From the Editor: January 2022

Welcome to a new year – 2022. The entire staff of the Gwangju News joins me in wishing all of our magazine’s readers a meaningful, rewarding, and Covid-safe year. We also wish to thank you for your loyalty as readers.

A new year suggests new beginnings: new resolutions, new aspirations, new adventures, new experiences. The cover photo containing arches over a pathway was selected to symbolize such new beginnings that we may enter into without full knowledge of where they may lead. The adventure continues . . .

This is also a time to reflect on the past year – to reflect on what we have done, how successful we have been in what we have done, on what has gone on in the world around us, and how these things have affected us.

In line with this, the January issue of the Gwangju News takes a reflective turn on 2021. The Adopt-a-Child program president discusses how this program for underprivileged children went ahead in 2021 despite the pandemic. We bring you the dope on the Top 21 albums of 2021 courtesy of GFN’s DJ with the music-moniker “Danno.” KONA Storybook volunteers look back on their past year of service in helping disadvantaged children learn English through storybooks and story maps.

Also in the reflective mood is our managing editor, who discusses what he considers to be the best Gwangju policy decision and the worst during 2021 [Opinion]. Doing more retrospection, he takes stock of his Korean-learning “progress” over the past year [Learning Korean]. Many of our readers who are not native speakers of Korean will likely be able to identify with this.

We have three additional features this issue. One is about a miner and artist who uses coal, inkstone ink, and human hair as well as oils and acrylics – Hwang Jae-hyung. Another is about a Gwangju band who do much more in their performances than just music – The Group 4. And the third is about the biggest and most deadly Jeolla-centric uprising to occur in the past 150 years – the Donghak Peasants Rebellion [Blast from the Past].

I am sure you will want to read about the Harry Potter-themed restaurant Lucchetto, the Italian café Del Pisa, a trip to the old Gwangju Prison, the bamboo cathedral, a review of a Malcolm Gladwell book, as well as how Gwangju-area traditional roofs differ from the rest of the country, and about teaching English teachers and school principals.

Stay Covid smart, stay Covid safe, be Covid protected, and enjoy the Gwangju News.

David E. Shaffer
Editor-in-Chief
Gwangju News