- Overview
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Be successful with music! Jeong Yulseong has become one of China's top musicians and is unfamiliar in Korea, but he is admired by 1.3 billion Chinese people.
- Book Intro
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Jeong Yulseong is a composer who is not well-known to his fellow Koreans; however, he is a composer who is still respected and loved by many people in China. He was born as the youngest of the five children in the city of Gwangju in South Jeolla Province in 1914 during the Japanese occupation of Korea. In 1933 at the age of 19, Jeong followed his older brother to China to fight for the independence of his country. At Nanjing, Jeong Yulseong was trained as a member of Euiyeoldan (the Heroic Corps), an organization of independence activists who believed in the means of revolutionary uprising to liberate the country. However, he was extremely musical, and he began composing music. When he was in Yan’an where the headquarters of the Chinese communist party was located, he composed “The Song of Yan’an,” a song so lyrical and powerful at the same time that it was popular among not only Chinese but also Japanese. He wrote a song initially called “March of the Eighth Route Army” which was to become the military anthem of the People's Liberation Army. Through black and white illustrations resembling woodblock prints, The Song of Yan’an: The Story of Jeong Yulseong is a graphic novel which tells the life story of Jeong Yulseong to readers who are not familiar with his name. After the liberation, the country went through the turmoil of division followed by a civil war, and during this chaos, Jeong could not return to his hometown in South Korea, and he could not settle permanently in North Korea. Yulseong stayed in China, and in 1976, he died at the age of 62 in Beijing while fishing. The writer and artist of the graphic novel, Park Kunwoong included his statement in the book: “During war when many were forgetting their inherent goodness, people were able to maintain their integrity as human beings because of art and music… In the end, one man’s music was stronger than a gun or sword, and it became a testament to the power of music that was greater than revolution.”
- About the Author
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Park Kunwoong
(English) Park Kunwoong was born in Seoul in 1972. He has liked drawing ever since he was young, and he studied painting in college. Inspirations for his stories usually come from modern Korean history, and his graphic novels deal with tragedies from the recent past, such as Flowers, about North Korean soldiers left behind on Mount Jiri during the Korean War, and The Story of Noguen-ri, about the massacre of Korean people by American soldiers in a village called Noguen-ri during the Korean War. The Story of Hongi deals with the Jeju Uprising of 1949, and I Am a Communist is a story about Heo Yeong-cheol, who was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment for his refusal to change his ideological beliefs. His graphic novels also include The Time of Beasts, which chronicles the 22 days of torture Kim Geun-tae was subjected to, and Spring That Year about the eight people who were falsely accused and killed in the People’s Revolutionary Party Incident in 1975. He also wrote Jessie’s Story, Arirang, and The Song of Yan’an about the people who fought for the liberation of their country during the time of the Japanese occupation. He is a recipient of the new artist award from the Korea Manhwa of the Year in 2002, Today’s Manhwa Award in 2011, and the grand prize from Bucheon Manhwa Festival in 2014.
