KBS
On the 11th, episode 365 of KBS1’s ‘Neighborhood Tour’ unfolded with the journey ‘Flowers Bloom in My Heart – Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province’.
Uijeongbu, the gateway to northern Gyeonggi Province. Once home to nine U.S. military bases, it was long known as a military city. The ‘Neighborhood Tour’ journey began to meet people who have helped the flowers of the heart bloom.
Built across the Jungnangcheon Stream in 1955, the Gageum Railway Bridge connected Uijeongbu Station and Geumo-dong, serving for half a century as a key supply corridor for U.S. forces, transporting fuel and military goods. After the withdrawal of the U.S. base in 2005, the bridge, which had stood still bearing traces of war, was reborn in 2015 as a footbridge for citizens. Uijeongbu greets spring as it steps beyond its memories as a military city. We take a slow walk along this path of change.
Jeil Market, called the pride of Uijeongbu. With more than 600 shops gathered, it is the largest traditional market north of the Han River. In alleys where people and goods never cease, there is a wig artisan, Park Seon-pung. After losing both parents in the 6th grade of elementary school, Park entered a wig factory early to support younger siblings and learn the craft. For 59 years, Park has walked a single path. Park says the greatest reward is seeing customers regain lost confidence and smile brightly. Even now, well past seventy, the superwoman of Jeil Market still never puts down the needle.
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In Uijeongbu-dong, a silver-haired youth is burning with second-act passion over a barbecue whose very name feels unfamiliar: Argentina’s traditional asado (Asado). Originating in the way South American cowboys grilled meat out on the plains, this dish is slowly cooked over charcoal heat to preserve juices and flavor. After running a factory in China, he encountered asado around the age of fifty and began a completely different life. He shuttled to Argentina to learn and study the cooking firsthand, and even brought in a custom-made special oven, commissioned at Hwanghak Market, to capture authentic flavor. Now his wife, who used to teach at a university, quietly supports his challenge by helping with the dishes in the kitchen. A seventy-year-old chef stoking South American passion in the heart of Uijeongbulet’s listen to the deep, savory stories he creates.
There are people who record Uijeongbu’s landscape through sound: the ‘sound walkers’. Sound walking is the act of walking with a recorder and headset while focusing on the sounds of nature, and it began in Jeju in 2016. The person continuing this still-unfamiliar activity in Uijeongbu is Jeon Eun-mi. She lost her mother in 2015, and in 2020 her father also suddenly passed away. In the midst of great loss, walking and the sounds of nature soothed her wandering heart. Since then, by recording the city’s sounds, she has been slowly discovering Uijeongbu’s hidden landscapes. As spring comes to Uijeongbu, Jeon records its sounds. Follow her and meet another landscape of Uijeongbu that reveals itself only when you listen closely.
In an alley in Ganeung-dong, a small cafe draws the eye with the French flag. It is run by an international couple in their third year of marriage: Korean husband Hong Han-seok and French wife Mariam. Hong worked on art teams for films and dramas. As a busy shooting schedule and frequent business trips left little time to spend with his wife, he chose to open a cafe. They set the menu as French home cooking for his wife, who longed for the tastes of home. From baguettes made in orthodox French fashion to escargot, the classic snail dish. Because he kept having her taste dishes to match her palate, Mariam gained 10kg in just four months. A newlywed couple beginning a new life in a Uijeongbu alley. We taste a table of French home cooking filled with love.
A quiet hermitage nestled on the slopes of Sapaesan, Seokguram. Embracing the scenery of Bukhansan National Park, Seokguram is also known as a hideout where Baekbeom Kim Gu briefly concealed himself before going into exile in Shanghai, China. After liberation, even after ending 27 long years in exile, Kim Gu is said to have visited this place from time to time. When he visited Seokguram in 1948, he left a handwritten inscription for local journalists, and to commemorate it, the phrase was carved into stone. A ceremony to unveil the inscription was planned at Seokguram on June 26, 1949, but the plan was never fulfilled because Kim Gu was assassinated that day. At Seokguram, the hidden hermitage on the slopes of Sapaesan, we reflect on the earnest wish that longed for the spring of the homeland.
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In the 1950s~60s, when U.S. military bases were concentrated in Uijeongbu, ham and sausage circulated as scarce foods, and the stew simmered using them became the beginning of today’s ‘Uijeongbu budae-jjigae’.
On Uijeongbu Budae-jjigae Street, located north of Rodeo Street, 12 restaurants are currently thriving, and long-running establishments that have continued since the 1960s safeguard the alley’s history. Among them, through Grandmother Park Yong-bok, the last remaining first generation of the budae-jjigae alley who has kept her spot since 1972, we look into the origins of Uijeongbu’s budae-jjigae alley and the deep stories layered over the years.
In the middle of an apartment complex in Singok-dong, pressed-flower artist Jeong In-hwa creates works with Uijeongbu’s wildflowers. She has been pressing flowers collected throughout Uijeongbu or grown by her own hand, rebirthing them as artworks.
Although it began in 2012 when she happened to take a pressed-flower class, the work became a solace that soothed her weary heart as she cared for her father, who was badly injured in a fall during her college years. We meet the works of artist Jeong In-hwa, which embroider the spring of life.
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