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Lost in Gwangju
Remembering Hak-dong’s Humanity Written and photographed by Isaiah Winters
TRAVEL
I
n 1946, on his second and last visit to Gwangju, Korean independence activist Kim Gu paid a special visit to Hak-dong that would leave a lasting impression on both him and the neighborhood. Moved by the grinding poverty he saw there along the Gwangju Stream, Kim donated funds to then Gwangju Mayor Seo Min-ho specifically to relieve the locals’ suffering. With those funds, Hak-dong’s Baekhwa Village with its iconic eight-way intersection was created.[1][2][3] Today, the former impecunity of Baekhwa Village has been utterly transformed through an upscale redevelopment project that’s rendered the neighborhood completely unrecognizable. To commemorate the neighborhood’s lost historical footprint, the Baekbeom Kim Gu Memorial Hall was fortunately created in 2015; however, now with ever more redevelopment afoot, I’ve personally taken a keen interest in the remnants of Hak-dong in the aim that, at the very least, pieces of it may survive online. Written in the interim between eviction and demolition, this article seeks to pay homage to the neighborhood’s enduring humanity by sharing the stories of two of its brilliant residents.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
July 2020
Calligraphy Teacher Kim Yun-hwan
On the second floor of an uninspiring building along Hak-dong Street is an old calligraphy studio that apparently belonged to prolific calligrapher Kim Yunhwan. To be honest, upon seeing the studio entrance smashed in, I wasn’t expecting to find much inside. From the street, it was clear that Kim had used his windows as advertising space for his studio by papering them over with works of calligraphy, and I figured that alone would be worth checking out. Intrigued, I made my way up the stairs and was stunned to find that everything had been left in place, like it’d just closed up shop a few days before. The centerpiece of Kim’s three-room studio was a tiny classroom arranged in traditional fashion: Students would sit cross-legged facing each other on floor mats and receive instruction from a small table at the head of the class – Kim’s table. With ink sets and brushes still in
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▲ A student’s-eye-view of calligrapher Kim Yun-hwan’s studio.
place, it was as if I’d just walked in on a class at recess. As my imagination raced, I got an eerie feeling that class would resume at any minute and Kim would berate me for not removing my shoes. That eeriness turned to sheer paranoia when I heard the echo of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs behind me. In these moments of panic, options are limited. One option is to hide and hope not to be seen or slip out somewhere like an alley cat. As I was planted in the middle of Kim’s claustrophobic studio, neither of these options seemed feasible. Another option is to greet the
The prolific calligrapher himself, Kim Yun-hwan.
6/25/2020 12:43:15 PM
