I Lived in Gwangju Until I Was Twenty-Two

I lived in Gwangju until I was twenty-two.

So when I criticize Gwangju, I don't need to borrow an outsider's gaze. I grew up inside it, and I directly experienced the region's atmosphere, language, and ways of thinking.

The biggest problem I felt in Gwangju is not simply a shortage of jobs.

It is that the region's entrenched establishment has long used victimhood, sentimental appeals, irrational thinking, and agitation to consolidate its base — eroding the will to develop in the process.

In Gwangju, the past is strangely larger than the present.

When it's time to talk about the future, they talk about the past. When it's time to talk about industry, they talk about discrimination. When it's time to talk about competitiveness, they talk about grievance. When it's time to coldly dissect why we fell behind, they speak first of what outsiders did to us.

This culture is one of the core things that has broken Gwangju.

Of course, Gwangju carries genuinely painful history. May 18 was unmistakable state violence, and there were periods when Honam was politically and economically discriminated against.

But the fact of historical injury and the decades-long reproduction of that injury as present-day political capital are entirely different matters.

Memory is necessary.

The reproduction of victimhood is not.

Yet Gwangju has mixed the two for far too long.

Beyond remembering past wounds, the emotions — “we are victims,” “we were discriminated against,” “we have been wronged” — were made into regional identity, and the method of consolidating the base by repeatedly stimulating those emotions hardened into habit.

Politically, this method is comfortable.

Because it spares you from explaining complex reality.

Why is the industry weak?

Why are wages low?

Why are good companies scarce?

Why do young people leave?

Why should founders and engineers choose Gwangju, of all places?

Instead of answering these uncomfortable questions —

“The central government is the problem.”

“The capital region took everything.”

“We were discriminated against for so long.”

This kind of self-consolation helps nothing.

The problem is that those words were used too long, too conveniently, like an indulgence.

Gwangju's youth exodus is not a problem of a day or two.

In 2025, Gwangju's net outflow rate of youth aged 19–34 was 2.5% — the highest among the seven major metropolitan cities. More than seven thousand young people flowed out that year, and Gwangju's net youth outflow has continued for decades since the early 2000s.

The most direct reason people leave is, obviously, jobs and wages.

Then the question is simple.

Why, over decades, was that problem never properly solved?

It is easy to tell young people in Gwangju that they must love their hometown.

But how many moments were spent building a reason to love it?

Did you build good companies?

Did you build high wages?

Did you build industries connected to the world?

Did you build a city founders flock to?

Did you build a structure where capable people can rise without school ties, regional ties, or entrenched interests?

Did you build a city where people who think new thoughts don't feel suffocated?

Those questions must be answered first.

This is also what I felt after coming up to Seoul.

Among young people from Gwangju, there are more than you'd expect who don't particularly like their hometown, or who don't volunteer that they're from Gwangju.

I understand that feeling.

It is not shame at being from the provinces.

There is a fatigue that comes from watching your home region cling to the past, repeat its victimhood, rally people with emotional language, and put cause ahead of development.

Especially for a young person with ambition — who wants to compete, build new industries, go out into the world — this culture is suffocating.

Listen to Mayor Min Hyung-bae speak and you see exactly why I think this way.

Even while talking about future industries, he ends up reaching for the language of past discrimination and grievance, the history and soul of Jeolla.

I truly hate this.

If you want to attract semiconductors, talk about semiconductors.

How much power does Gwangju have? It has it.

How much land is there? It's there.

How will talent be secured? Starting now.

What cost advantages do companies get? They exist.

How will the industrial ecosystem be built? Starting now.

Competing against Yongin, Pyeongtaek, Icheon, and Cheongju — why should Gwangju be chosen? Prove it.

Say that. That's all.

“Industry is not attracted with grievance.”

“It is attracted with competitiveness.”

No company builds a factory after hearing “we have been wronged for a thousand years.”

They move on power, talent, cost, supply chains, markets, regulation, productivity, and profitability.

That in 2026, even talk of future industries still drags in the narrative of past injury — that itself is the symbol of the problem I'm describing.

If Gwangju truly wants to change,

“the way of thinking must change first.”

Not “how much harm did we suffer,”

but “why did we lose the competition?” — that must be asked.

Not “who discriminated against us,”

but “why did we fail to build enough good companies?” — that must be asked.

Not “what will we extract,”

but “what will we create?” — that must be asked.

Development rarely comes from the language of victims.

Development begins with admitting reality.

If something is lacking, admit it is lacking.

If the industry is weak, admit it is weak.

If talent is draining away, look inside first for why.

If the city is unattractive, admit it is unattractive.

Only then can it be fixed.

Keep blaming the outside, blaming history, blaming discrimination — and nothing changes.

I do not want Gwangju to be a pitiable city.

I want it to be a strong one.

Not a city people must be considerate toward, but a city companies and talent compete to enter.

Not a city that begs “please don't forget Gwangju,”

but a city that can say “ignore Gwangju at your own cost.”

But to get there, some things must be discarded first.

The habit of consolidating the base with victimhood.

The habit of covering logic with sentimental appeals.

The habit of splitting people into camps with irrational agitation.

The habit of forever locating the causes of failure outside.

The habit of consuming past wounds as present political capital.

What Gwangju needs is not more consolation.

More competition.

More companies.

More money.

Higher productivity.

Stronger technology.

Better jobs.

And above all,

“a stronger will to develop.”

Don't teach the young to love Gwangju.

“Build them a reason to love it.”

You can hold people with agitation, but you cannot hold talent.

Talent goes where opportunity is.