By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
“Growing with the times” has a personal meaning for 85-year-old Hwang Doo-wan, who says 45 years have passed since he has seen the world through The Korea Times. “Reading the newspaper has been an important part of my daily life.
I am not sure whether I like the paper’s view of the world from the beginning or have come to love the way it tells what’s going on in Korea. Whatever, this paper has come along with my life,” Hwang said in an interview with The Korea Times that marks its 57th anniversary tomorrow.
The longtime subscriber became familiar with the newspaper when he started to work at the prosecutors’ office in Seoul as a translator in the fall of 1963. He can recall the exact day as it was when John F.Kennedy, former U.S. president, was assassinated.
“I began to subscribe to this newspaper for my job. I had to deal with many law terms and one can find many words related to law in the Englishlanguage paper as it covers many prosecutors’ stories,” he said.
When he was young, not many people had opportunities to study. Especially, it was very hard to use English during the Japanese colonial period. However, his passion for learning English was very strong.
“When I was in middle and high school, the Japanese forced us not to use other languages except for Japanese. As I remember it, the English test was very simple even for the admission of the top Japanese university at that time,” he said.
However, having been encouraged by one of his teachers who realized the importance of English in the future, Hwang studied English hard. As a result, after graduating from high school, he was able to work as an interpreter for U.S. military police as well as an English teacher at education institutes in Seoul.
“One of the reasons I read the English-language newspaper was to maintain my English skills. We have to use the language everyday even for small amount of time, if we don’t want to lose the feeling of the language,” he said. His affection for the 57 yearold newspaper has influenced his son and two daughters as well as his grandchildren.
“I always say to my children ‘don’t spare money and time on reading newspaper,’ and they followed my words well. My son and sons-in-law are now working as instructors at education institutes,” Hwang said.
Hwang expressed his gratification for the continuing development of the paper. “In the past, the paper was only eight pages, but now it covers various stories on politics, business and finance, society, culture, tourism and sports. It takes at least two hours for me to read whole newspaper. I really like eye-catching headlines and designs of the paper,” he said.
Hwang retired from his interpreter job more than 10 years ago but is still working as a civic activist. “The Korea Times deals with matters that other media don’t do. This is why I keep a close look on the paper,” he said. The long-time subscriber remembered Chang Key-young, founder of The Hankook Ilbo and The Korea Times, as a man of nobility and substance and he asked the newspaper to keep a critical but neutral stance on the news like its foundation spirit.
He always keeps an English dictionary beside him whenever he reads the newspaper and sometimes, he calls the newspaper company to ask about expressions that he cannot understand. “I hope the newspaper will play an important role to remove irregularities and corruption in society and boost the globalization of Korea as well as deal with more human right problems,” he said.
Lastly, Hwang gave hope that more and more Koreans besides foreigners here read the newspaper, especially university students. “English is must for the youth of today. I hope more university students read the newspaper and it would be fantastic if the newspaper could distribute the paper for free at universities,” he said.