Birthplace of Park Yongcheol

(Image: utour.gwangju.go.kr)

Park Yongcheol (pen name Yonga), a lyric poet born in Gwangju, began a new era of Korean poetry with Yeongrang Kim Yunsik. This is the place where Yonga was born and grew up. In 1904, when he was three or four years old, he showed his superb talent by his ability with addition, subtraction and in memorizing "The Small Learning for Young Children (Saja sohak)." He entered Baejae High School in Seoul. Though he stayed up late during exam period just to read novels, he always passed with honors. He always kept the nation and country in his heart, and studied well. He issued a secret newspaper named Moktak with his classmates when he was in the third grade of Baejae High School. After the 1919 Independence Movement, he quit school and was admitted into the fourth year of Cheongsan Academy in Tokyo, Japan. He met Yeongrang, who became his good friend.

The meeting of Yonga and Yeongrang was a special event in Korean literary history. It is said that Yonga especially loved the thatched roof. One day, when his father tried to remodel their house’s thatched roof with a tiled one, Yonga held his father back. Houses of this region were affected by the Saemaeul (New Village) Movement of 1970 to replace all the thatch with cement tiles. But they reverted back to the thatched roof in 1995. Even the stone fence has the warmhearted fragrance of home, when the straw thatch is put on it.

We can find several traces of Yonga in Gwangju. Two monuments inscribed with poems in celebration of his literature stand in Songjeong Park and Gwangju Park. When we climb up to Songjeong Park, near to his birthplace, we can see one of the monuments on the left hand side. Yonga’s representative poem, “Leaving Boat” is carved there and there is also a statue of Yonga made of copper. In Gwangju Park, a monument to Yonga inscribed with a poem stands beside a monument to Yeongrang, also inscribed with a poem. This is a display of their beautiful friendship. Every year Gwangju Metropolitan City awards the “Park Yongcheol Literature Award” along with a prize.