Han River on Paichai High School controversy: "We need to change course in this age of hate... There is hope in recognizing the problem"

[Financial News] Han River, the Nobel Prize in Literature-winning author, described the deepening hatred in Korea and around the world as "a task we must overcome." She added that "it is encouraging that a consensus has formed to recognize this as a social problem."
At the Avignon Festival in France on the 15th local time, Han River said, "How to overcome the problem of hatred is an important task for us." She added, "This is the time for all of us to think together about how we can turn away from this age of hate and move in a different direction." She also said, "Recognizing hatred as a problem is, in itself, a very good thing," and noted, "If we share the view that hatred is not natural but a problem, then I think there is hope in that."
Han River said the issue of hatred is closely linked to the recent controversy surrounding the Paichai High School baseball team. Some players from the team were criticized for mocking the May 18 Democratic Uprising during a game against Gwangju Jeil High School on the 29th of last month, after chanting slogans such as "We have to go, we have to go, we have to go to Starbucks" and "Tank day."
Han River said, "Teacher friends who work in education are also thinking a lot about this issue," adding, "They ask themselves, 'What can we do?' and 'As the older generation, how did we end up failing like this?'" She continued, "When an important incident like this appears, we should not just let it pass amid shock and surprise." She emphasized, "If this incident is sending us some kind of signal, we need to carefully identify the problem that has surfaced and all sit down together to think about how to move forward." She also said, "It does not seem right for one shock to cover another, and then for the next shock to cover the previous one until everything is swept away," stressing that individual incidents should not simply be consumed, but used as an opportunity for social reflection.
This year, the Avignon Festival organizing committee selected Korean as an official invited language to mark the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and France. It invited Han River and held a "conversation with the author" event on the 12th. The official program also included an Italian play based on Han River's novel We Do Not Part, which deals with the Jeju uprising, as well as a reading performance by a French director. French actress Isabelle Huppert and Korean actress Lee Hye-young took part as readers, and Han River also joined part of the performance.
Han River said of the reading performance, "If reading a book is a very personal experience, a performance is a shared experience." She added, "It is a stage where you can savor not only the sensations and emotions created by the sentences, but also the actors' voices, movements, and expressions." She continued, "The musical elements interpreted and expressed through the actor's body are different from the sentences I imagined," adding that it is meaningful because readers who have only read We Do Not Part as a book can experience the work in a different way.
whywani@fnnews.com Hong Chaewan Reporter