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Busan Metropolitan City Publishes Stories of the People of Huinnyeoul Culture Village

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Busan Metropolitan City, led by Mayor Chun Jae-soo, has published Volume 17 of the Busan Modern and Contemporary Oral History Series, Where Hope Blossomed Along the White Waves: Stories of the People of Huinnyeoul Culture Village, which vividly portrays Busan’s modern and contemporary history as recalled through people’s memories and experiences.

Busan Metropolitan City has continued to publish the Busan Modern and Contemporary Oral History Series to share and build the history of Busan together with its citizens.

The newly published Where Hope Blossomed Along the White Waves: Stories of the People of Huinnyeoul Culture Village chronicles, through the vivid voices of residents, the formation and transformation of Huinnyeoul Culture Village. The village developed after refugees from the Korean War settled along the coastal cliffs and slopes of Yeongseon-dong, Yeongdo-gu, Busan, followed by the large-scale development of residential areas alongside the growth of the shipbuilding and port industries in Yeongdo.

The book covers the history and changes that shaped Huinnyeoul Culture Village, stories of residents preserved through in-depth oral interviews conducted in 2015, and the village as it is today, with its distinctive landscape of houses, alleys, and stairways set across narrow coastal flats and steep slopes.

Busan Metropolitan City re-edited the results of the in-depth interviews conducted with Huinnyeoul Culture Village residents in 2015 to make them more accessible, presenting the village’s history in a clear and organized manner while seeking to capture in detail the life stories of residents who have shared their lives with the community.

In particular, Where Hope Blossomed Along the White Waves: Stories of the People of Huinnyeoul Culture Village is the final volume in the Busan Modern and Contemporary Oral History Series. It comprehensively documents the history of Huinnyeoul Culture Village, from the settlement of war refugees in the 1950s and the expansion of residential areas and everyday life during industrialization, to the village’s decline following changes in the industrial structure and population loss in the old city center after the 1990s, and finally to improvements in the living environment and the creation of cultural and artistic spaces through an urban regeneration project launched in 2011.

The Busan Modern and Contemporary Oral History Series, including this latest volume, is available for download or viewing at public libraries nationwide, on the Busan Metropolitan City website at www.busan.go.kr under About Busan > Busan History > Busan Local History Library, and on the website of the Busan Metropolitan City History Compilation Committee at www.bssisa.com.

Cho Yoo-jang, Director of the Culture Bureau of Busan Metropolitan City, said, “This publication was planned to document the disappearing history of Busan’s traditional villages, lay a foundation for research on Busan’s modern and contemporary history, and preserve the city’s local history.”

He added, “We hope that the collected oral life histories of traditional village residents will be widely used as cultural assets of local communities while preserving Busan’s distinctive local identity.”