Come Visit 'Our Neighborhood Long-Standing Stores' That Have Been Run for Over 30 Years... Yeungnam University Holds Special Exhibition

Exhibition of Old Tools at Five Locations Including Anseong Gongupsa

There was a time when life was tough, when even a handful of rice was precious. There are people who started with nothing but diligence and overcame countless hardships. The stories of those who, over many years, laid the foundations for their families and nurtured their businesses across generations are as fascinating as any drama or movie plot.

Yeungnam University (President Choi Oechul) is holding a special exhibition at the Yeungnam University Museum titled "Our Neighborhood Nopo" to commemorate the university's 77th anniversary.

Anseong Industrial Company, known as the oldest traditional store in Gyeongsan for over 80 years.

This exhibition, launched as part of the University Museum Promotion Support Project, was planned as a special exhibition to celebrate the 77th anniversary of the university's founding. The theme of this special exhibition is "Our Neighborhood Nopo - Our Neighbors Who Share the Beautiful Moments of Life." The goal is to discover and research local nopo (long-standing stores), re-examine the region's culture through the exhibition, create future cultural heritage, revitalize urban culture, and promote sustainable development. In particular, by highlighting the younger generation who inherit family businesses, the exhibition seeks to spark hope for young people to settle in the region.

This exhibition is the result of a collaborative effort led by the Yeungnam University Museum, with guest curators from the Gyeongsan Urban Self-Sustaining Committee and graduate students from the Department of Cultural Anthropology BK21 Education and Research Team. The entire process, from selecting the nopo, collecting materials through field research, to writing the manuscripts, involved university members, students, and local citizens. By sharing the exhibition and research expertise accumulated by the university museum with local citizens and students, this effort will help preserve local culture and lay the groundwork for transforming regional cultural assets into future cultural heritage.

Among the region's nopo, Baekcheon Jemyeon, Anseong Gong-eopsa, 7th Avenue Tailor Shop, Youngmi Photo Studio, and Bicycle Department Store were selected as places that have shared the beautiful moments of our lives. In this process, the stories and histories of the shop owners and their businesses were collected and presented in the exhibition format through communication with the owners.

Choi Kyungho, a curator at Yeungnam University, said, "Among the shops in the Gyeongsan area that have been in business for over 30 years and passed down to the second generation, we selected five out of about forty."

Anseong Gong-eopsa, which makes farming tools using traditional methods, has been run by a son following his father, and has been in business for over 80 years at the least. Baekcheon Jemyeon is a nopo restaurant that started in 1961 and is now in its 63rd year.

The protagonists of this exhibition are the old stores?nopo, the owners who have built up their craft over many years, and the worn tools that hold the taste and style crafted by their hands. Nopo are meaningful cultural resources that embody the everyday history of the local community. Lee Eunjeong, Director of the Yeungnam University Museum, said, "I hope this exhibition will be an opportunity to re-examine nopo, which have shared the beautiful moments of our lives, with a warm perspective and establish them as cultural heritage with future value." She added, "I hope visitors can feel, through this exhibition, the honesty in the hands of those who have steadfastly followed a single path, the value of their sweat, and the journey that turns life into art."

The Yeungnam University Museum special exhibition "Our Neighborhood Old Shops" explains the No-po of 7th Street Tailor Shop.

This special exhibition, which opened at 2 p.m. on the 2nd floor of the Yeungnam University Museum on the 25th, will be open for viewing until November 29. Viewing hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, and the museum is closed on Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays.