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.
As you may have noticed, Gwangju exhibits an extremely high level of permissiveness when it comes to allowing people to park on sidewalks. Apps that encourage citizens to snitch on such terribly parked cars do nothing. The police and tow truck drivers, it seems, are both powerless to fix this problem. In what seems like a hopeless situation, a lone hero has emerged to fight this chaos and lawlessness: a tall orange parking cone that is bolted into the ground. Truly, a tall orange parking cone that is bolted into the ground is the hero Gwangju needs but does not deserve.
The simplest and most convenient place to park is, obviously, in the middle of a road, but doing so creates a dangerous problem. Other cars that are moving quickly (sometimes as fast as 50 km/h!), risk colliding into the non-moving car. Even in the best-case scenario, a car that parks on a road can prevent other cars from driving on the road.
Once again establishing itself as a city of the arts, Gwangju is going to hold the very first Buskers World Cup in October 2022. Artists and musicians from all over the world have applied, and we expect a huge turnout at the event. We at the Gwangju News wonder how this event is being organized and about its backstory. So, we tracked down the people at Gwangju’s Dong-gu District Office – the main organizer of the event – to get more information. Below is our interview.
