Published by the Gwangju International Center since 2001
To mark my fifth year stewarding the “Lost” column, I’d like to return to Gwangju proper, specifically Yang-dong. This month, I’ll scribble the pages of the Gwangju News with a tale involving hostess bars, North Korean collages, menacing graffiti, courteous cult invites, and a tenacious cat I call Achilles who, like Yang-dong itself, refuses to die despite all odds.
Sensing faint pangs of discontent across social media, the ever-perceptive Gwangju News dispatched its crack team of reporters to pursue a bevy of disparate leads, all of which culminated at the Cheetos-strewn bedside of a gaunt, woebegone loner for further elucidation. What follows is our earth-sundering report.
To kick off the new year, we’ll unshelve our trusty Farmers’ Almanac and put its sage guidance and folksy humor to good use in the pursuit of understanding Korea’s modern agricultural craze: sowing apartment complexes in the middle of nowhere. What could possibly go wrong? So, without further ado, let’s hop in the car and head to the countryside – oh, and feel free to ask any questions along the way…….
This month, we’ll turn to the interior for a visit to Hwasun County, located just southeast of Gwangju. There we’ll visit a pair of abandoned family shrines and the ruins of a mountain fortress dating back to the Goryeo era.
This month, we’ll trek to the extreme western edge of Jaeun-do, another of Sinan-gun’s many superb but under-visited islands. Jaeun-do has at least a half dozen sites and experiences of note I could talk about: the large, abandoned school complex that haunts the landscape, what Mariposa Resort was like back when I found it a burned-out derelict, the excellent hike to the peak of Dubong-san, dodging bats at the island’s decommissioned military site, discovering one-of-a-kind temple ruins amid a forest of bamboo, and two vast beaches that merge into an epic promontory scarcely anyone visits. For this article, we’ll focus just on the temple ruins and beach promontory.
At the southernmost tip of Imja-do, where Korea’s West and South Seas make their murky acquaintance, is an excellent coastal cave called Yongnangul (용난굴). I’d wanted to see it for quite some time so, aroused from my mid-Chuseok torpor by a chance for adventure, I made the pleasant, bucolic drive to nearby Eomeori Beach with the missus to finally suss it out.
Numun-dong, located directly across the Gwangju Stream from Yangdong Market, is one of the city’s more variegated areas and a stellar example of how urban planners used to prioritize density differently through jumbles of mixed-use, low-rise structures. Even as it is now midway through the compensation process, the area is still teaming with grizzled locals and faded mom-and-pop shops that spill out onto the streets between rows of tightly parked cars. It even has a few garish love motels crowned with fake castle turrets and Russian onion domes, though these are mostly abandoned now.
The long, sandy shore along the northwest coast of Imja-do recently stunned me when I discovered that, even at low tide, the beaches had excellent sand as far as the eye could see.
