Four Winners Selected from 3,339 Entries in the
"Gwanghwamun Signboard and Me" Contest
Celebrating 35 Years of the Gwanghwamun Signboard
On July 4, Kyobo Life announced that it had selected four winners, including the grand prize winner, from among the participants in the "Gwanghwamun Signboard I Loved" episode contest, which was held to mark the 35th anniversary of the Kyobo Life Gwanghwamun Signboard.
Kyobo Life Gwanghwamun Signboard Summer Edition displayed at Kyobo Life Building, Jongno-gu, Seoul. Kyobo Life
Under the theme "What does the Gwanghwamun Signboard mean to me?", Kyobo Life invited people to share their precious memories with the signboard by leaving comments on its website and integrated app. The event, which ran from April 7 until June 1, received a total of 3,339 submissions.
Kyobo Life selected one grand prize winner and three excellence award winners through two rounds of rigorous screening. The Gwanghwamun Signboard Text Selection Committee, which consists of poets and novelists, participated in the judging process. The main focus was on how sincerely and honestly the participants expressed their experiences and feelings about the Gwanghwamun Signboard.
The grand prize was awarded to Lee Ilju, who candidly described how the Gwanghwamun Signboard comforted her as she passed by. She wrote that seeing the spring 2009 text, a poem by Kobayashi Issa?"Let your face relax, owl, isn't this just a spring rain?"?helped her overcome the changes in her life after childbirth.
The excellence awards went to Kim Juhae, Na Seongin, and Cho Aeyoung. Cho calmly wrote about the moment she was comforted by the winter 2024 text, "Today the sun is nice, it still feels like you are here" (from a conversation by Yoo Heekyung), after losing a family member.
In Kim's case, she shared her longing for her late grandfather, inspired by the spring 2023 text, "On a warm spring day, a grandfather and his young grandson walk arm in arm, toddling along" (from Kim Seontae's "Best Friend").
Na recalled memories of going on bookstore dates with her husband after seeing the summer 2024 text, "Your smiling face makes even the dullest places fragrant like a summer rose" (from Katherine Mansfield's "The Opposite").
The selected episodes will be included in the commemorative book "Reading, Strolling, and Feeling at Gwanghwamun," which is scheduled to be published in October to mark the 35th anniversary of the Gwanghwamun Signboard.
For 35 years, the Kyobo Life Gwanghwamun Signboard has resonated with citizens, delivering messages of comfort, inspiration, and hope. The text, which changes four times a year with each season, continues to be widely discussed among the public.
Last month, the summer edition of the Gwanghwamun Signboard, featuring a line from poet Lee Jaemoo's "I Like Summer," was displayed at the Kyobo Life Building in Gwanghwamun and at Kyobo Tower in Gangnam.
A Kyobo Life representative said, "We will continue our efforts so that the Gwanghwamun Signboard, which has become a cultural icon symbolizing not only Seoul but the entire country, can deliver hope and courage to even more citizens."
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