“Goodbye, and may you be free of pain there”: Popular music critic Kang Heon dies on the 20th, aged 64

[Financial News] Kang Heon, a popular music critic and chair of the Korea Arts & Culture Education Service, died on the 20th. He was 64.
The Korea Arts & Culture Education Service said on the 21st that he had passed away that afternoon. 
Born in Busan, Kang studied in the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Seoul National University and majored in music theory at the university’s Graduate School of Music. He later took part in producing works including “Oh! Land of Dreams,” “The Night Before the Strike” and “Opening the Closed School Gate” with the independent film collective Jangsangotmae. He also wrote the screenplays for the films “When Adam Opens His Eyes” and “Jungle Story,” as well as the script for the TV drama “The Third Theater.”
He began his career as a popular music critic after a younger colleague asked him to write a review of singer Kim Hyun-sik. During the 1990s, a new heyday for Korean popular music, his beautiful and memorable criticism left an indelible mark on Korean popular music writing. He and his colleagues launched the cultural quarterlies “Yegam,” “Sangsang” and “Review,” and he taught the history of popular music for 20 years at universities including Hongik University, Sungkonghoe University, Dankook University and Sungkyunkwan University.
At 42, he suffered an aortic dissection and fell into a coma for 23 days. After recovering, he studied myeongri, a traditional system of reading fate. In 2015, he published “Myeongri: Reading Fate” and connected with readers through books and lectures.
He served as president of the Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation and as the fifth chair of the Korea Association of Regional Cultural Foundations, among other roles. He was appointed chair of the Korea Arts & Culture Education Service in December last year. The wake will be held at Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital Funeral Hall, and the funeral procession is scheduled to depart at 1 p.m. on the 22nd. 

After news of his death broke, tributes poured in online from friends, students and fans who had known him. 
One of his seniors, who had known him for 40 years, said, “I’d been worried for a long time because his health wasn’t good, and now I’ve heard the news of his death.” The senior wished him peace, saying, “Heon, goodbye. I hope you find peace there and don’t suffer. Meet those familiar faces and catch up.”
Another acquaintance recalled Kang’s eloquence and writing. The acquaintance said, “He was a truly eloquent speaker, and he wrote well, too—his sentences were so graceful,” and regretted that they had not seen each other for more than 10 years because they had both been busy. The acquaintance added, “I thought he was devoting himself to life as a myeongri scholar and administrator, but he was a year younger than me, and it’s such a loss and such a shock that he’s gone so soon.”
A student who had taken Kang’s classes combining psychology with myeongri studies said, “For a while, my body froze up and I couldn’t do anything,” and mourned him, saying, “As his student, I received so many lessons in humanities-based myeongri that I couldn’t possibly list them all.” The student recalled a sentence from the materials for Kang’s last class: “Human life may be a momentary illusion created by sensations we regard as real—that is, sight, hearing, smell, touch and the like.” The student expressed sorrow and shock, but also vowed to carry on the teacher’s teachings, saying that if they lacked the energy they needed, they would “go borrow it from the neighbor next door if necessary” and strive to make the course of their life’s fortunes flow in a positive direction.
One fan wrote, “As I read my teacher’s obituary, I encountered a piece of my youth again,” and continued, “There are still people in it waiting for films. There are people guarding the screening rooms. There is a light that could never be extinguished.” The fan, who had supported Kang by reading his books on myeongri and attending his lectures, offered a final farewell: “You left us far too soon. Thank you for leaving behind such a light.”
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