Avignon: Nobel laureate Han Kang on Wednesday called the deepening hatred in South Korea and around the world "a challenge we must overcome," stressing the need to move forward beyond this division. Han made the remarks as she met Korean reporters on the sidelines of the Avignon Festival, one of the world's most prestigious performing arts festivals, where Korean has been invited as an official language to mark the 140th anniversary of diplomatic ties between South Korea and France.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Han noted the recent controversy surrounding a Seoul high school baseball team, which faced criticism and a six-month ban for deriding opponents with trash talk. Baseball players at Pai Chai High School yelled slogans, such as "Let's go to Starbucks!" and "Tank Day!" at their opponents from Gwangju Jeil High School during a late June tournament game in Seoul. Their chants were linked to a controversial Starbucks Korea promotion on May 18, the anniversary of the 1980 Gwangju pro-democracy uprising, which drew strong criticism for allegedly mocking the movement.
"When a significant incident like this arises, we should not simply let it pass amid the shock and surprise," the novelist said. "If this event is sending us a signal, we need to recognize the problem it has brought to the surface." Han emphasized the importance of taking such events as an occasion for social reflection instead of being too consumed in each case.
On a positive note, Han expressed optimism that hatred is jointly recognized as an issue. "If we share the consensus that hatred is not something natural but a problem, perhaps hope lies there," she said.
During the Avignon Festival, a lecture-performance titled "Oiseau," based on Han's novel "We Do Not Part," was presented in both Korean and French by French actress Isabelle Huppert and Korean actress Lee Hye-young. Han made a surprise stage appearance near the end of the performance, where she read out lines from the novel, which depicts the tragedy of the 1948 Jeju massacre, as well as civilian massacres that took place around the 1950-53 Korean War.
"If reading a book is a deeply personal experience, attending a performance is a shared one," she said. "The sentences I envision and the musicality that actors bring to them through their own interpretations and express through their bodies are two different things." Han added that it is meaningful for people who have only read "We Do Not Part" through a book to experience the work in a different way.