18
Lost in Gwangju
TRAVEL
Singa-dong Gives Up the Ghost
The entrance to a home not yet vacated.
Written and photographed by Isaiah Winters
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
October 2020
F
or Gwangju’s up-and-coming striver class, buying a new apartment in the affluent Suwan District is the quintessence of “making it.” This monied district is young, modern, and lacking in little – save character. That’s why those who “make it” to Suwan immediately flee to trendier neighborhoods whenever they have leisure time. Having lived out there myself for a few years, I know how real the weekend exodus to anywhere-butSuwan is. The only redeeming neighborhood in the area is just south in Singa-dong. The neighborhood is a patchwork of commercial and residential units organized into grids with low, two- or three-story businesses lining the main arteries and jutaek houses hemming the tight back alleys. Quaint and quiet, these long, narrow alleyways are great to wander, especially where gentle bends splay out into little three- or four-way junctures bracketed by small corner stores. The community fits together so well that it feels both planned and organic – like a humble village in lattice formation. What strikes me about this part of Singa-dong is its overlooked potential. Here you have scores of charming
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backstreets with row after row of affordable units, each with its own eclectic allure, all just a stone’s throw from a surfeit of young, suburban, upper-middle-class café addicts who are obliged to take 40-minute bus rides downtown to Dongmyeong-dong and Yangnim-dong for their latte and selfie fix. Meanwhile, Singa-dong is just a 15-minute walk from Suwan’s main drag – the same time it takes to walk from The First Alleyway to Dongmyeongdong. But now that Singa-dong is in the throes of eviction ahead of demolition, I guess neighboring Suwan is doomed to forever hemorrhage its hipsters on weekends. A smattering of hipster joints might well have helped to revitalize the now condemned parts of Singa-dong, thereby keeping the wrecking crews at bay. This alternative to demolition – the boutique lobotomy – would of course come with problems of its own, though it would surely be better than bulldozing everything and salting the earth with more high-rise apartments. The latter will only result in more people moving to Suwan just to flee its marrowdeep inauthenticity at first chance. Unfortunately, only after another decade of breakneck redevelopment will we likely realize how quickly we gave up scruffy, endearing vestiges like Singa-dong.
9/23/2020 11:04:46 AM
