GFN Radio: Radio Is My Life 52. GFN Radio: Top of The Drop

This issue marks one full year of collaboration with the Gwangju Foreign Language Network (GFN), as the Gwangju News offers an interview with Kim Mi-young (김미영), director of Programming and the Producing Department at GFN. As you read, you will see that she has had a multifaceted career in broadcasting both at GFN and earlier. — Ed.

Gwangju News (GN): Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for the Gwangju News, Ms. Kim. First, please introduce yourself; tell us a little about your background, and about your career at the radio station. Kim Mi-young: To begin, I produced various TV programs while working as a PD at KBS in Seoul for six years after graduating from university. I later moved to Paris, France, with my family in 2000 and lived in Europe for eight years. In Europe, I produced and sent “World News” videos to the KBS News team and also interviewed and photographed famous designers for Korean magazines. I returned to Korea in 2008, joined GFN in 2009, and have been working there ever since.

GN: You have been working for GFN for a really long time. During this period, you have done a few different programs and shows. Please tell us in brief about them. Kim Mi-young: Since 2009, when I started working at GFN, I have been interested in human rights. This was before Gwangju showed interest in becoming a human rights city. GFN has been producing human rights-related documentaries every year, starting with the coverage of Rosario, Argentina, which was the first to be declared a human rights city. Some of the others were a documentary on sexual assault victims during the May 18 Democratization Movement, a documentary for unregistered migrant children, a documentary on prisoners’ human rights, a documentary designed to illuminate how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has influenced a large number of different groups in society, and a documentary for the genetic inheritability of trauma.

GN: You are now a PD for the show face2face. Are there any other shows that you manage? Kim Mi-young: I have produced many kinds of programs since 2009. They have included programs of various genres, from current affairs programs like City of Light, Hello Korea, Music Program, and Sunday Talk, as well as public broadcast programs and face2face.

GN: In 2018, you directed a very important and unique documentary on the abuse of women by the military during the May 18 Democratization Movement. Please tell us more about this documentary. Kim Mi-young: The idea for this documentary was obtained when I went to Argentina in 2010. Argentina is a country bearing the pain of the “Dirty War,” a historical tragedy similar to ours. During the coverage, I met female scholars who published a book collecting statements from women who were taken by the military and sexually assaulted during the People's Revolution. Looking at the book made us also wonder if this might have happened during the May 18 Democratization Movement. I wanted

▲ Kim co-produced the BBC Four radio documentary. not as a team leader. Prior to the start of COVID-19, I had discussed co-production of a documentary with BBC Four’s radio team in the UK, but all of those plans have been temporarily postponed due to COVID-19. If possible, I would like to step down from my management position and return to being a PD to produce more diverse programs. But I don’t think our present producers, who are working so well together, would be too happy with that idea.

GN: With so much content online, what can radio, and GFN in particular, offer that other mediums cannot? Kim Mi-young: Recently, GFN began producing YouTube content and supplying videos produced in Vietnamese to Vietnam’s state-run broadcaster, VOV. Since we have excellent human resources in terms of language, we can produce differentiated multilingual content with their help. Starting next year, GFN plans to interact with many overseas broadcasters through video content produced in more diverse languages.

GN: What is your vision for the future of GFN? Kim Mi-young: In Korea, there are only three English broadcasting stations: in Seoul, Busan, and Gwangju. This is a great help to strengthen the city’s international competitiveness. In the future, GFN is confident that it can develop its capabilities as a multilingual radio broadcaster that can promote Gwangju as an international city. Of course, for this, the production teams’ skills are important, but active support from listeners is also needed. I will try to make ours the favorite broadcast in Gwangju, Jeollanam-do, and also all over the world.

GN: Thank you very much for the opportunity to do this interview, and the Gwangju News also hopes that GFN will become the favorite broadcaster in the city, the province, and well beyond.

to cover this event for a long time, but I did not have a chance. Meanwhile, the #MeToo movement spread socially, and we got the courage to look for victims of sexual assault. With the help of PD Han Soo-hee, who coproduced the program with me, I was able to meet victims and interview them after several attempts at persuasion. However, there are still women who bury what happened at that time in their hearts, and it is heartbreaking that they cannot come forward.

GN: GFN has so much ethnically and linguistically diverse programming. Can you speak to the importance of providing such content to the community? Kim Mi-young: In fact, GFN was established for the purpose of providing information for foreigners living in Gwangju and Jeollanam-do. However, over a long period of 12 years, many Korean listeners have been listening to our programs to improve their English skills. Therefore, it is now necessary to produce programs for not only foreigners but also Koreans. Because of this environment, we are thinking a lot about the identity of GFN and trying to reflect on the preferences of our various listeners. As a result, we are trying to create bilingual programming, and we maintain differentiated programming for different target audiences for each program and by time slot. Each year, a survey is conducted to identify the time slots frequently listened to by Koreans and the ones frequently listened to by foreigners to produce programs accordingly. Of course, this arrangement is difficult, but I think we do our best to produce programs that are enjoyed by as many listeners as possible.

GN: If you could do anything differently in your career, what would it be? Kim Mi-young: I have lived as a broadcaster since graduating from university. So, I have never thought of any other job, but recently I have wanted to produce a more experimental program while working as a PD,

Interviewed by Melline Galani. Photographs courtesy of Kim Mi-young.

Kim Mi-young has been with GFN from its beginning and has helped in its efforts to bring the Korean and foreign communities of Gwangju closer together. As a team leader, she continues to work towards that goal.

By Daniel J. Springer

Each month, Daniel Springer of the Gwangju Foreign Language Network (GFN) picks his favorite newly released tunes that you may not have heard yet, along with some upcoming albums and EPs that you might want to keep on your radar. — Ed.

If you’re looking for three-minute hit diddies on this one, you’ll be very disappointed. But if you’re looking for masterful compositions that you can take a deep dive into and swim in for what seems like hours, this is your album. In one of the most thoughtfully executed full-lengths of the year, Joan Wasser, a.k.a. Joan as Police Woman, delivers the ninth LP of her career on The Solution Is Restless in stunning, lush fashion with the late father of Afrobeat Tony Allen and The Invisible’s Dave Okumu. The album in many ways feels like it had already been implanted in you since birth, sounding so eerily familiar and yet completely new and thrilling. This is seriously pro-grade stuff, and might be Joan’s best work to date, if not album of the year.

File this album under an absolutely stellar instant classic. Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak’s new 1970’s soul-dipped album, An Evening with Silk Sonic, delivers on every single level, and with the hype of already released singles leading up to the sudden album drop, it’s a massive achievement that the album is just as good, if not better. “Put On a Smile” might be the best vocal harmonies of the year if not the decade, with the maximum slap epic drum rolls and string arrangements making for a tune that would make Marvin Gaye blush.

Over the past few years, Idles have been gaining a devoted following with their aggressive and defiant post-punk sound. The band released their latest in Crawler just this past month, and it’s certainly a change in a far more personal and pensive direction. For example, “The Wheel,” while combining the aggression and gruff vocals that Idles fans are familiar with, takes a very personal tone, with lead singer Joe Talbot talking about his hopelessly alcoholic mother.

In the Chicago-based artist’s second career full-length Tell Me What You Miss the Most, Tasha focuses on all the moments of bliss, fleeting scintillas of beauty, and lovely minutes laughing before everything in life – relationships, jobs, etc. – fall apart. As far as the execution in transmitting that feeling through music, Tasha totally delivers.

In announcing their next as-yetunnamed LP due out next year, Foals are back to what they do best – making electronic rock bumps that absolutely smash everything in front of them with Yannis Philippakis belting it out in his own inimitable fashion. As a bonus, it seems the band have moved away from the self-produced method of Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost from 2019, so the overall sound is far crisper.

One young artist who’s definitely on the rise locally within the UK this year is VC Pines. His Concrete EP got huge airplay and support from all of the biggest outlets, and with this latest single, we see the young artist turning the page from his ruminations on being in lockdown London during the

pandemic to a more hopeful motif of finding the light in the darkness and breaking the cycle of despair.

In a brilliant collaboration, two of the biggest names in vintage soul have released this as part of the Look at My Soul: The Latin Shade of Texas Soul, a new original compilation from Adrian Quesada of Black Pumas. Here he teams up with Durand Jones and The Indications’ vocalist and drummer, Aaron Frazer, who’s also a brilliant solo artist and producer in his own right, in a tailor-made road trip jam.

Just out November 19 is the Torontobased producer’s latest three-track EP. Here on the title track he teams up with H.E.R. for an upbeat soulclapped bit of deep house that just has that incredible bit of extra cut and depth on the beat that makes Kaytra one of the best in the biz.

One of the best out there on the soul vocal tip has to be Atlanta’s Curtis Harding, who really arrived back in 2017 with the Face Your Fear LP. His latest full-length If Words Were Flowers just dropped in full last month and sees the artist contemplating over the meaning of love in his vintage, punchy manner that’ll already be familiar.

In a pandemic world that’s still changing everything forever 18 months on, few are looking beyond their own little speck of the matrix as we navigate on social media and in our news feeds. For a real trip to somewhere else, Munya heads to space for a trip to the stars on Voyage to Mars for any of you out there bored with the inward life on terra.

In the band’s sophomore LP Monsterhouse, Jules O’Neill and Sam Shea have delivered a much more electronic- and beats-infused album than their debut LP. An album three years in the making, most of the new work on the album was technical, with the duo relearning (and even remaking due to a Paris burglary) their craft on the technical level, and the final product is well worth a full listen.

Curtis Harding – If Words Were Flowers (November 5) Joan as Police Woman – The Solution Is Restless (November 5) Hana Vu – Public Storage (November 5) Neal Francis – In Plain Sight (November 5) Silk Sonic – An Evening with Silk Sonic (November 12) Courtney Barnett – Things Take Time, Take Time (November 12) Damon Albarn – The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows (November 12) Idles – Crawler (November 12) Pip Blom – Welcome Break (November 12) Adele – 30 (November 19) Kaytranada – Intimidated (November 19) Sting – The Bridge (November 19) The Darkness – Motorheart (November 19)

Arca – Kick II & Kick III (December 3) Tom Morello – The Atlas Underground Flood (December 3) Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Barn (December 10) Moses Sumney – Live from Blackalachia (December 10)

Daniel J. Springer (a.k.a. “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, 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