires an in-depth analysis of the multidimensional nature of inequality. The Social and Human Sciences sector of UNESCO is addressing inequalities through an innovative agenda for inclusive growth, focusing on people’s well-being, especially for the most vulnerable social groups and those at greater risk, including women, youth, persons with disabilities, and indigenous populations. GN: Your dedicated work on reducing inequalities dates way back. In 2019, you launched the Business for Inclusive Growth (B4IG) platform, endorsed by the French G7 Presidency, bringing together 40 major multinational companies committed to reducing inequalities. Could you tell us a bit more about that?
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October 2021
Gabriela Ramos: In the fight against the major problems in the world, we need a stakeholder approach. I was really proud to build this coalition of major multinationals that committed not only to responsible business conduct, but to put their commitment to reduce inequalities at the core of their business models. These measures include ensuring better distribution of the dividends of growth, better protection for workers, gender equality, reduction of climate footprints, and doing it all through better metrics of success. The aim is to move away from the mindset of maximizing shareholder value to maximizing societal values.
▲ Gabriela Ramos at the Global Forum Against Racism and Discrimination (FGEN) in March 2021.
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Fast forward to UNESCO, and we are also promoting this, particularly by calling for a more inclusive and sustainable digital transformation with the adoption of the ethics of artificial intelligence. Inequalities exist in this emerging field as well. AI-driven growth is likely to be highly unequal. By 2030, economic gains are expected to be strongest in China and North America, representing
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▲ Gabriela Ramos at the Global Forum Against Racism and Discrimination (FGEN) in March 2021.
Gabriela Ramos: Policies matter, and for example, we are proud that Korea is providing a very generous dual parental leave policy. If we want to make progress, we need
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But we also need to change mindsets. Korean men do not take parental leave, even if it is available, because they fear stigma or a negative impact on their careers. We need to change this. The stereotypes and biases that put women in charge of the care economy and men in charge of the market economy is not sustainable. This is why we are launching a project called MENtalities, which aims to tackle the cultural and social norms that reinforce harmful stereotypes and disregard personal ambitions and wills. It is not about women or men. It is about an unfair cultural and institutional setting that leaves women behind. Several Ministers for Gender Equality of G20 countries have expressed their interest in joining us in this endeavor.
October 2021
GN: Your work to promote gender equality has been widely recognized, garnering for you both the 2017 and 2018 Forbes Excellence Awards, and Apolitical’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy recognition for 2018 and 2019. What, in your opinion, is the key to achieving gender equality?
to legislate equality. This can be done if we legislate that we are equal, and that women can also inherit or make their own decisions. We need to legislate equal pay, as all over the world, there continues to be a pay gap that even in advanced economies is around 14 percent. We also need incentives. When Blackrock, a major investment fund, signaled that it would not invest in companies with low female representation, we experienced a step towards the advancement of female representation at the top of the corporate board. Affirmative action and quotas work, too. As with the quota in the Mexican Congress, which I worked to promote, that delivered equality.
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70 percent of AI’s global economic impact. AI has a “winner take all” dynamic that needs to be regulated. The concentration of AI in the hands of few high-income countries will likely leave developing countries far behind. AI also contributes to widening existing gender gaps: Only 22 percent of all AI professionals are women. Because they are underrepresented in the industry, gender biases and stereotyping are being reproduced in AI technologies. Therefore, UNESCO is pursuing a people-centered approach: UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence is an ambitious yet policy-friendly blueprint. It aims to guide the development and deployment of AI technologies and to provide an overarching ethical framework fostering and enhancing the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
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October 2021
10 This support is key, for achieving gender equality requires both changes in legislation and changes in mindsets and behaviors.
GN: Finally, how do you assess the current role of Koreans and the Korean government in UNESCO? What are your expectations for the future role of the Republic of Korea?
GN: At the March 2021 UNESCO Global Forum Against Racism and Discrimination, you moderated the panel titled “How to establish anti-racist policies: Policymakers at the forefront of the global fight against racism.” What is your current standpoint on cities’ involvement when it comes to anti-racism and an anti-discriminatory agenda?
Gabriela Ramos: The Republic of Korea is always supporting the best causes of humanity. I learned this while at the OECD, and particularly when I worked with the country’s government in the presidency of the G20 that delivered so many good outcomes. As for my time with UNESCO, my experience is also the same.
Gabriela Ramos: Cities are key to this effort, as they are the main providers of services and support. They are also the first link when people are in need. The pandemic and the fight against the pandemic happen in cities. The terrible racist expressions that led to the Black Lives Matter movement also happened in cities. So, the solution also relies on a multilevel governance approach that puts cities at the center. At UNESCO, we are convinced of this, and this is why we work closely with ICCAR. As part of our anti-racism efforts, we are developing a toolkit to make mainstream the anti-discrimination lenses in different areas of policy action, including at the city level. We will test this toolkit with cities across continents. UNESCO has also progressed in rolling out global capacity-building initiatives that combat racism, including the Master Class Series against Racism and Discriminations. Since its launch in November 2019, UNESCO has organized 13 editions of the Master Class, training more than 5,000 young participants in collaboration with partners including ICCAR member cities. I am very grateful to the City of Gwangju for collaborating with UNESCO to launch a new series of Master Classes for Korean youth in the context of the World Human Rights Cities Forum.
Through the leadership of the Republic of Korea, UNESCO’s member states adopted in December 2020 the landmark “Global Call Against Racism,” which invites the international community to pursue initiatives aimed at scaling up local, regional, and worldwide cooperation to combat racism and discrimination. Through this global call, UNESCO will develop an anti-racism roadmap, together with member states, that will provide a strategic and operational framework to strengthen efforts to combat racism and discrimination. I am also very proud of our partnership with the Republic of Korea, which together with us co-organized the Global Forum Against Racism and Discrimination held on March 22, 2021. This forum provided essential direction for the onward elaboration of the anti-racism roadmap. Bringing together ministers from several countries – including France, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, Slovakia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates – as well as experts, practitioners and champions from all regions, the Global Forum aimed to foster an evidence-based dialogue among countries to identify the best practices, build a global front of partners against racism, and identify the next steps for developing the anti-racism roadmap.
GN: What do you envision in the future for ICCAR and its members in terms of contributions to build inclusive and peaceful societies? Also, how do you see the World Human Rights Cities Forum helping in achieving that vision?
GN: It’s nice to hear that Korea’s contributions are so well recognized internationally. Thank you, Ms. Ramos, for letting us know more about you and the work that you and the organizations you work with are doing to promote social justice on all its forms.
Gabriela Ramos: We need more action in ICCAR. We have some very active members like Gwangju, and others that are less so. We need a race to the top and for the cities that are ahead of the curve to inspire others to follow. We need to bring the mayors together, every year, with specific commitments and actions that can be tracked and followed up on. This can take place at the Global Forum Against Racism, as we did in 2020 with a panel of mayors. But we have to aim for more. We seek partners who share the same dream of fostering inclusive and sustainable cities. I am very optimistic that with UNESCO’s cooperation, with the City of Gwangju and South Korea, and with the global platform that the World Human Rights Cities Forum provides, we will be able to raise the profile of ICCAR and make it more robust.
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Photographs courtesy of Gabriela Ramos. Sources Agenda in focus: Fixing inequality. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/focus/fixing-inequality [2] Wealth increases of 10 men during pandemic could buy vaccines for all. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/ world-55793575 [3] Global trends: Forced displacement in 2020. UNHCR. https:// www.unhcr.org/pl/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2021/06/2020 -global-trends.pdf [4] Conflict, climate change, COVID, forces more people into hunger. UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/07/1095672
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Feature 11
FEATURE
Inter view by Karina Prananto
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October 2021
International Award-winning Designer from Gwangju
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Choi Tae-ok:
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▲ Zerowell air purifier designed by Choi Tae-ok, displayed at the 2021 Gwangju Design Biennale.
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October 2021
wangju is well known throughout the nation as a city of art. As one of Gwangju’s prominent international art events, the Gwangju Design Biennale proudly showcases designs from Gwangju artists. One of this year’s Biennale highlights are designs by Choi Tae-ok. Choi, a Gwangju native, has 26 years of experience as a product designer for one of the nation’s largest home appliance companies. As their in-house designer, he launched numerous big brand products, including refrigerators and air purifiers. Currently, Choi has established his own design agency called “Design By” to support product designs for many domestic and overseas manufacturers. Since product design has a great influence on smalland medium-sized manufacturing companies, Choi established the Small and Medium Business Design Management Center, the first of its kind in Korea, to discover next-generation designer talents from many companies and regions that are struggling with design. We met for an interview with Choi to find out more about his designs and how he started in this industry.
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Gwangju News (GN): Thank you for agreeing to do this interview. Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself and your professional background? Choi Tae-ok (Choi): I have liked to draw since elementary and middle school, so I started studying design at Gwangju Arts High School because I wanted to learn design professionally and was active in the school’s art club. I couldn’t attend an art academy like others due to family circumstances, but I was able to study design in the high school’s art room to my heart’s content, so I was able to enter the design department of the university of my choice, and I think it was my good luck that I could join Daewoo Electronics after graduation. It was a great help to grow as a professional designer by working with talented colleagues there. I think it was an opportunity to grow as a global designer by helping with a number of overseas projects, especially in Asia and Europe. Now, based on those experiences, I am working as a representative designer of a product design agency called Design By in my hometown of Gwangju. It has been selected as an Excellent Design Company by the Korea Institute of Design Promotion, as it has carried out about
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13 40 projects per year for many small- and medium-sized enterprises in need of design expertise. The organization also won the Korea Industrial Design Award, the grand prize in the Excellent Design Product Selection (Good Design) Award, and more than 20 other awards, including from Red Dot, iF IDEA, and G-Mark from Japan. Design By has become widely known internationally since then. Knowing well that product design has a great impact on small- and medium-sized manufacturing companies, I established the Small and Medium Business Design Management Center in the vicinity of Gwangju, the first of its kind in Korea, to find next-generation designer talent. I hope that this effort will become a new source of vitality for creating stable jobs in local industries and high value-added knowledge services by operating a “win-win design institution” that discovers next-generation designer talent from the industry and supports them as professional designers. Some of our designs for companies, such as DH Global with the Steniq Ice Machine and DK Co., Ltd.’s Wall-Mounted Air Purifier are now displayed in Hall 5 of the 2021 Gwangju Design Biennale.
It is a win-win cooperative business model between manufacturing companies and design companies that overcomes the limitations of earlier models by hiring a dedicated designer only for DH Global and commissioning Design By as the design research center.
▲ DK wall-mounted air purifier.
DH Global is also a representative manufacturing company in Gwangju, starting as a partner of Samsung Electronics and producing its own brand name Steniq
The Steniq Crystal Ice Machine has a high capacity of up to 15 kilograms, considering the user’s lifestyle and the environment. It has a voluminous exterior shape, like a traditional paste and sauce jar (jangdok, 장독), based on the wisdom of our ancestors who kept and fermented food in jars. It is intended to appear as if it were rising, and the vent is shaped like a snowflake so that consumers can easily recognize it as an ice-making product. It has three color choices to suit customers’ tastes – black, white, and pink. In addition, it has a touch screen at the top for easy operation by users, and the progress of the ice maker is visible with LED lighting. It is designed with a user’s convenience in mind, with the ability to open and close the door smoothly and safely. It is also equipped with a
October 2021
DK’s wall-mounted air purifier is a product designed to solve various problems of existing indoor air purifiers. It has the ultrafine dust levels that can clean large spaces in real-time to improve air quality. It has excellent space utilization and is a product with many advantages, as it can be installed and used out of reach of children, so it is especially useful in kindergartens and facilities with children. The main characteristic is that the front cover is designed in a way that is easy to attach and remove so that users can easily replace or clean filters.
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Design By’s partnership with DH Global started in 2020. They produced their own Steniq Crystal Ice Machine based on the cooling and air conditioning technology from Samsung Electronics’ DNA, and through this relationship, the two companies’ cooperative business model was the first step in the development of the Small and Medium Business Design Management Center.
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GN: Could you please tell us about your award-winning air purifier and ice machine? Choi: DK Co., Ltd. is a partner of Samsung Electronics and is a manufacturing company that represents Gwangju. The collaboration between DK and Design By started with the design of a dehumidifier in 2012. It is a representative collaborative case that carries out most of DK’s own brand products such as floorstanding air purifiers, wall-mounted air purifiers, and range hoods.
Crystal Ice Machine and Korea’s first soju refrigerator, Seolleim.
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▲ Steniq Crystal Ice Machine.
UV light function with high sterilization power, which is harmless to the human body, allowing users to receive cleaner and more hygienic ice.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2021
GN: What do you think about designs and products from Gwangju and their competitiveness? Choi: This year, Gwangju Design Biennale products exhibited in Hall 5 (with the theme d-Revolution for Gwangju) are excellent products, labeled “Made in Gwangju” and “Design by Gwangju.” Exhibited items can be broadly classified into products released through collaboration between manufacturing companies and design companies, and brand products developed by design companies on their own. You can feel that there has been a change from manufacturingoriented products of the past to design-oriented products. In particular, many products related to Gwangju’s representative industries, such as air appliances and AI are exhibited, allowing one to appreciate the message of design from major regional industries. GN: What are your hopes by attending this year’s Biennale? Choi: As a designer, I hope that design will be an opportunity to communicate with the public, and I especially hope that this event will be a chance for people to heal, physically and mentally, from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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GN: Do you have any message to those who want to start doing business as entrepreneurs? Choi: I think the beginning is a very important starting point for anyone. Even with a good idea, the probability of failure can be minimized by learning through the experiences of one’s seniors and listening to opinions from colleagues and juniors. GN: Thank you, Artist Choi, for your insights. We wish you many more successes to come! Photographs courtesy of Choi Tae-ok and Isaiah Winters.
GWANGJU DESIGN BIENNALE Venues: Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall, Gwangju Institute of Design Promotion, Gwangju Museum of Art Dates: September 1 – October 31 Website: www.gdb.or.kr Ticket Purchase: http://www.ticketlink.co.kr/ product/34859
The Interviewer
Karina Prananto is from Indonesia and has been involved with the Gwangju News since 2007. She is a special needs mother who loves watching suspense movies, reading, and traveling with her family.
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15
Working for Migrant Rights
FEATURE
The Universal Culture Center By Soumitra Kumar Kundu
A
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The UCC was established in Gwangju Metropolitan City in 2007 by Indian-Korean Basu Mukul. Basu originally arrived in Korea in 1989 as a meditation teacher of Ananda Marga and later graduated from Seoul National University. Soon after, he began volunteer work to aid other international students and local foreign laborers. After marrying a Korean citizen in 1993, he changed his nationality to Korean in 1999. On Memorial Global Citizen Day 2020, Basu received the Prime Minister’s Award from the South Korean government in recognition of his ongoing volunteer work for migrant workers and multicultural families. One of the most challenging aspects of being a foreign national in Korea is finding the information on how to navigate complicated legal or medical situations. The UCC’s information desk provides consultation and information regarding visas, medical procedures, insurance, and Korean law. The UCC staff accompany
October 2021
The UCC is a well-known NGO operating in the South Jeolla area. Since 2007, it’s been working to meet the needs of migrants in a variety of ways. Some of the many actions undertaken by the UCC include advocating for migrants’ human and labor rights, operating free temporary and long-stay shelters for migrants, offering counseling about living in Korea for immigrant housewives and migrants, hosting language classes, running food sharing programs, operating volunteering programs with migrant housewives and international students, and hosting cultural festivals and events with local organizations. As
a government-accredited institution, Korean students can also receive volunteering credit for working with the UCC.
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construction worker in Gwangju is injured on the job and doesn’t know the procedure for taking leave from employment. A PhD researcher is expecting a new baby, but isn’t sure how to go about getting pre- and post-natal care in Korea. A factory worker in Mokpo doesn’t receive his full salary but feels powerless to complain to his employer who sponsored his visa. Foreign nationals in a variety of stressful and vulnerable situations can turn to the Universal Cultural Center (UCC) for information and legal and financial support.
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16 to Korean culture and society and encourages migrants, their family members, and their children to take part in the voluntary programs for them to be recognized as respected community members in Korea.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2021
COVID-19 has had a massive global impact with many around the world having lost their livelihoods. Migrants in the South Jeolla area are likewise facing difficulties. Most migrants came to Korea following “the Korean ▲ Chonnam National University Dental Hospital staff offer free dental check-ups to migrants, dream,” but due to COVID-19, their facilitated by the UCC (August 2020). dreams have collapsed, and economic migrants to medical appointments for translation and survival has become very challenging. The UCC, along also work with local doctors and facilities that provide with Band for Good and Gwangju’s ACCN Foreign Food services for migrants at reduced rates. According to Mart, are helping migrants survive the recent economic Dr. Beom Eun Kyoung, who serves on the UCC board crunch. With donations from local residents, the UCC of directors, medical terms and concepts are difficult has been able to distribute groceries and other goods like to understand even for Koreans. “I am sure it is much rice, grains, lentils, cooking oil, eggs, vegetables, halal harder for migrants to know which doctor to visit when meat, baby food, and diapers to more than 70 households they have health problems, and how to communicate in Gwangju. The UCC has also distributed masks and with the doctors,” she says, “so, I assist the UCC with that hand sanitizer to over 300 local migrants. Internationally, the UCC and the ACCN Foreign Food Mart have also part.” been working to support communities in Bangladesh and Other challenging areas for migrants are legal and Myanmar during COVID-19. employment disputes. The UCC provides free counseling services regarding human rights infringements and labor law violations for migrant workers, immigrant housewives, and international students. The UCC works in cooperation with local lawyers, labor attorneys, and labor unions in Gwangju and the South Jeolla area to assist in situations ranging from unpaid wages to divorce proceedings. For migrant workers who suffer from human rights violations and want to change employment, international students who can’t use university dormitories, and immigrant housewives facing family problems, the UCC provides free temporary or long-term accommodation in one of two shelters. These shelters, referred to as “rest houses,” also provide recuperation space before or after hospital treatments and function as community gathering spaces for events. Language can be a large roadblock preventing migrants from participating in Korean society. To address this, the UCC offers a free Korean language class for migrants, which contributes to adaptation to Korean society and understanding of Korean culture. The UCC also provides opportunities for Koreans to learn other foreign languages. In addition to language classes, the UCC facilitates mentoring programs for migrants to adapt well
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▲ The author in front of the grocery supplies prepared for distribution by the UCC and ACCN Foreign Food Mart.
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to experience cultural aspects like henna tattooing and traditional dress. Each year, the UCC also organizes several cricket tournaments in Gwangju in which more than 100 migrants (including international PhD researchers, students, workers, and refugees) and Koreans participate. Friendly matches improve international community relationships and help with mental health.
▲ Cricket tournaments, religious events, and other cultural activities organized by the UCC.
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The Author
Soumitra Kumar Kundu, PhD, is president of the Universal Cultural Center, which is located at 19-2 Mudeung-ro 375-beon-gil in Gyerim-dong. For more information on the UCC’s upcoming events and how to get involved, visit the UCC-Universal Cultural Center Facebook group or call 062-471-8006.
October 2021
Outside of holidays, the UCC also participates in cultural festivals hosted by local government and private agencies. Teams from different countries perform their traditional arts, prepare food, and give local Koreans the chance
Photographs courtesy of Soumitra Kundu.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
Aside from legal, employment, and financial support, the UCC also plays a large role in supporting cultural and social events for migrant communities in Gwangju. During Korean holidays, the UCC hosts cross-cultural events to promote cultural awareness. Each year since 2007, the UCC has organized Chuseok and Seollal festivals through the Cross-Cultural Awareness Program for migrants in Gwangju. Although in-person events were canceled last year due to COVID-19, with permission from Gwangju City Hall, the UCC was able to host special socially distanced and online programs for Chuseok that were a hit with local communities. On the first day of the program, Korean experts shared online lectures on Korean history, medical systems, and daily-life information. The second day involved cultural exchange through a lunchswapping program in which 20 cooking teams from a variety of countries prepared lunch boxes featuring their culture’s delicacies. These lunch packs were distributed to 200 participants, so even though community members couldn’t gather together to celebrate Chuseok, the community spirit was still strong.
For more than 13 years, the Universal Culture Center has been providing legal, financial, and cultural programs to the migrant community in Gwangju and South Jeolla. None of this work would be possible without a network of adult and student volunteers. The UCC has been accredited as a non-profit and non-governmental organization by the Korean government. Through the 1365 volunteering system (www.1365.go.kr), any student who volunteers with the UCC can receive certification of their volunteer hours. The UCC is always accepting applications for volunteers.
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www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2021
FEATURE FEATURE
18
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Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, Dear Alleyway The entire city of Gwangju suffered a major blow when The First Alleyway shuttered its doors at the end of August. While so much has been said on social media about how beloved the Alleyway was, we at the Gwangju News felt it was important to go a little more in depth. It is our hope that the following anecdotes, much like layers of pasta, will come together to make something that is more than the sum of its parts: In this case, a lasagna of stories that show how much the Alleyway was like the cheese that bound the community together. As well, we hope this final send off for the Alleyway will illustrate its generosity to the community, equaled only by the copious amounts of toppings heaped onto each and every Alleyway pizza. Excelsior! Ever Upward! — Ed.
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A CHAPTER OF GWANGJU’S HISTORY For many years, the Gwangju-Jeonnam Chapter of KOTESOL followed its monthly professional development workshops with dinner at The First Alleyway. I have so many wonderful memories of the Alleyway, but I suspect I’m not the only KOTESOLer for whom the most special memories are those chapter dinners.
The Gwangju-Jeonnam KOTESOL community, along with many communities in this region, will definitely mourn the loss of The First Alleyway. The memories we treasure, though, will continue to bring us joy. A big, hearty, grateful cheer for Tim and the Alleyway. Here’s to you! — Bryan Hale (2021 Korea TESOL National President, living and teaching in Yeongam)
October 2021
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Tim Whitman may be most well known to you for The First Alleyway, but he’s also a pillar of English language teaching in the Gwangju community. He was an early lifetime member of the Gwangju-Jeonnam KOTESOL Chapter, and the Alleyway was a generous supporter of our conferences and events, taking out advertisements and offering prizes to attendees. We’re so grateful for the discount offered to KOTESOL members (we’ve got loads of other membership benefits, but we’re really going to miss that one), and we’re supremely grateful for the Alleyway’s catering of our annual year-end holiday event! Don’t let me start describing those turkey dinners, or I’ll take up the rest of this magazine . . .
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These are the things I’ll remember: I’ll remember all our stomachs rumbling in anticipation as we trundled through the late afternoon to our feast. I’ll remember how arriving at the Alleyway always felt like stumbling into a tavern out of a fantasy story, all gentle glow and twinkle and jovial laughter. I’ll remember our reserved table waiting for us, and the excitement of introducing newcomers and visitors to the menu. Out-of-town workshop presenters often couldn’t quite believe the experience: how delicious the food was, how diverse the people were. They always went back to their own corner of Korea (or the world) pretty jealous, I think! I’ll remember the terrible acoustics (we can admit that now, right?), and eagerly leaning into the sparkliest strands of conversation. I’ll remember the TESOL talk easing into all-the-everything-else talk, and owner Tim dropping by our table to join in as the evening wore on, sometimes offering a courtesy drink to those of us still soaking up the embers. I’ll remember how often people would loudly and regretfully announce they
needed to get home, and then linger for another hour or two, because nobody ever wanted to leave. Who would want to leave behind such a warm and welcoming hearth?
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20 A WORLDWIDE THING While I was a student at Chonnam National University, and after that as well, a lot of my foreign, non-Western friends – primarily Uzbeks and Chinese – had never had “American” food before. My boyfriend, who’s Uzbek, went there for the first time about three years ago. We regularly went to the Alleyway about once a month together, and that’s pretty much all we could afford for eating out, since he’s still a student.
THE NON-SPORTS BAR, SPORTS BAR The First Alleyway was kind enough to sponsor our (Adult Little League) baseball team called The Bombers. Through them, we had many great season-ending parties and festivities. They even hosted fantasy sports drafts and other Western sporting events. It wasn’t a sports bar or a do-everything kind of place, but it had a fun, home-awayfrom-home vibe that I enjoyed taking people to. It was Gwangju’s Cheers.
Sharing our first experiences of Canadian and American food – our first hamburger (can you imagine!), first poutine, first lasagna, first fish and chips, first chicken wings! – was a great experience for me. My friends would comment that, the Alleyway seems “so typical” from what they’d heard or seen in movies and on TV, so I personally am quite grateful that the Alleyway and Tim were so welcoming and accommodating for non-Western friends of mine. It’s been a great intro for “American” life – a place where we could hang out with low pressure, and where we felt welcome. Tim would always come over and tell us about his life, and his manner and attitude always left us in awe, as my boyfriend also works in the restaurant industry. He occasionally brought his (Uzbek) friends there for their first “American” experience as well.
— Steve Alexander-Larkin (An American living in Suncheon.)
We’ll miss Tim’s stories, the garlic cheese “bread” (it’s actually pizza – nobody tell Tim that, lol), and the Caesar salad most of all.
The First Alleyway was the first Western-style restaurant that I found, and I was so happy that I almost cried. From the very moment I stepped in, I had the feeling of coming home into a familiar ambiance that was known to me – I felt like I was not in Korea anymore. At the time, it was the only place where I could listen and speak in English, and it was my lifesaver during my first year in Korea. The First Alleyway was also the only restaurant that had one of my favorite drinks, Grand Marnier, and the place where my daughter had her first lasagna, her favorite dish. As time passed, I got to know more people in Gwangju and my life became more comfortable. The First Alleyway
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October 2021
— Madeline Miller (Now back in the U.S. after six years in Gwangju and looking forward to future international travels.)
FINDING HOPE I discovered The First Alleyway a few months after I moved to Korea in 2017. At that time, I was quite lost with less than basic knowledge of Korean and no means to manage alone in the new world I had stepped into.
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21 transformed into a place to meet friends, have nice conversation with Tim Whitman, or enjoy dinner with my family. And we did love the food. It was the place where I persuaded Arlo and Danno of GFN to collaborate with Gwangju News and write some articles, and where I bothered all my acquaintances to do a GIC Talk. I am forever grateful for all the good moments I spent there, for all the memories I made, and also for the kindness that Tim always showed me. I will greatly miss The First Alleyway. — Melline Galani (GIC Coordinator and Gwangju News Team Member in Gwangju) ODE TO THE FIRST ALLEYWAY South Korea only held me captive for one year. I was holed up on the southernmost outpost of the peninsula, Goheung-eup, so The First Alleyway served as the delightful bookend between weeks – a breakfasty bulwark between the insanity of teaching at an all-male middle school and the general degradation of lost weekends in Gwangju.
It was the last bastion of all good Sundays, where my sweaty, gaunt figure could slump in a chair and be brought back from the near-death of another night piled into a motel room with 10 or 12 other people and be resurrected into something almost human through a breakfast poutine and cocktails. The First Alleyway’s staff were always there to pick up the shattered remains of the JLP teachers at the end of long nights of karaoke-induced madness – they didn’t care how many fire extinguishers had been emptied onto dancefloors nor how many bones had been broken in the process. They were decorated battlefield medics in the never-ending war against our senses and sobriety, experts in triaging Bloody Marys in the cold light of day, and while we did our best to let them know it, they may never have truly understood how much their service meant to us in our various states of paralytic desecration. The First Alleyway wasn’t just a breakfast joint, it was the breakfast joint of Gwangju and provided a joyous neutral ground for all the various factions of teachers that made up the JLP. It was a little bowl of home in a land far from any cheese curds, and it was always there to catch us and patch us up when the pressures of being so many thousands of miles from anything familiar got too much. Come for the breakfast, stay for the afternoon – many Sunday mornings were dragged out as we desperately sought to squeeze out every last drop of the weekend before we were thrust back into the thick of it in classrooms across Jeollanam-do. I can only pray for the future generations of EFL teachers who will have to make their way through Gwangju’s brutal grey mornings without such delights to end their weeks.
Compiled by William Urbanski. Photographs courtesy of Isaiah Winters and Joe Wabe.
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October 2021
— Gerry Flynn (Freelance journalist based in Cambodia, but yearning for a return to the sandy beaches of Busan.)
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
Now more than ever, the taste of home is something we all need – wherever in the world many of us ended up – and it’s sad to see COVID-19 claim another of the greats as The First Alleyway’s doors finally closed earlier this year. I’ve shared too many shaking and rollicking hangovers with far too many fine folks in that illustrious establishment, and the loss is a loss for all who ever slurped the last flecks of tobacco out of its cocktail glasses while trying to pretend that Sunday afternoons could last forever, but as The First Alleyway’s closure has demonstrated in crushing and certain terms – nothing gold can stay and no brunch is truly bottomless.
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22 People in the Arts
Media Art: A Universal Language
Spoken by Artist Park Sang-hwa By Kang Jennis Hyun-suk
FEATURE
G
wangju, the City of Light, has yet another name: Creative City of Media Arts. The city has been given this designation by UNESCO because there are so many media artists in the city pioneering this new field of art. In 2014, UNESCO selected Gwangju as a “creative city” for media art. The UNESCO Media Arts Creative City Gwangju Platform operates hologram theaters and media art archives, and also operates new media experience projects such as augmented reality (AR) for young audiences.
Curiosity had me going to a dictionary to understand media art better. It said that media is a means of exchanging opinions, feelings, or information in society. However, people today have been moving away from mass media that provides one-way information, and are creating a renaissance era of personal media without borders and time constraints through blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and other digital media. In today’s world of social media, anyone can be a producer of contents and at the same time be a consumer. Now the young people want to be influencers through social media more than any other profession. COMBINING MEDIA AND ART What will art look like in the generation of digital natives? These art connoisseurs might just step into artworks and enjoy art by being part of it. Metaverse is a combination
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October 2021
Nevertheless, numerous people around me have never heard of media art, or they do not know exactly what media art is. The birth of this new art form called “media art” seems to be confusing not only to traditional artists but also to people interested in arts. You have probably seen screens with paintings moving in them in government offices or in museums. And whoever passes through the main expressway tollgate to enter Gwangju cannot miss seeing the media artwork of Lee Lee Nam, the “Light of
Mudeung,” towering over the tollgate. We are living in the world of media art without even realizing it.
“Mudeung Fantasia 2020” by Park Sang-hwa.
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23 of meta, meaning “virtual, transcendent,” and a syllable of universe. In a virtual space called “metaverse,” we play games, buy and sell things, feel the speed of people walking, and see paintings in art museums. Like in the movie The Matrix, the virtual world is rapidly flowing into our daily lives. It seems to be a very distant future story, but some artists have already been doing such experimental artwork for decades. The Gwangju Museum of Art is holding a media art exhibition entitled “Meta Garden.” There, I was walking through a virtual garden next to a stream, and I sat on a cube-shaped chair, looking up at the cube-shaped clouds and sky, listening to songbirds. I was amazed by the fact that this virtual nature was unfamiliar to me, but I could feel comfort in it. It made me want to learn more about the world of media art. MEDIA ARTIST, PARK SANG-HWA For this article, I interviewed one of the first-generation media artists who has long pioneered the path for media art. I visited the studio of artist Park Sang-hwa. He kindly explained what media art is by showing me the video portfolio that he has long been working on. Here is that interview. ▲ Artist Park Sang-hwa.
Jennis: Thank you for your time, Mr. Park. I am a bit unfamiliar with media art, but I want to learn a lot from you. When and how did you get involved in media art?
Park Sang-hwa: I originally majored in sculpture in college. Sculpture is a genre that has curiosity in its methods of expression. We think not only about the materials, like metal, stone, and wood, but also about three-dimensional space when we work. It was very interesting for me to see graphic programs using computers, as was the trend at that time. I thought I could do a variety of visual experiments. So, I started exploring new media by creating works one by one. Jennis: You said you were trying to change the method of creating artworks by using computers, so when did you start work in media art in earnest? Park Sang-hwa: The first Gwangju Biennale was held in 1995. One of the main artists was Nam June Paik. He invited media artists from all over the world to come and hold a special exhibition. The title of the special exhibition was “Info Art,” and video artist Nam June Paik thought that anyone should be able to enjoy the arts – the most common medium in use by the public was the TV back then. It was shocking to me to see that things I had only imagined had already been created and displayed by world-class artists. That is when I started working in media art. Jennis: Long ago, I saw a piece by Nam June Paik at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Gwacheon. It was a huge tower of monitors entitled “DaDaIkSeon” (다다익선), “The more, the better.” I was surprised at his use of the TV as a communicative medium for people all over the world. His experimental work “Good Morning, Mr. Orwell” was made in 1984. That time was so early for the popularization of the use of the computer as a communicative tool. I think Nam June Paik had looked far into the future.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2021
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▲ “Mudeung Fantasia Performance 2020” by Park Sang-hwa.
And you said that you started working in media art just after the first Gwangju Biennale. Then you have been doing media art for almost 30 years! You must have had a lot of difficulties as a pioneer starting out on barren land in the field of media art. Park Sang-hwa: Media art requires a lot of technology, and it was very difficult to obtain equipment and learn technology because it was a time when computer technology was not as advanced as it is now. So, the speed of work was very slow.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2021
Jennis: When was your first exhibition of media art? Park Sang-hwa: After a long period of preparation, my first media art exhibition was held in 1998, and the works in it had been produced over a number of years. But I had not turned completely into a media artist because I still used elements that I had learned as a sculptor. For example, I made my apartment as a sculpture and showed what was inside the windows using media art. To capture something between the spaces and to create interest in the substantive features are the characteristics of sculptors, I think. Jennis: Do you make sketches and take photographs for creating your artwork? Or do you work with graphic design? I am curious about the process. Park Sang-hwa: Most of the photos, videos, and sounds used in my works are taken, collected, and reprocessed myself. I usually observe my daily life and the nature
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surrounding me. Using computer graphic technology, I work on artistic imagination from my experience with the comforting and healing moments in my life. Jennis: You have said that you sometimes work with a team named “Bibimbap.” I wonder how the team was organized. Park Sang-hwa: Bibimbap was formed in 2011. The team members are from different generations, and majored in diverse fields: media art, computer engineering, literature, painting, dance, and music. We were a group with different cultural and social experiences, so we named ourselves “Bibimbap,” after the delicious Korean food with all those healthy ingredients mixed together. The Bibimbap team attempted the aesthetics of convergence through artwork we called “Mudeung Do-won-gyeong,” which was based on Mudeung Mountain in Gwangju. Jennis: “Mudeung Dowon” – that’s quite interesting. It sounds quite similar to the ancient Chinese fable Mureung Dowon, which refers to an eternal paradise full of peach blossoms. So, you found Shangri-la in Mt. Mudeung. Perhaps that is why it was so fantastic to see fluttering petals in your work. What other attempts did you make in your early media artwork? Park Sang-hwa: As I told you, my major was sculpture, so I tried to harmonize media art with sculpture. I wanted to express the value of life and the image of a self-portrait through video installed in sculpture. In 2000, I had an exhibition of 100 bags of rice piled up in a cubic shape,
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25 with some monitors between the rice bags. Playing on the monitors was the food-eating show Mukbang, in which they were eating hamburgers, pizza, chicken, and snacks. The title of the work was “Geurim-ui tteok” (그림의 떡, lit., rice cake in a picture), the idiom for something you want but cannot have. And a video of a hungry child was shown on a monitor hanging from the ceiling. I wanted to express the reality that there are people who are still hungry in the midst of a global wealth imbalance, and that at the same time, there are others who are worried about obesity due to overeating. Jennis: You said that you usually observe daily life and your natural surroundings, and then incorporate them into your works. So, an example of this would be your apartment and the kitchen table, correct? Park Sang-hwa: Yes. In the Apartment series, the table scene shows spoons and chopsticks flowing down below the table, similar to the Salvador Dali painting. I think the advantage of media art is that it can express successive moments, which is difficult to express in paintings. We live a repetitive life without any feelings of doubt about the real world surrounding us. I sometimes wanted to see myself from a distance and express what I feel in my imagination. Jennis: Do you have any plans for future exhibitions? Park Sang-hwa: I am presently exhibiting in the Jeonnam International Sumuk Biennale (수묵 비엔날레), which is being held until the last day of October. The 2021
International Ink Biennale will be held at Mokpo’s Culture and Arts Center, at Jindo’s Ullim-sanbang, in Gwangju, and in many cities in Jeollanam-do. I am exhibiting under the theme “Sumuk Without Ink, Sumuk Is Everywhere.” Traditional ink painting has begun accepting media art as a modern medium for the genre. Due to the coronavirus, the number of visitors at any one time is limited, so it is best to book online in advance. Jennis: Well, congratulations on your ongoing work. I am interested in seeing how traditional ink painting, sumuk, can be expressed as modern media art. Thank you so much for your time. AFTER THE INTERVIEW... While covering and studying this relatively new field of art, I thought about the differences between technology and art. Art is concerned not only with the enjoyment of novelty but also with giving reason and emotion to humans. So, it occurred to me that media artists may be the key to opening up our private spaces, our personal matrixes. Photographs courtesy of Park Sang-hwa.
The Interviewer
Kang Jennis Hyunsuk is a freelance interpreter who loves to read books and grow greens. She has lived in Gwangju all her life and is certainly a lover of the City of Light.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
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October 2021
▲ “Inner Dream 2019” by Park Sang-hwa.
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26 Blast from the Past
The Heavens Open Korea Is Created
E
very society has its own myths explaining how things came about in ancient times before research and studies could provide answers. Some myths are credited as the origin of many societal norms, and others serve as a moral compass to help guide people along the path of life. For Korea, Dangun (단군), “Korea’s founding king,” serves as the most famous creation myth. Exploring this story can shed some light on a few modern-day practices and beliefs in Korea.
become human. They prayed every day at the sandalwood tree for the gods to grant them that wish. Having magic powers, Hwan-ung granted them the chance to become human if they could pass a special test of will. The tiger and bear were ordered to remain in a cave and out of the sunlight for 100 days. They were given only a bundle of mugwort and 20 bulbs of garlic to eat during this time. If they could endure this challenge, they would magically become transformed into humans.
As the story goes, there was once a heavenly king, Hwanin (환인), who had a young prince, Hwan-ung (환웅). This heavenly prince asked his father for permission to descend to Earth to live and rule over a beautiful part of the world, which is modern-day Korea. The king agreed and sent his son with three heavenly seals or treasures and 3,000 followers earthward. Hwan-ung arrived at the foot of a sacred sandalwood tree, located in the vicinity of Baekdu Mountain (also referred to as “Taebaek Mountain” in present-day North Korea), where he established his new sacred city, Asadal (아사달).
The tiger could not stand the torturous ordeal and fled the cave after only a short time. But the bear remained, and after only 21 days, the animal was granted its wish: The bear was transformed into a beautiful woman and given the name Ung-nyeo (웅녀). After some time, this woman became sad that she was alone, so she prayed at the sandalwood tree again. This time, she prayed for a baby to nurture. The prince saw her sadness and decided to make her his wife and give her the son she so desired. She finally bore a son who was named “Dangun, the Sandalwood King,” and he would become the first human king of the new nation of Korea – Go-Joseon (고조선), over which he reigned for about 1,200 years.
Hwan-ung enlisted the spirits of Wind, Rain, and Clouds to be his ministers to carry out his vision. He then created a government of 360 departments to manage laws and codes. These departments handled matters of life and death, sickness and medicine, good and evil, hunting and fishing, agriculture, and other affairs.
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October 2021
blast from the past
Every year, October 3 is a national holiday, Gaecheon-jeol (개천절, 開天節), often rendered as “Korea Foundation Day” in English but literally means “opening of heavens celebration.” Six years ago, Stephen Redeker provided the Gwangju News with a two-part article about the story of the creation of Korea and his interpretation of the story’s meaning (“Korea’s Creation Myth: What Can We Learn? Parts I & II,” September and October 2015). The creation took place, according to legend, in 2333 B.C., making this year 4354 by the Dangun calendar. — Ed.
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Then, a bear and a tiger get involved in the heavenly prince’s plans. These two animals wanted so much to
As mentioned earlier, exploring this story of Korea’s creation can shed some light on a few modern-day practices and beliefs in Korea. Keep in mind that many parts of the story can be interpreted in a number of ways. Why did the Heavenly Prince, Hwan-ung, choose to settle in this area of the world? Koreans are very proud of their country’s beauty, so it would make perfect sense for this Heavenly Prince to decide to rule over that particular piece of land when he could have chosen to be anywhere in the world. The ministers of Wind, Rain, and Clouds, who aided Hwan-ung in setting up his kingdom, certainly can account for the weather conditions common to the area.
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27 Having a special department for hunting, fishing, and agriculture can symbolize the food staples rice, fish, and meat needed for the early inhabitants to survive. Life, death, sickness, and health signify the life expectancy of the people and their reasons for mortality. Customs and morality could be dictated by those who were in charge of overseeing the good and evil aspects of life. As mentioned above, the tiger and bear can teach us lessons. If people pray, they are reverent and can withstand personal suffering, as the gods will act favorably upon them. The tiger gave up and ran, so it was not rewarded. Patience and persistence are good virtues.
▲ A Dangun rite held in Sunchang County, North Jeolla Province, 2007.
The food chosen for the tiger and bear has some significance as well. Mugwort is still prevalent today as an herb that is used to flavor rice cakes and soup. Koreans also heavily rely on garlic as a side dish and ingredient in numerous foods. Both of these plants have strong medicinal properties, so it is no wonder these particular plants were incorporated into Korea’s creation myth.
It was noted that many Asian nations have similar creation stories to the Dangun story. It is believed that Dangun’s reign began around 2333 B.C., coinciding with the reign of ancient China’s Emperor Yao. After ruling for 1,200 years, Dangun gave up the throne. When he died at age 1,908,
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There is also evidence that the term “dangun” (檀君, meaning “sandalwood ruler”) was an actual term used in Go-Joseon times as a title for governors of the districts within the kingdom. It is not difficult to believe that sandalwood would be the sacred tree incorporated into the legend, as sandalwood is very aromatic, retaining its fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the wood, and even today sandalwood is one of the most expensive woods in the world. Since the creation story emerged so long ago, it was first passed down by word of mouth. Details have surely changed over time and what lives on are the memorable and favorable parts of the story. Although it cannot be proven with factual evidence, Korea’s creation myth is fascinating in its details and helps us to understand a bit about cultural aspects of Korean life today. Photo Attribution: “Dangun Rite,” by Sunchang County, https:// www.flickr.com/photos/sunchang_photo/8079520746; CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Arranged by David Shaffer.
October 2021
Such myths have their variations, depending on the source from which they were gleaned. There is also much more to this story than what has been explored.
Go-Joseon, meaning “old Joseon,” is the first kingdom that there are written records of. It emerged in the northwestern part of present-day North Korea and the Liaodong Peninsula of present-day China somewhere around 2333 B.C. and lasted to 108 B.C. Throughout the centuries, it expanded south and, to a greater extent, to the north into China’s Liaoning Province area and beyond.
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The responsibilities of a woman of those times is depicted in the bear’s destiny. But it was not enough for Ungnyeo to become a beautiful woman, as she wanted to be married and have children. She was sad and prayed for happiness until the wish was granted. The birth of her son, Dangun, is recorded as the 2nd day of the 5th moon of the lunar calendar. The 3rd day of the 10th moon is the day traditionally cited as the date of Korea’s creation. This, too, is a lunar calendar date, but when the Republic of Korea began using the Gregorian calendar, after much consideration, it was decided that the significance of the 3rd day of the 10th month was so great that, instead of converting the date to its corresponding Gregorian calendar date, it would remain as the 3rd day of the Gregorian calendar’s 10th month. That is why we now observe Korea’s foundation day, Gaecheonjeol, on October 3.
he became a “mountain god,” which is an immortal spirit called San-shin (산신).
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October 2021
TRAVEL
28 Lost in Honam
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29
If You Build It, Will They Come?
Yonggwolsan’s New “Sky Road” By Isaiah Winters
▲ This page: The newly opened boardwalk in all its glory. ◀ Previous page: A lone ajeossi surveys his kingdom.
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In June, I made my dogged return to Yonggwolsan to not only walk its planks and scale its peak but to also camp overnight across the river. It was a glorious plan except for the fact that the damned thing still hadn’t been finished. By September it finally had, so I made my way there one more time for revenge’s sake. (In retrospect, all I had to
October 2021
Yonggwolsan (용궐산, 646 m.) and its boardwalk bandolier first came to my attention last January during a pleasant detour. I’d originally been on my way to do a
punishing weekday hike in the snow up Baengnyeonsan (백련산, 759 m.) until I spotted a row of wooden planks along a cliff face. Curious, I stopped the car and made my way up to the trailhead but was quickly deterred by caution tape and the sound of drilling. I vowed to satisfy my curiosity another day and continued on to my intended hike, which was predictably cold, lonely, and miserable – just the way we Winters like it.
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A
cliffside boardwalk I’ve long had my eye on has finally opened just northeast of Sunchang, Jeollabuk-do. Located alongside the bulging rockface of Yonggwolsan, the new “Sky Road” (하늘길) zigzags for long stretches up the mountainside, offering unparalleled views of the Seomjin River valley below. It’s the latest manifestation of the region’s push to develop the local tourism industry, for better and for worse. This month, in a stark deviation from this column’s usual themes, I’ll try my hand at the topics of hiking and tourism gimmickry.
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30
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October 2021
do was find the opening date online, but that requires foresight I don’t have when it comes to spontaneous road trips.) The third time was a charm, and the boardwalk, though still under construction in some areas, was entirely open to the public. To the deafening tune of generators, drills, and squawking birds, my ascent to and up the boardwalk didn’t take more than 30–40 minutes, picture breaks included. Along the way, the river valley views were predictably excellent; however, the boardwalk and rockface themselves weren’t much to look at, though at one point I was pleasantly surprised by the biggest mushroom I’ve ever seen – about the size of a pizza from The First Alleyway. With so few visitors, quite a lot of hikers shirked the mask mandate, while the construction crew disregarded any semblance of hygiene theater all together. Hiking with a mask is admittedly terrible, but as a foreigner, the added scrutiny is always palpable, so I’m sure to have mine on whenever I spot anyone regardless of distance.
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The hike up the rest of Yonggwolsan is similarly glorious once you get beyond the boardwalk. From there, the mountain’s original trail quickly asserts itself. Punctuating its long, tree-lined dirt paths are sudden rocky outcrops fastened with knotted ropes for you to hoist yourself up with. In addition to an abundance of fungi, smatterings of old, weather-beaten masks can be found here and there, with some ground into the dirt and others dangling from low branches. At the summit is a large, raised platform with benches and a stunning view to the west. I lucked out and got the whole thing to myself for a good 20 minutes following my 1.5-hour ascent. Now, why such an impressive mountain needed a boardwalk in the first place is beyond me, which goes the same for so many other overdeveloped natural wonders around Honam (and Korea generally). Given this mountain’s isolation within one of the least densely populated provinces in the country, the attempt to put a there there is quite blatant. In fact, there isn’t even a paved,
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31 two-way road to and from the new boardwalk yet – just a long, single-lane strip of uneven concrete. Cars have to squeeze by each other whenever the shoulder allows it, and when there’s no shoulder, drivers have an awkward stare-off to see who should back up to the nearest one. As hastily thought-out as these tourist gimmicks may seem, they at least tend to develop in clusters. In the case of Honam’s newest boardwalk, it’s linked to a well-situated campsite directly across the river via a winding rock path that offers beautiful, glassy reflections at sunset. The campsite has great facilities with a much better road in and out, and the best part during our stay was that we were the only campers there because the area just isn’t that well known. If you plan to camp there, be sure to bring enough bungee cords, as it’s a platform campsite – meaning there’s no ground to hammer stakes into. All in all, Yonggwolsan’s superb campsite, river, boardwalk, and peak are enough to keep people like me returning a few times a year, but whether this “if you build it, they will come” tourism strategy works
is to be determined. I’ve nevertheless got to hand it to the planners in Sunchang-gun for drumming up tourism in this way and hope they see a good return on their investment. That county’s new suspension bridge at nearby Chaegyesan is another example of this rural build-and-see strategy, though the bridge’s planning involved far superior placement, promotion, and infrastructure. It’s definitely a fun stop-off point along Highway 12 that leads to, well, getting back in the car and returning home. Now that the new but poorly accessible “Sky Road” is similarly built, will anyone even bother to come? Photographs by Isaiah Winters.
The Author
Born and raised in the shadow of an infamous Californian prison, Isaiah Winters is a pixel-stained wretch who loves writing about Gwangju and Honam, warts and all. When he’s not working or copyediting, he’s usually driving through the countryside on his way to good beaches or mountains. You can find more of his photography on @d.p.r.kwangju.
◀ Morning view from the platform campsite across the river from Yonggwolsan. ▼ Picturesque cliffside trees are common at Yonggwolsan.
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October 2021
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32 Language Teaching
Understanding the EFL Teacher An Inter view with Ian Moodie
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October 2021
TEACHING & LEARNING
Teacher, Researcher, Fisherman
If you live in the Mokpo area, go to ELT conferences, or look through language teaching journals, you are familiar with Ian Moodie. Ian is a tenure-track associate professor in the Department of English Education at Mokpo National University, where he teaches linguistics and English education courses to local preservice teachers. Although he is originally from Canada, he has a PhD in linguistics from the University of Otago in New Zealand and an MA in applied linguistics from the University of New England in Australia. He is also a lifetime member of Korea TESOL. In this interview, we discuss some of his recent research on English teachers in Korea, about teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) here, and a bit on the fishing connection. — Ed.
I
nterviewer: Thank you, Dr. Moodie, for taking the time for this interview. Your research has always been of interest to me, so I have quite a number of questions to ask. Shall we get started? It seems to me that a substantial majority of English language teaching (ELT) research is student-focused: efficacy of teaching methods and techniques, learning strategies, etc. But most of your research is ELT teacher-focused. What piqued your interest in this area?
but I suppose the key finding was demonstrating how elementary school teachers’ commitment to teaching English is regulated by the teacher rotation system. With this system, teachers switch grades and schools with some regularity, and it has led to a situation where teachers generally only teach English for a short time, say, a year or two, and then return to homeroom teaching. The biggest drawback of this system is that it has really inhibited the development of ELT expertise in Korean elementary schools.
Ian Moodie: Good question. Looking back, before I got into doing research, I had taught English in Korea for many years. When I started, I was just thrown into a classroom. Despite my best efforts, I soon noticed how ineffective I was, so I spent a lot of time studying how to teach on my own over the years. I suppose that is the root of my interest in the type of research that I have done with English teachers in Korea, whether it be with local teachers or expat teachers.
Interviewer: Many EFL programs in Korea that include native English-speaking teachers (NESTs), such as the EPIK program, are designed to employ co-teaching with a Korean counterpart. Why is it that such co-teaching does not seem to work out very well?
Interviewer: Some of your research has been devoted to commitments and motivations for teaching English in Korea. What have you found? Is there much variation among teachers? Ian Moodie: Yes, for example, I have done a couple studies in this area with local elementary school teachers. What I have found is that people want to teach English for many reasons, and, yes, sure, there is variation among teachers,
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Ian Moodie: This one would take a long time to answer sufficiently, and each participant in these programs might have a slightly different view, but overall, I would say that there are structural problems with how the programs are implemented that make authentic co-teaching pretty challenging to pull off. For instance, there is a big gap in the power/authority and qualifications between the local teachers and expat teachers, which presents a barrier to collaboration. Communication is also often an issue, and the textbooks and curriculum are not necessarily designed with co-teaching in mind. I could go on and on, but I want to flip this question and talk about what is good. It is pretty clear that these programs are popular with students, and in Jeonnam in particular, these programs provide the opportunity for many local children to interact with someone from another country for the first time. That can be a transformative
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33
▲ Ian (front) with his RSM Fishing Club.
experience. It can be quite motivating for students to take up English. So, to anyone working as a co-teacher or TaLK scholar, I suggest that they consider even the little things, like greeting the students in the hallway, talking to them on the playground after school, getting to know their names; those are important parts of these programs, too, insofar as creating a positive experience for students and stimulating or sustaining a motivation to learn English. Interviewer: The current National Curriculum for teaching English in Korea, and earlier ones as well, states that communicative language teaching (CLT) and teaching English through English (TETE) shall be instituted in classes, but especially at the high school level, this does not appear to be the case. How do teachers feel about this?
Ian Moodie: Sure. Yeah, in my view, this is the overarching problem for English education in Korea. Many of the other problems stem from how testing is done (avoiding CLT, inauthentic co-teaching, using Korean as the language
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Ian Moodie: Oh, yes, this is one of the things I am looking at now. I am doing some survey research with expat English teachers, many of whom are in Jeonnam, which is looking at the relationships between different factors of occupational commitment with well-being and turnover intentions – that is, people’s intentions to quit their job and/or quit teaching English altogether. Although the results are preliminary, one thing that I have found so far is that, I suppose unsurprisingly, there appears to be a relatively strong relationship between well-being and
October 2021
Interviewer: That brings me to another question. One of the issues that concerns you is what you call “the hard problem” for Korean ELT (i.e., “finding solutions to the tremendous negative washback caused by language testing in Korea”). Could you expound on this for us?
Interviewer: I believe you are doing some research on language teacher well-being and commitment in ELT. What is your research showing? I would be interested to know if you have done any research in this area that has been pandemic-related.
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Ian Moodie: Well, I would say that most local teachers feel ambivalent about this. On the one hand, many teachers know it is what is asked of them to do and that CLT and TETE are nice concepts in theory, but the status quo tends to win out. CLT was never really given a proper chance here. Although the curriculum recommends it, the materials are not amenable to it, and the extreme focus on testing is not ideal for student-centered, collaborative classrooms.
of instruction, etc.). The suneung (college entrance exam) is the biggest culprit. The English portion mainly tests for decontextualized knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, and it is designed so that students can cram for it and actually get high marks on it without having much functional proficiency at all. It is pretty shocking to me that, even after more than two decades with the new curriculum, so many college students cannot even do a basic greeting exchange or negotiate meaning in English. (But I digress.) So, the suneung is the biggest problem, but testing is also a big problem for local teacher education. To become a full-time public school teacher, applicants need to pass an extremely difficult and extremely competitive employment exam. Because of this, potential teachers have no choice but to intensively study academic terminology. Often people spend three years after graduation studying for the exam. However, learning to teach is a practical endeavor, requiring lots of classroom experience, ideally with feedback from an informed expert. Yet, the practicum for secondary school teachers is only four weeks, and shockingly some candidates get almost no opportunities to teach during that time. Thus, if candidates are lucky enough to succeed on the employment exam, to no fault of their own, nearly all of them lack the sufficient teaching experience to bring the curriculum to life in the classroom. Because of this, the first year or more tends to be a struggle, and the more idealistic elements of the curriculum tend to fall by the wayside.
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34 turnover intention. Not surprising, right? People who are not feeling valued at work are looking for work elsewhere. And, to address the last part of your question, the timeline for data collection for the study is during the pandemic, so there are likely some particular factors related to that to tease out. Anyway, I have been invited to submit this study to a journal next year, so I have some time to figure it out. Probably some of your readers have already participated. However, if anyone reading this interview is an expat teaching English in Korea, whether it be in a private academy, school, university, or elsewhere, I would like to warmly welcome them to join this study. To participate, all one needs to do is fill out an online survey. It would be quite helpful to have a few more respondents!
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October 2021
Interviewer: We can place the survey link at the end of the interview. You have also stated that research itself is a prominent issue in Korea, that incentives are not sufficient for publishing high-quality research in Korea. Has that situation improved much in recent years? Ian Moodie: Yeah, I did state this. It was part of the conclusion to a research survey study that I did with a colleague, Hyunjung Nam, from Dong-A University in Busan. It is hard to say if it is improved or not. On the one hand, most universities provide extra incentives to publish in international journals. Also, the local journals are quite thoroughly evaluated on a regular basis and need to meet certain benchmarks to stay certified. The problem is that there are just so many local journals that most research barely gets read. For instance, if I recall correctly, there were about 60 journals publishing ELT research in Korea, and we skimmed through about 1,200 studies on ELT that were published over a five-year period. To me, I think the most straightforward way to make all of this research more accessible would be for editors to call for more research surveys to be done in Korea. There is also potential for a journal dedicated to research reviews, I think, kind of like what Language Teaching does internationally. To me, that would be the best way to make sure that what is being done has a better potential to contribute to the knowledge base of ELT scholarship. Interviewer: A journal dedicated to Korean research reviews – that is a great idea! Lastly, I see that you have published a study in a medical journal about walking prescriptions for type 2 diabetes management. Can you tell us how that came about? It seems quite unusual for a linguist or education researcher to be involved in such a study. Ian Moodie: Oh, sure, that is an interesting story! Yes, this study was led by my close friend (and fishing companion), Andrew Reynolds, who is a medical researcher. His project
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was looking at the efficacy of a diabetes management protocol. While doing it, being a conscientious person, he was interested in looking at the human side of his participants’ involvement in the study. So, knowing that I had specialized in qualitative/narrative research, he asked me for some guidance in planning and designing this study, a study which looks at some of the factors that were helping or hindering the participants to maintain a regular exercise schedule. Yeah, so although I do not have any business giving medical advice whatsoever, it was an honor to be able to help my friend with the qualitative side of his project, and he was nice enough to credit my work with co-authorship. Interestingly, since that time, he has also helped me with some of my statistical work, as has another good friend and fishing mate, Rens Meerhoff, who generated simulated data and did statistical testing for a study that was exploring the relationship between workplace commitment and student learning with expat English teachers in Korea. It is pretty cool that friendship and a mutual love of fishing eventually led to collaborating on research in pretty diverse fields. The next step, though, is to find a study that our whole fishing crew can participate in (shoutout to Joe Russell and Luciano Rigano!). That will be quite a challenge, as it would need to integrate applied linguistics, human health, physiology, plant microbiology, and elevator engineering somehow. Who knows? Maybe someday we can pull it off! Interviewer: And maybe it could include some marine biology! [chuckle, chuckle] Well, thank you for your insights. Good luck with your future research, and good luck with your fishing excursions, too! Interviewed by David Shaffer, vice-president of Gwangju-Jeonnam KOTESOL and editor-in-chief of the Gwangju News. Photographs courtesy of Ian Moodie.
Link to Ian’s ongoing survey: https://bit.ly/3lsE5kD Link to Ian’s Google Scholar page: https://bit.ly/3lrsrXf GWANGJU-JEONNAM KOTESOL UPCOMING EVENTS Check the Chapter’s webpages and Facebook group periodically for updates on chapter events and online activities. For full event details: Website: http://koreatesol.org/gwangju Facebook: Gwangju-Jeonnam KOTESOL
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35
Everyday Korean By Harsh Kumar Mishra
Episode 46
라면이나 먹을까요?
Shall We Eat Ramen or Something? Grammar Points
니샤:
누나, 배 안 고파요? 라면이나 먹을까요?
Nisha:
Nuna, aren’t you hungry? Shall we eat ramen or something?
Noun + 나/이나:
정민:
응 라면 좋아! 니샤는 라면을 끓일 줄 알아?
Jeongmin: Yes, ramen sounds good! Do you know how to make ramen?
니샤:
네, 아주 잘 알아요. 자주 끓여 먹어요.
Nisha:
Yes, I know how to do it very well. I make it often.
정민:
아 진짜? 라면 좋아하는구나.
Jeongmin: Oh, really? You must love ramen!
니샤:
네, 어제는 세 그릇이나 먹었어요.
Nisha:
Yeah, I ate three bowls yesterday.
정민:
나도 라면 좋아해서 외국에 출장 가면 많이 싸 가.
Jeongmin: I like ramen, too, so when I go on business trips abroad, I pack lots of it.
니샤:
(웃으면서) 그래서 우리 친구네요.
Nisha:
(Laughing) That’s why we’re friends!
배 고프다 끓이다 그릇 외국 출장을 가다 싸다
to be hungry to boil (or make something by boiling it) bowl foreign country to go on a business trip to pack
볶다 튀기다 찌다
to stir-fry to deep-fry to steam
Harsh Kumar Mishra is a linguist pursuing his PhD in Korean linguistics at Chonnam National University. He is also a freelance Korean translator/ interpreter, content creator for TopikGuide.com, and does online Korean teaching through the same organization.
October 2021
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to cook to make to simmer to roast
3) When used with numerical expressions, this grammar point expresses the extent of something to that point. In English, this point is made by adding more emphasis on the numerical unit. Ex: 커피 다섯 잔이나 마셨어요. I had five cups of coffee. 한국에 온 지 7년이나 지났어요. It’s been seven years since I came to Korea.
The Author
Cooking Expressions 요리하다 만들다 삶다 굽다
2) Another use of this expression is to choose between things, where it has a meaning similar to “or.” Ex: 유럽이나 미국으로 여행 가고 싶어요. I want to travel to Europe or the U.S. 사과나 배를 먹고 싶어요 I want to eat an apple or a pear.
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Vocabulary Items
1) Use this attachment with nouns to express that the noun is not the best option per se, but rather one of a few choices. In English, you can relate this to “or something.” If the noun ends in vowel, attach ‘~ 나’, and if it ends in a consonant, attach ‘~이나’. For example: Ex: 저녁에 영화나 볼까요? Shall we watch movie or something in the evening? 와인이나 마시자. Let’s drink wine or something.
TEACHING & LEARNING
The Conversation
2021-09-28 �� 11:20:24
COMMUNITY
36 Restaurant Review
Burger Bridge
Meanest Burger in Gwangju By William Urbanski
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2021
I
have eaten well over 2,000 burgers in my life. Not all at once (unfortunately), but given the fact that between one and three burgers per week for the last thirty-odd years have found their way down my gullet, it is safe to say that I know a thing or two about the subject. When I talk at length about my passion for burgers, those who do not instantly turn their heads in disgust share my deep appreciation for the beautiful simplicity of a well-grilled patty or two between a soft, delectable bun. Second only to its Italian cousin pizza, the burger stands proudly near the top of the food pyramid thanks to its sheer boldness and deliciousness. Without getting into a detailed history of Gwangju’s premium patty purveyors, on occasion these businesses tragically shutter their doors, each time leaving my heart in a million pieces. Classic joints such as Dongmyeong Burger and the legendary First Alleyway have etched their names into the collective Gwangju psyche for all of eternity, but the void they have left, this burger power vacuum if you will, has been filled by a player who at the time of this article, serves up the best grilled cow in the
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city. You read that right: There’s a new burger sheriff in town and its name is Burger Bridge. Located in Dongmyeong-dong, the first thing that stands out about the building’s façade is that it looks like a burger joint. When you walk in, you will notice that it feels like a burger joint. The decorum is simple, and the walls are filled with autographed pictures of celebrities who came to feast. The kitchen concept is open, and it is easy to see the grill in action. In terms of overall atmosphere, Burger Bridge is definitely a few rungs above the run-of-the-mill fast food place while still being completely unpretentious: just as a burger restaurant should be. Something else I personally really like is the speed of service: It usually takes less than ten minutes from the time of ordering until you can start cramming food in your face. Burger Bridge does not just make burgers: It provides a consistent burger experience exactly the way it should be. At Burger Bridge, you can go in, grab a mean burger, and go about your day, sated, without having to deal with any sort of nonsense or rigamarole.
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37 DAS MENÜ While doing extensive burger research for this burger article, I realized there is no shortage of culinary nerds with strong opinions about “fat to beef ratio,” “grass-fed beef,” “mise en place,” “double-ground chuck,” “moist bread with nutty nuances,” “meat profile,” “chuck from a well-marbled steer,” and even something called “Brioche buns.” I have no idea nor do I care what any of these terms mean, but what all these gastronomy geeks forget with all their tech talk is that burgers should be extremely simple: You get a piece of meat, shape it into a circle, and grill it. Then you put it on a bun. “Organic” (whatever that means nowadays) or otherwise fancy toppings have no business touching a burger patty. Furthermore, I am going to just come right out and say it: Burgers are supposed to be a little unhealthy, not unlike an ice cream cone. To summarize, a burger is not just a food: It is an attitude – a smug and outright rejection of nutritionally restrictive societal norms.
on one or two of the burgers, but if you ever find that you are not completely satisfied with a burger, the solution to this problem is to just try the rest of them! Each and every burger there is handmade and seriously delicious, embodying a special place on the burger spectrum. A combo is in the ten-thousand-won range and comes with pop and a very decent-sized helping of fries that burst with flavor in plentiful abundance. While I do not hold a PhD in advanced burgernomics (yet), it is a matter of scientific and statistical certainty to say that based on every relevant metric, Burger Bridge should be your first choice when you have a hankering for a nononsense burger. While I love Korean food, a nice, juicy burger seems to be a quick remedy for the occasional bout of homesickness and the important role it plays in my life cannot be overstated. For far too long, “burgers” in Korea were a tragic parody of what a true burger is. That being said, Burger Bridge is a clear sign that the future is bright and there are businesses that can put together a world-class steamed ham. In conclusion, Bridge Burger should be the first stop on the way to living your level-ten burger life. Photographs by William Urbanski. BURGER BRIDGE Address: 177 Donggyecheon-ro, (Dongmyeong-dong), Dong-gu, Gwangju 광주 동구 동계천로 177 (동명동) @burger.bridge
The Author
William Urbanski is a burger aficionado and the managing editor of the Gwangju News. He can be found at @will_il_gatto
October 2021
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Now that we have clearly defined what a burger is and is not, it is time to get down to brass tacks: The three-patty Tower Bridge Burger (타워브릿지버거) is the meanest and best burger in Gwangju, end of story. This bad boy is so big that it had me cursing my lack of cranial kinesis. This burger is so big there is still snow on it in the summer. This burger is so big it plays golf with Donald Trump. It is not a stretch to say that to prepare the Tower Bridge Burger, the cooks at Burger Bridge feed it smaller, weaker burgers. With respect to the rest of the menu, I am happy to report it is solid. There are roughly ten other burgers such as the American Bacon Cheese Burger (아메리칸베이컨치즈) as well as the Bridge Big Burger (브릿지BIG버거), which has two hugely satisfying patties. I have heard some talk about people not being crazy about the sauce
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38 Opinion
School Bullying in South Korea By Yurok Han and Hyeonwoo Park
COMMUNITY
S
outh Korea’s economic and technological growth greatly aided the field of education. There is a great variety of benefits such as increased funding, interactive classrooms, and native teachers recruited from abroad, yet schools still struggle with the same challenges as in the past. We are adamant that readers have seen numerous cases of school bullying while watching the news or surfing the web. There were several cases which shocked both local and international communities. As a parent, friend, or student, you might feel indignant, frustrated, scared, or hurt when viewing such stories. Parents send their kids to school hoping that their children will study in a safe space surrounded by friendly classmates and motivating teachers.
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October 2021
We believe one of the most fundamental problems is the fact that most people do not even know the accurate definition of bullying. A bully is someone who uses their strength or power to hurt or frighten other people. Thus, bullying can be diverse in its nature. To understand the scale of school bullying in South Korea, we would like to share some recent statistics. According to a survey by Blue Tree Foundation, since 2001, there have been 6,200 students who experienced bullying between the second and eleventh grades. Interestingly, the number of bullying incidents decreased in 2020 amid the COVID-19 wave. However, group ostracization grew as a result of increased internet usage, consequently leading to growth in cyberbullying. Once we had a look at the current state of affairs, we could not help but ask ourselves, “Why do people bully?” According to the field of psychology, bullying is a coping mechanism against stress or traumatic experience in the past. Traumatic experiences include the divorce of parents, the death of a relative, or the addition of new family members such as younger siblings or step parents. Kids who fail to positively respond to stress end up emotionally or physically hurting those around them. Now, adults, at
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least some of them, have knowledge and tools to channel their frustrations via meditation, exercise, or other such activities, while school children do not always know how to express themselves or ask for help. Also, children often do not know whether they are being bullied or feel ashamed to share their experience with adults, thinking that it will make the situation worse. Often some forms of bullying are presented as jokes, which makes it harder for students to speak out because they are under peer pressure. There are physical, verbal, social, and cyber forms of bullying. While the meanings of the first two will be clear to readers, we would like to shed a light on the last two types of bullying. Social bullying often happens behind the victim’s back. Actions that are intended to harm a victim’s reputation and social acceptance are considered to be examples of social bullying. Moreover, actions that cause humiliation to victims are included in social bullying. Cyberbullying is booming in South Korea nowadays. This is especially true since the outbreak of COVID-19, which pushed teenagers to engage in social media more than before. The reason why it is a perfect place for bullying is that internet users usually use nicknames. Therefore, it is easier to cause harm but remain behind the curtain unpunished. Although, it is possible to track down the IP of harmful users, it takes time. Harmful information such as insulting comments or photos and videos uploaded without the victims’ consent might spread through the web before being taken down. Initially, we thought that using real names might make people accountable for their actions because if their identities were known, they would think twice before writing some petty comments belittling people around them. However, this approach might cause more issues related to privacy. Another remedy we thought about were age limits preventing students at school from using social media, or stricter monitoring by social media companies, which would help to prohibit the posting of insulting comments. In the end, the only real solution is for everyone to think before they upload a message – unfortunately, most people do not.
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39 To solve these problems, the social response system to bullies should be improved and actively utilized. The first solution is to build a trusting connection between schools and children where students trust in the school system. Thus, they can ask for help from a teacher, a school counselor, or other authority figure. The second step is to make sure that the bullying incidents are thoroughly investigated, the bullies are punished, and the victims are treated and compensated if necessary. Last but not least is the need for assessment. Societal and educational institutions should provide therapy sessions not only to victims, but also to bullies, so that these kinds of incidents do not happen again. Of course, such solutions are always easier said than done. While researching, we came up with some saddening figures related to the social response system: — 24.3 percent of bullies were scolded by teachers. — 18.2 percent of bullies were scolded by parents. — Less than 21.5 percent of bullies got any punishment. Finally, the fact that the assailants can delete their school records of bullying two years after graduation causes a negative sentiment within society, in particular for victims of bullying and their families. To be exact, victims find it unfair that they are traumatized, often for a long period of time, and have to go through a lot of therapy in order to recover both emotionally and physically, while assailants can simply eliminate records of bullying after they leave school. This record elimination system is in place in order to prevent further stigmatization of assailants in attempts to save their reputation and preserve social acceptance. Although it is true that a “once a bully, always a bully” type
of thinking might somewhat make the lives of assailants difficult, it is also relevant that victims’ consent be required before deleting any records related to a bullying incident. Bullying is really dangerous, but not if our community is ready to fight against it. If our community punishes bullies more strongly and comforts the victims more kindly, bullying will decrease remarkably. There is no shame in sharing about bullying. Together we are stronger! Call 117 by telephone or ask for help from your SPO (School Police Officer), teacher, or school counselor if you or someone you know experiences bullying while in school. Let your parents or guardians know what you are going through.
The Authors
Yurok Han is a student of Seokwang Elementary School. He is a 10-year-old Korean. His favorite food is French fries and ice cream. He likes watching TV and baseball, but he does not like playing it. Yurok usually wears big round glasses. His favorite drink is soda. Hyeonwoo Park is a middle school student who likes to solve the Rubik’s cube. Also, he likes to sleep and enjoys watching action and fantasy movies, too. He does not like to read books, but fiction is an exception. He loves eating food, except for some kinds of seafood such as thornbacks. His favorite fruits are ripe persimmons.
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October 2021
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The Gwangju International Center (GIC) is a non-profit organization established in 1999 to promote cultural understanding and to build a better community among Koreans and international residents. By being a member, you can help support our mission and make things happen! Join us today and receive exciting benefits! • One-year free subscription and delivery of the Gwangju News magazine. • Free use of the GIC library. • Free interpretation and counseling services from the GIC. • Discounts on programs and events held by the GIC. • Up-to-date information on GIC events through our email newsletter.
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40 Environment
More Trees, Please!
CO2 and the Temperature By Chung Hyun-hwa
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2021
COMMUNITY
I
n times of climate crises, the removal of carbon is of great interest to a lot of scientists in the environmental technology field. Recently, I thought, “What if we built machines to remove carbon directly from the air?” Then, of course, I found that there are already such machines being developed. (You always get surprised once you realize you are not the only one thinking about certain things.) Scientists say the amount of carbon dioxide in the air was never higher than 300 ppm until the Industrial Revolution. Now it is about 400 ppm on average. In the history of Earth, the data show a direct proportional relation between carbon dioxide and temperature. Presently, the carbon dioxide level is much higher than at any other time in the past 800,000 years. Therefore, given trends in carbon dioxide production, the temperature is set to go up, logically speaking. Scientists have warned that without any intervention, by the year 2100, the temperature will go up by at least 5 degrees Celsius. There has been an agreement that a 1.5-degree rise (compared to before the Industrial Revolution) will be the tipping point that will lead us to an irreversible state. This year, we have reached 1.1 already. I am still hopeful there will be innovative technologies to help us control global warming before it is too late. THE MOST PROVEN CARBON-OFFSET METHOD To fight against the climate crisis we face, scientists in all different sectors are trying to find ways to help with carbon removal, including through direct carbon capture from the air, utilizing renewable energy sources, driving more hydrogen-powered electric vehicles, and cutting carbon in conventional economic sectors, to name a few. Although such things are being developed in haste, achieving each at a commercially viable level takes time, and even though I am looking on the bright side, waiting for the advent of new technologies seems daunting. Therefore, I have thought of ways to remove carbon dioxide that we could start right now and concluded that planting trees is the best. Planting trees is not high tech at all, so I have liked it from the outset. It can be done anytime and anywhere at comparatively low costs. It is also something we already know a lot about. To maximize storing carbon in trees,
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they should be alive. As soon as they are dead, or are cut down to be used, they start to release carbon and do so especially quickly when they are burnt. Living trees keep collecting carbon without any power supply needed. All they need are water and sunshine. KOREA’S TREE-PLANTING PLAN Korea declared this year that three billion trees would be planted by 2050 to offset carbon emissions, and three hundred million inefficient, old trees would be cut down selectively. The cut-down trees could be used as wood material or biomass fuel. This is supposed to have a 34-million-ton offset effect. Regarding the lumbering aspect, the Korea Forest Service says trees that are over 30 years old are not so efficient in capturing carbon, and that most of the trees in Korea were planted after the war, making many of them unsuitable to meet wood demands for buildings and furniture. However, environmental activists do not agree because there is evidence that old trees are still effective in removing and storing carbon due to their volume and the amount of carbon in the soil. They say that because it takes time to grow young trees, cutting down older trees may be too big a risk to take in the face of the urgent current climate crisis. These two perspectives are so controversial that there should be more thorough research done before taking any action because planting a forest is a huge project that takes over 20 years, at least. Forty percent of Korea’s forests are for lumber production, and it is true that we have a need for wood in our lives as an environment-friendly architectural resource, so cutting down inefficient trees may be a matter of timing and speed or amount. Tree policies are important because trees play a crucial role in carbon-related issues whether they are alive or cut. GWANGJU’S TREE-PLANTING PLAN To take part in Korea’s big planting project, Gwangju City announced in 2018 that 30 million trees would be planted in the city by 2027. Gwangju City emphasized the need for more trees in the city, citing research by the National Institute of Forest Science that found that one tree can release 150–300 ml of water into the air to draw down the temperature, and that the temperature of an urban forest is 3–7 degrees lower than its surroundings, creating much-
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41 needed air flow in the city that helps cool down urban surroundings. Gwangju plans to remove unnecessary walls that block this air flow and replace them with trees, to plant more trees along the streets, existing parks, and schools, and to place more planters throughout the city where land is not available. This year, there have been four places chosen for these wind-providing forests: Nokdong Station, Hyocheon-ro, Wangbeodel-ro, and Mujindae-ro. This part of the project is to be completed in 2022. Hopefully in a few years, we could find more green, shady areas in the city and feel the difference in the temperature and air quality.
to control the temperature in the city. Planting trees, in this sense, is a meaningful weapon. Power cables over the streets are obstacles, so we should try and find places that do not have them. I think we should pay attention to the Gwangju Stream and the Yeongsan River, which flow through and around the city – these areas have few power cables and a lot of room. If we created a thick forest along the stream and the river, this would become the lungs of the city to provide oxygen, and offset carbon and fine dust. Imagine people walking, running, or riding bikes in the shade of the trees while breathing in phytochemicals and oxygen from them.
WHAT WE CAN DO
WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO PLANT? Wise people say it was 20 years ago, and that the second best time is now. Korea’s Arbor Day is April 4, but now botanists say it should be moved to March because of global warming. Spring is a good time, but between late October and early November is a good time, too. Plants stop activities in the fall and get ready for winter by storing water in their roots rather than distributing it to upper portions. If you plant a tree in the fall, you will not have to give it water as often as if you plant in the spring. About a month’s time and some insulation before the temperature drops to below zero will prepare the trees for winter, and they will start sprouting right away when the spring comes. Trees planted in the spring need to settle before producing new leaf buds. So, how about we all plant one tree this fall? Trees are givers. They give you everything they have for their entire lives. They are also takers. They take heat and carbon, and maybe your heart, too. We need more tree allies. Join the parade.
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(재)국제기후환경센터. (2019, January 19). “적용가능한 온실가스 감축정책 연구보고서.” http://www.icecgj.or.kr/Board/kr/0203/ View/adfb3a7894da8432049cced463eb5f3c/Page/3 박수진. (2021, April 29). “고층 아파트로 막힌 광주 도심 숨통 틔운다.” https://www.jnilbo.com/view/media/ view?code=2021042916092718424 산림청. (2021, January 21). “2050년까지 30억 그루의 나무심어 탄소 3,400만톤 줄인다.” https://blog.daum.net/kfs4079/17215458 환경운동연합. (2021, July 21). “숲은 나무만 탄소를 저장하는 게 아니다.” https://blog.naver.com/kfemblog/222439259848 한국목재신문. (2021, June 15). “경제림 조성 시급한데 난데없는 벌채 논란.” https://post.naver.com/viewer/postView. naver?volumeNo=31749697&memberNo=37553359
The Author
Chung Hyun-hwa is from Gwangju and is currently leading Gwangju Hikers, an international eco-hike group at the GIC, while getting ready to teach the Korean language. Previously, she taught English in different settings, including Yantai American School and Yantai Korean School in China, and she has worked for the Jeju school administration at Branksome Hall Asia in recent years. She holds a master’s degree in TESOL from TCNJ in the U.S.
October 2021
I am also thinking of planting some fast-growing vines for a green curtain next year to provide shade for the house. Maybe a cucumber plant would be nice, although ivies need lower maintenance. If more buildings do this, it will help bring temperatures down across the city. Having some fresh cucumbers on the table would be a bonus, too. Right next to my house, there is a tall, fast-growing paulownia empress tree that is as high as my house this year, and thanks to it, I learned the power of tree shade over a room’s temperature. The increase in the temperature nowadays is becoming a hazard to financially vulnerable people who cannot afford a good cooling system. That is one more reason we should try
Resources
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While the city follows the above plan, we can plant something inside and outside our homes or on the rooftop. The roof should be checked for any leakage in advance, but once set, getting your leeks, peppers, and perilla leaves from your own rooftop or balcony is pretty cool. Rooftop plants also cool down the temperature of the building. I started putting plant boxes on the rooftop this year, but I admit it was not so easy in the beginning because the rooftop is very hot in the summer. You will have to choose the kind of plants that like hot temperatures. I found that green onions, peppers, and tomatoes are quite suitable for the rooftop (especially green onions, which can grow in shallow soil straight from storebought green onions with roots). Some people grow their own lettuce in DIY PET bottles or even horizontal or plastic bags on the balcony. Any produce grown this way is very organic and fulfilling.
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42 Photo Essay
CULTURE & ARTS
A Special Day
Ordination Ceremony of the Anglican Church of Korea By Kim Hillel Yunkyoung
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October 2021
s some of you might know, my formal job is working as a priest at an Anglican Church. My second job is as a photographer. If you ask me which is more valuable or more preferred, I could not choose one over the other. I will never drop either of them as long as I live. As a priest, it is always a privilege to be part of the ordination ceremony. During the ceremony, we priests all gather together and put our hands on each other’s shoulders as a symbol of unity. Therefore, if you are a priest, you would never want to miss out on participating in this part of the ordination. However, every time I participate in the ceremony, the photographer in me feels like something is missing: “It would be so much nicer for the one being ordained if I were able to take pictures of their most precious moment,” that photographer muses. Luckily, my diocese was recently in the process of renewing the diocesan website and needed some good photographs for its pages. Of course, there was one very eager photographer to take those pictures – me. I am so glad to be able to share with you these photographs of the ordination ceremony. I hope you all enjoy this rare event.
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The Photographer
Kim Hillel Yunkyoung is a priest in the Anglican Church and also a portrait photographer. More of his pictures can be found at @hillelkim.
Photo Descriptions This page: The burning of incense. Facing page: Top: The procession. Bottom: A prayer is offered as a single body, a community. Page 44 (clockwise from top left): Celebrating the Eucharist. The burning of incense. A chalice and paten are given, symbolizing priesthood. Page 45 (clockwise from top): The newly ordained deacon and priest. The first blessing is received. Prostration before the altar and the Cross of Jesus.
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46 Restoring the Past
Chapter 2. Floor Plans of Mass-Produced Hanok in Gwangju
I
n the first chapter, we briefly learned the background story behind the hanok houses that we can easily see in older neighborhoods of Gwangju. Those are massproduced hanok built to solve the city’s overpopulation during the 1960–70s by many different private developers. The hanok of that era have a lot of different influences from many different cultural backgrounds, like from China, Japan, and Western culture. After reading the last article, you might have had some interest in those hanok and maybe tried to look around older areas of Gwangju to see how they look. But a lot of hanok would probably be hidden under extension roofs or behind high walls, making it hard to find a house you can have access to. As a carpenter fixing such houses, I have gotten lots of chances to visit and see all their structures in various forms. Though many houses have been renovated over the decades, making it hard to see their original plans, I have found a few houses that have remained intact, and this has helped me find the pattern of structures and floorplans of mass-produced hanok. In this chapter, I would like to share some floorplan blueprints that I collected and talk
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October 2021
CULTURE & ARTS
By Kang Dong-su
▲ A house in Dongmyeong-dong with one additional living unit (Room 4). This room used to have its own door to the outside with a lot more windows and was used as a bed-cum-sitting room with a heated floor system.
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about how the floorplans of mass-produced hanok look, in addition to tracing the origin of their designs. SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT Compared to Seoul’s mass-produced hanok, patterns of Gwangju’s are quite simple. Long, rectangular shapes, or L-shaped floorplans, are the most common design. The general concept of this design derived from nobles’ and other rich people’s houses in the Honam area in the past. Especially common were the L-shaped hanok in which the extension was smaller than the main section. These were a particularly popular and commonly built model in Gwangju during the 1960–70s, as they were a symbol of a noble’s house. That special extension contained an area called numaru (누마루), which had been a place for enjoying poetry, calligraphy, painting, or inviting guests during the Joseon Dynasty. It usually is higher than other rooms and is open for better views of the landscape, featuring an open space with no doors or windows and a void space under the Koreanstyle wooden floor, much like a pavilion. It was essentially a hybrid of a house and a pavilion. This design slightly changed starting in the early 20th century, as homeowners started to use glass sliding doors to make that space a sitting room, decorating and furnishing it with Western furniture. But it was still only built for rich or high-ranking people who could afford such made-to-order luxury houses. As the region developed economically, this tradition lived on in Gwangju’s mass-produced urban hanok, and the extension became a bed-cum-sitting room, which still had a similar structure and more windows for better lighting but with a closed ceiling and heated floor system. Another change was that these spaces usually had built-in cabinets for displays or built-in closets depending on the main purpose of the room. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF DAECHEONG-MARU AND THE SURVIVAL OF TOEN-MARU One of the changes we can see from mass-produced hanok is the disappearance of daecheong-maru (대청마루). This
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47
▲ A house once in Gyerim-dong with an extra teon-maru on the living room side.
special space is usually in the center of the house with an open roof and a Korean-style wooden floor. It is sometimes built without any doors or sliding doors to close the area during winter. Private rooms are right next to this open hall on both sides. Mass-produced hanok in Seoul still kept this concept, as the general public thought of it as a symbol of proper hanok at that time.
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The Author
Kang Dong-su is a traditional Korean carpenter born in Gwangju in the year 1996. He started learning and archiving historical architecture in Gwangju at the age of 17. He is currently the representative of his company, Baemui, which researches and renovates homes and historical architecture in Gwangju and the Jeolla provinces. @baemui.naru
October 2021
AS MANY ROOMS AS POSSIBLE To attract buyers, developers focused on making hanok into multiplex housing so that owners could rent the vacant rooms to students from the countryside or other families living in Gwangju. Until the colonial period, tenants usually lived in a separate building that was linked to the front gate facing the road. This custom started to change
The owner’s side was mostly on the inside of the house, far from the main gate, and usually had a living room (the aforementioned nu-maru). In the middle rooms, depending on the size of the house, there was a singleroom accommodation or a two-room accommodation that had papered sliding doors in the middle as a partition. The single rooms were just for sleeping or private rooms for one person, and the two-room accommodation was made for couples or persons who needed one private room and one open space to do office work, study, or invite personal guests. The room that is on the opposite side of the living room was usually used for renting, sometimes with a separate kitchen for the household tenant.
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However, as Gwangju’s mass-produced hanok were being built at the same time that Korea was also massproducing televisions, locals preferred more modern, Western styles rather than houses that looked like their parents’ or grandparents’ houses in the countryside. So instead, they made private rooms with closed ceilings, installed hot-water heating systems for the floor, and put up Western-style wallpaper where daecheong-maru were before. Meanwhile, though daechong-maru disappeared, the narrow wooden porch running along the rooms called toen-maru (툇마루) became the only maru in the house. The function of this narrow floor was as a corridor to link the entrance to all the rooms where people could take off their shoes and go inside the house. It was also convenient to have the open toen-maru facing the front yard, which was used as a multi-functional space.
during the era of hanok mass-production, as developers began to sell single-building hanok built on limited land. (To get an idea of typical housing sizes, the smaller houses usually have 85 m² of land and 40 m² of housing, mediumsized houses have about 125 m² of land and 58 m² of housing, and larger houses have some 160 m² of land and 75 m² of housing.) Given these standard sizes and hanok style, homeowners had no choice but to make rooms in the main house available for tenants to rent.
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48 Book Review
How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee
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October 2021
CULTURE & ARTS
Reviewed by Michael Attard
K
rys Lee was born in South Korea but mostly raised and educated in the U.S. She now lives in Seoul and is a professor of creative writing. She has also worked as a journalist and a translator. Her novel How I Became a North Korean is her first novel and was published in 2016. What struck me as the most intriguing aspect of this book is that even though the story is fiction, the horrendous and inhumane actions described by Lee actually occur on a daily basis in North Korea. In a book review of a novel, I prefer to concentrate on the storyline, character development, and writing rather than express my personal views on the subject. But in this case, based upon my own studies and first-hand experience traveling in the northeastern part of China, where this story takes place, I feel obligated to say that Lee has provided us with an accurate account of what many North Korean defectors experience. Lee tells her story through three characters. The book is divided into four parts, which are titled, and all chapters are given the name of the character speaking at that point. The characters are young, between the ages of 16 and perhaps 25, but have very different backgrounds. There are two males and a female. And with the story moving in chronological fashion, it is easy to follow. The title indicates that the one character who is not North Korean, Danny, is the main narrator, but there is a fair balance between each of the three’s contribution to the story. While we are continually reminded of the physical hardships endured by North Koreans hiding out in China – from hunger, cold, filth, and danger – Lee emphasizes the attack on dignity as the main way that
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hope for a better life can be destroyed. It is through the female character, Jangmi, that we see the worst of these manifestations. It is no wonder that the various forms of sexual exploitation that she suffers, even at the hands of those sworn to help her, lead her to the conclusions that “everyone wants something,” and that in life, one does what one has to do. Danny is Joseon-jok, meaning that he is of Korean ethnicity and, in his case, born in and a citizen of China. But he lived in the U.S. since he was nine and now, as a teenager, he has returned to visit his mother who is doing missionary work. The reunion does not go well. Through Danny, the author underscores a disdain for hypocrisy, much of it directed towards the Christians in the story. I cannot say why Lee comes down hard on Christians, other than it might be her way of expressing that no one really cares about the North Koreans. The third main character, Yongju, is from a family that fell out of grace with the North Korean regime. In the book, as in real life, his family had the advantage of some money and contacts that enabled them to more easily flee across the border. But also, as in real life, once they were in China, they were nobody. His mother and sister quickly disappear. Each character is looking for and has a different understanding of freedom. Based on the nature of the story, this is fully understandable. But how are they to experience the positive power of freedom when images of the past haunt them? Jangmi and Yongju have lost so much. Freedom for them rests upon them as loneliness. They wonder if there can be happiness within loneliness. Is life a paradox?
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Gwangju Writes 49 Freedom for Danny was a different matter but nevertheless not easy to attain. His struggle is more of a coming-of-age story that one might expect to find in a book for young adults. However, in line with Lee’s purpose of telling a story about North Korea, Danny’s youth is appropriate, as the facts are that most of the North Koreans crossing the Tumen River into China are young. I enjoyed Lee’s straightforward writing style. The characters in their youth are naïve in many ways but have experienced sufferings more appropriate for much older people. Thus, when they speak, they show us the world that they see without trying to impress or influence, and the life burdens they bear are not hidden by overmodified impressions. It is as if Lee has her characters stick to their script because they know that they are trapped and that one wrong move could destroy the faint hope that keeps them going.
The Reviewer
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A jeweled and winding way, A quiet unfurling of sunshine Inside. The swing begins, the wind up and spin, Thrilled breathings of cicada wings and whispers Loud, the remnants of our grief-and-stricken sound, The waves that ringed around and round Until we stopped to look, Whenever the spinning really stopped, Did it? At all? Who took – ? It then – When did it? Go – Shall we look around and see? Remember the heat and darkling trees, the shadowed greens of mountains Singing Slow, and slowly down. We were those stones and rooted veins, together, Some silent song We sang In summertime, We wound our ways through heated plumes of heart-smoked memories. If every cast of sunlight caught In evenings spent along Our rivers Were beads of crystal light, I’d wear them round my neck and draped low across my shoulders, And carry you all, how mine, One bead by thought by bead by note , Into my next, the core domain, A tunnel to Autumn’s night.
The Author
Ashley Johnson has been an English teacher in Gwangju since 2015. A California native and resident hippie in the tight-knit music and arts scene, she’s always endeavoring to bring a little burst of sunshine wherever she goes. @wildheart_haven
October 2021
Michael Attard is a Canadian who has lived in Gwangju since 2004. Though officially retired, he still teaches a few private English classes. He enjoys reading all kinds of books and writes for fun. When the weather is nice, you may find him on a hiking trail.
By Ashley Johnson
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
My edition of the book has 244 pages, but it is past page 200 that Lee surprises us with unexpected drama. Up until this point, the reader is expecting that something must happen. Yet Lee’s twist of fate remains in the realm of believability as everything before, while drawing this episode of these young people’s lives to a close, or perhaps I should say, to a new beginning.
The Last Summer
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50 GFN Radio
Hello Korea Interview with Kayla Nicholls
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2021
CULTURE & ARTS
In continuing its collaboration with the Gwangju Foreign Language Network (GFN), in this issue the Gwangju News offers an interview with Kayla Nicholls, the host of Hello Korea, the radio show that brings you “Korean history, culture, food, music, people, movies, and more from past to present!” — Ed.
G
wangju News (GN): Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for the Gwangju News, Mrs. Nicholls. First, please introduce yourself; tell us a little about your background and about your career at the radio station. Kayla Nicholls: Thank you for thinking of me. But let’s get this out of the way first: I just go by “Kayla.” “Mrs. Nicholls” was my grandmother, and even my mother. And although I never changed my last name once I got married, it was more to do with the amazing amounts of time, energy, and paperwork involved in doing so. So, I go by “Kayla Nicholls,” no “Mrs.” added. As for me, I’m a Canadian expat, living, working, and raising a family in Korea. How I got here is rather a bit of luck. I was going to be an au pair in France, but the girl I was going to go with could no longer go, so I took a job as an usher at the POW Theatre for the show The Lord of the Rings. When the run went dark, someone suggested teaching English as a way to travel and earn at the same time. I was interested and ready to spend a year in Japan. I had everything lined up till my recruiter asked if I’d be willing to try South Korea. I thought, “Well, why not!” Same geographical part of the world, right? Three weeks later, I found myself in Incheon with severe culture shock and an inability to eat most of the food here due to spiciness. I promised myself to stick it out a year, and then I found GFN on the radio, and... here I am, close to 14 years later, still here.
GN: Please tell us about Hello Korea and your duties as the host of the show. Kayla: So, Hello Korea is a radio show that plays Monday through Friday, at 10:05–11:45 a.m. However, in light of global situations, and how things have been playing out here in Korea, our show’s been temporarily shortened to give live updates to the public so that people can get the information they need, when they need it. But the primary focus of Hello Korea is to educate, entertain, and explore
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the cultural side of life in Korea, for both Koreans and expats who call Korea home. We have information about customs, food, jazz, Goryeoin people, movies, Korean authors, sports in Korean history, different perspectives on Korean life and culture from foreign nationals, and of course, a little bit of K-pop as well. As the host, it’s my job to make our guests feel comfortable in sharing and opening up about the things we really want to know. I feel like it’s a conversation I’m having with friends, and the audience is our friend. There’s so much that people might find interesting or wonder why we need to know about this. It’s my job to keep them interested, on topic, and to make our audience feel like they’re a part of the conversation. GN: Before Hello Korea, did you do other shows at GFN? If so, please tell us about them and explain how they helped prepare you for your current position. Kayla: Before I joined the Hello Korea team, I was the host of Weekly Review/Sunday Talk for about three years. Being the host of that program taught me how to talk with people of many different walks of life and how to really listen. It also taught me that being on the radio wasn’t as easy as just speaking into a microphone. Before that show, I did a segment for the City of Light program with Michael Simning. The name of the segment was Living Tips. I learned so much more than I ever wanted to about ways you can use lemons. But it was also what first interested me in being a host. Michael made it look so easy. But perhaps, that’s just the kind of guy he was. My very first time on GFN was being interviewed by Michael about being pregnant and part of a multicultural family living in Korea. GN: Hello Korea has a strong cultural focus. What personally draws you to being involved with this sort of programming?
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51 Kayla: I think the people who make their homes in other countries do so for a variety of reasons: work, family, adventure, opportunity. But what keeps a person in a place is what makes them feel connected to that place. And for the most part, I feel that’s family and people. Cultural identity is a part of every place. Your connection to the culture of the place you call home can make your life positive and feel possible, or negative and feel alienating. When things seem so different from what you’re used to, it feels off-putting. It feels wrong. It makes you feel like you don’t belong. But understanding more about a culture, and how it’s not actually so different from what you know, can really make you feel as if you’ve found a place where you can thrive. For me, helping others understand Korean nuances makes me feel like I’m helping to show them the beauty that might be unique to Korea, or a shared connection. GN: K-pop, technology, and fashion always get a lot of attention, but what are some underappreciated cultural aspects of Korea? Kayla: I personally think that traditional Korean music is underappreciated. I get the appeal of K-pop, I do. I’m a K-pop fan myself. But there’s something so very beautiful about traditional music, gugak, that just tells such a story. When I first heard pansori, I’ll be honest, it was confusing, long, and a bit hard to listen to. I learned to appreciate it. But the first time I heard the gayageum, I fell in love with it. It’s beautiful and versatile. The fusion of traditional instruments with modern music, including K-pop, is interesting.
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GN: When people listen to Hello Korea, what feeling would you like to leave them with? Kayla: I’d like it if they felt like they were talking with friends, or even listening to their friends having a conversation. I’d love it if they’d get involved and join our discussions, add their opinions, and send us messages. It’s a bonus if they learned something they didn’t know before. But at the very least, I hope everyone might enjoy their time with us and look forward to sharing their morning with us. We really do love to hear from our listeners! GN: Thank you, Kayla, for sharing your experiences with us. If our readers haven’t done so already, I hope they switch to Hello Korea to explore the cultural side of Korea. Interviewed by Melline Galani.
The Interviewee
Kayla Nicholls is a Canadian expat living and working in South Korea. She’s on radio by morning and slinging English by night. In her spare time, she raises three kids and bamboo. She aspires to be an author and has selfpublished a book. Every November, you can find her muttering to herself and furiously writing things down. Feel free to interrupt her anytime to say hello.
The Interviewer
Melline Galani is a Romanian enthusiast, born and raised in the capital city of Bucharest, and is currently living in Gwangju. She likes new challenges and learning interesting things, and she is incurably optimistic. Melline loves living life as it is. @melligalanis
October 2021
GN: What is your favorite part in working at GFN? Kayla: That’s got to be the people. The job is fun. I love being on the radio, but it’s the people you meet, the stories you listen to, and the things you can learn from them,
GN: Hello Korea has a really cool “exchange program” with a sister station in Busan. What is this all about? Tell us about your counterparts in Busan! Kayla: This is our Hello Gwangju, Hello Busan program. It airs on Saturdays in Gwangju from 10:00 a.m. until noon. It provides information to our listeners about cultural experiences in Gwangju, places to go and see, things to do in Jeollanam-do, and specifically about three venues in Gwangju, the ACC, the GIC and the Kim Daejung Convention Center. These three places have continuous events, conferences, talks, classes, exhibitions, and so much more happening almost every day. Our sister station in Busan has similar content, but centered around Busan. Our show plays there and their show plays here so that we can learn about the two cities and develop more ties and tourism.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
And you can’t forget the food. The history of food in Korea is fascinating. For example, many festivals where people eat certain foods may seem weird or frivolous to us now, such as eating nuts in the middle of winter – and the more nuts you eat, the longer you’d be predicted to live – but they make sense once you understand the history and culture of the people. Nuts are high in essential nutrients and fats, which kids, especially without access to healthy and nutritious meals in winter, needed to survive the harsh winters of Korea in the past. Making traditions like this both fun and educational would encourage them. Plus, I mean, the side dishes in Korea are amazing. There are so many different kinds; you can have an entire healthy and delicious meal just with side dishes. Also, I like bowing as a greeting and sign of respect, especially during this time of social distancing. I was never much for shaking hands to begin with.
hands down. It’s always the people who can make or break my working experience.
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52 GFN Radio
Top of The Drop By Daniel J. Springer For all who love music, especially new releases, keep ahead of the curve with Top of The Drop. Each month Daniel “Danno” Springer picks his favorite newly released tunes and gives a heads-up on upcoming albums and EPs for you to keep on your radar. — Ed.
CULTURE & ARTS
Little Simz (feat. Obongjayar) – “Point and Kill”
The London rapper’s fourth studio album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert dropped early in the month, and the hefty anticipation was worth the wait. On an album where the rapper is wrestling with the juxtaposition of her needs for privacy and the public persona she must constantly put out there to even exist as a musician and recognized personality in this world, Simz raises poignant questions and has very relatable observations in this world of social media madness about the need for validation and balance.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2021
Halsey – “I Am Not a Woman, I’m a God”
Another fourth career album by a UK-based star more on the pop level to date has been If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. Co-produced by Halsey along with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, this record is definitely more pop than anything else, but it does have its jagged edges to that cut, with this being a prime example.
Jordan Rakei – “Unguarded”
Born in New Zealand, raised in Australia, and now based in London, the artist’s latest in What We Call Life is based around many of the lessons Rakei learned about himself while in therapy, and a reflection on family itself. The therapeutic process began after he started reading about positive psychology, and led him to reflecting on the meaning of family on this LP, his fourth album since relocating to London half a world away from his family.
Turnstile – “Mystery”
In what might possibly be the best rock album of the year
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thus far, it might be a stretch to even portray Turnstile’s Glow On in such monolithic terms. While the rock motif is undoubtedly the dominant strain on the band’s third LP, the multi-genre approach and mixtape format leaves one with a distinctly different aftertaste versus previous outings.
Sault – “London Gangs”
The mystery continues surrounding this band of guerilla leftists attacking music’s core from their safehouse in London along with their label Forever Living Originals. While it seems rather obvious that the lead singer is the glorious Cleo Sol, all we have to go off otherwise is the music. Thankfully, there has been plenty of that, and the band’s fifth studio album in the last three calendar years called Nine dropped in late June. It’s only available online for 90 days and then it’s gone. Poof!
Kamasi Washington – “My Friend of Misery”
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Metallica’s release of its self-titled Black Album in 1991, the band signed up every who’s who in the game for an epic cover compilation entitled Blacklist, which dropped September 10. Literally everyone is on this record, but who’d have thought that a jazz cover of Metallica would be the most bad-ass joint on the thing? Absolutely smashing stuff.
Amyl and The Sniffers – “Maggot”
This band out of Australia has been making a mark since their introduction to the world in 2016, but has been white hot since their 2019 debut self-titled LP. Enter this year’s Comfort to Me, and you have a female-led quartet
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53 that is turning into one of the most smashing rock acts around here in 2021. Extra points for the workingclass Aussie accent, it must be noted.
very well. Until now. True to the title, the Are We Ready? LP has a subtler and more mature touch that the band’s previous records lacked.
August Releases Griffith James – “Any Day”
The artist on this debut LP is based on the West Coast and grew up with a religious family, which actually led him to living in Korea during his younger years in the 1980s and 1990s. For a debut record, Comfortably High is really a wellproduced and emotive piece, which reflects the fantastic work done on the mic and production by the Denverbased indie darlings Tennis.
j ember – “Say Goodbye”
For those that are looking for a nostalgic but altogether modern vibe in their new audio experiences, Full Size Render is a quality find. The New Jersey-born now Brooklynbased artist gives off this pared back but gorgeously arranged meld of influences that he wears on his sleeve between older acts like Oasis and new bosses like Phoebe Bridgers.
LOCAL SPOTLIGHT Kamen Ross – “Yellow Roses”
Prior to the shutdown of Speakeasy, this femme power quartet was a favorite to check out plying their trade. While they have always been a killer band live, it seemed like that never translated to the studio
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Hovvdy – True Love (October 1) Pond – 9 (October 1) Lala Lala – I Want the Door to Open (October 8) Finneas – Optimist (October 15) Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes – Sticky (October 15) Bedouine – Waysides (October 15) Parquet Courts – Sympathy for Life (October 22) Duran Duran – Future Past (October 22) Hand Habits – Fun House (October 22) Helado Negro – Far In (October 22) Lana Del Rey – Blue Bannisters (October 22) My Morning Jacket – s/t (October 22) The War on Drugs – I Don’t Live Here Anymore (October 29)
The Author
Daniel J. Springer (aka “Danno”) is the creator, host, writer, editor, and producer of “The Drop with Danno,” broadcasting nightly on GFN 98.7 FM in Gwangju and 93.7 FM in Yeosu from 8–10 p.m. Prior to this, he was a contributor to several shows on TBS eFM in Seoul, along with being the creator and co-host of “Spacious” and “White Label Radio” on WNUR in Chicago. You can find “The Damyang Drop,” his monthly collaborative playlist with The Damyang House, on YouTube and Spotify. @gfnthedrop Show RSS Feed: https://feeds.transistor.fm/the-drop-with-danno
October 2021
Walking After U – “Ariel”
Watch Out for These
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
The former Gwangju resident now based in Jeju is out with his solo debut, I Dreamt We Fell in Love, which dropped on September 9 in full. Here the multi-instrumentalist is showing an impressive array of skills on the piano that at times sounds like he’s literally bashing notes out of it during manic crescendos that highlight the compositions between sparkling bright moments and pregnant pauses. Look out for him featuring on the keys with other artists around the peninsula and beyond in the coming months.
Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (September 3) LANY – gg bb xx (September 3) Manic Street Preachers – The Ultra Vivid Lament (September 3) Amyl and the Sniffers – Comfort to Me (September 10) James Blake – Friends That Break Your Heart (September 10) Park Hye Jin – Before I Die (September 10) The Vaccines – Back in Love City (September 10) Jose Gonzalez – Local Valley (September 17) Brittany Howard – Jaime Reimagined (September 24) Poppy – Flux (September 24) Broken Baby – Late Stage Optimism (September 24)
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www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2021
CULTURE & ARTS
54 Webtoon
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55
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October 2021
Yun Hyoju was born and raised in Gwangju, and is married to an Irish guy named Alan. For some time now, she has been working on her short comic, Alan and Me, which is about her daily life. She publishes a new comic every week on Instagram. It can be found at @alan_andme.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
The Author
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56
CROSSWORD PUZZLE
Look for the answers to this crossword puzzle to appear in November in Gwangju News Online (www.gwangjunewsgic.com).
Created by Jon Dunbar
59 Naver text messaging app 60 Kia subcompact 61 Put in the overhead bin
DOWN 1 2 3 4 5 6
ACROSS 1 5 8 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 21 24 28 29
Jeju trail Vitamin C drinks Net, in soccer Part of a flower or wine glass Defective bomb Hankook or Dong-A Be abundant Orange Life predecessor Hercules’ father Bare minimum ethical standard or the most ferocious demonstration of selflessness Garbage Hyundai’s defense unit “Ready, ___, fire!” “___ Joy” (2 words)
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33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 42 44 48 51 52 56 57 58
Shade of color Combat sport Japanese instant noodle City council representative title Super Mario 3 console Phrase Pie ___ mode (2 words) Mirae ____ Quinn or Turner Best way to end a pandemic Bob Marley 1978 album US postal code LG Chem’s battery unit Enthusiastic Room coolers Embattled van-hailing service
7 8 9 10 11 19 20 21 22 23 25 26 27 30 31 32 41 43 45 46 47 48 49 50 53 54 55
Movie music 5G predecessor Byung-hun or “Scratch” Perry US TV industry awards Thor’s father National Intangible Cultural Asset Kwan-chae UN global goals Gadget Grand ___ Opry ___ Dhabi ___ Angeles Gwangju Mexican restaurant Race in Gurye Jeju kingdom Country musician LeAnn Accumulate Anti-missile battery in Sangju Honorific title for Jeju demigods Gwangju’s Indonesian sister city Patriarch Sex Pistols’ former label Bbang Goom ___ Avoid UK English language proficiency test Russian monarch Korea Image Awards presenter ___ facto Hanjin’s airline Video file format Opposite of yang Yangban hat Old name for Tokyo Wood-cutting tool
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2021-09-28 �� 9:50:19
Healing – YES! The 18th Chungjang Festival
November 3–7, 2021 Asia Culture Center & Gwangju East District
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