The Lovely Universe in the Island — Our Beloved Island and Life

Nearly ten years ago, young people living together on Ganghwa Island founded Cheongpung Cooperative so they could make a good life on the island. Ganghwa Universe, which Cheongpung created to gather friends from both inside and outside the island, is a community of local heroes who shine like stars in the vast cosmos that is Ganghwa. Kim Seona, a director of Cheongpung Cooperative, has plenty to say about why Ganghwa is such a good place to live.

Words Parc Jinmyoung
Interviewee Kim Seona, Director, Cheongpung Cooperative

Starting from central Seoul, we reached Ganghwa Island after a little more than an hour by car. Until we saw the wide fields and the sea, it didn’t even feel like we had come to an island. We came to Ganghwa to meet the friends of Cheongpung Cooperative. Cheongpung began by baking wood-fired pizza in a corner of Ganghwa Pungmul Market. When the group moved its base into the town center, the pizzeria, once known simply as the “wood-fired restaurant,” earned a bold name, Strongfire, and the guesthouse Asagasak Sunmu Minbak (Crunchy Turnip Guesthouse) moved with it. With a yard of its own now, Cheongpung added a bicycle rental station and became a hub for travel around Ganghwa. Across the road, a 15-minute walk away, is the gift shop Jindallaeseom (Azalea Island), also run by Cheongpung. Working with a range of creators, it sells a variety of products that draw on Ganghwa’s local character. The project that ties it all together, Ganghwa Universe, describes a village freely connected by a shared worldview, even for those who don’t live on the island.

Memo 1. What Is Ganghwa Universe, Really?

What led you to create Ganghwa Universe?
Living in Ganghwa, we grew fond of its beautiful nature, its old historical and cultural resources, and its charming neighborhood shops. We wanted to let more people know about how wonderful Ganghwa is, and we wanted to try doing fun things together with friends living both on and off the island. That’s how it started.

How is it different from other local brands?
Local residents, local shops, and outsiders who visit Ganghwa don’t remain one-way service providers, tourists, or consumers. Everyone acts as a host and works together to actively build Ganghwa Universe, which gives it room to grow. On top of that, we have organized the worldview we aim for into eleven keywords, including locality, agency, respect, and diversity. Because we bring this worldview to life in different ways in the village where we actually live, I’d say it is a value-driven project.

How do you run your programs and content?
We run a range of projects on living locally and creating local content. In every project, we consider it most important to connect people and cooperate with one another. For example, every year at Asagasak Sunmu Minbak, we run a project called Jamsi Seom (Island for a While), where guests can experience a week of life in Ganghwa. Young people from the city can stay in Ganghwa and spend time focusing entirely on themselves. Every evening, we invite one friend who lives in Ganghwa to talk about life on the island. So, naturally, guests make one new Ganghwa friend each day. Our content creation programs work the same way. We don’t simply commission designs or works from creators. They always come to Ganghwa, visit neighborhood shops, and spend time talking with our friends here. Only after they have directly felt and experienced the scenery, culture, and traditions of the Ganghwa we love do we begin collaborating.

Does Ganghwa Universe have an operating philosophy of its own?
We look not at immediate profit but at the direction we should be heading, and we value relationships with people over results.

How did you come up with the name Ganghwa Universe?
These days, online tools let us communicate and work together without geographic limits. I think you can become part of the village or take part in Ganghwa-related activities even if you don’t live here. Being close to Seoul is an advantage, too. We chose the word “universe” to mean a village freely connected by a shared worldview, one that goes beyond the limits of place.

Memo 2. The Charm of Traveling in Ganghwa

What do you think is Ganghwa’s greatest charm?
There’s the island’s distinctive natural scenery, the beautiful sunsets, and the historical and cultural sites layered up since prehistoric times. The longer you live on Ganghwa, the more its charm grows on you. Above all, the reason we can live so richly here is that we have friends who share the same aims and do things together.

What is your favorite place in Ganghwa?
Ganghwa has suffered frequent foreign invasions since ancient times. During the Joseon era, stone military installations called dondae were built around the island to watch enemy movements and prepare for attacks, and they still stand all over the island. After so many years, they have become places where you can look out over the beautiful sea and sort out your thoughts. Of the many dondae, my favorite is Wolgotdondae, which has a pavilion called Yeonmijeong and a guardian tree.

How has the region changed since Ganghwa Universe came into being?
By sharing our direction through the worldview of Ganghwa Universe, we’ve come to know many more friends who aim for similar things. In the past, we were the ones who proposed, “Let’s do something fun together.” Now we share the aims of Ganghwa Universe with a wider circle of people and put them into practice together, and that has built a sense of solidarity that is loose yet solid.

Memo 3. The Sustainability of Local Creators

What kind of attention and effort do you think local travel and regional culture need in order to grow?
I think the most important thing is for both travelers and locals to respect each other and respect the place. If travelers had the chance to become friends or partners with locals, rather than just visiting as tourists and consumers, wouldn’t they come back to that place more often?

Do you have any tips on visiting Ganghwa for travelers who want to travel sustainably?
Ganghwa Universe keeps offering programs that help you discover different ways of seeing Ganghwa and make friends who live here. I recommend staying at Asagasak Sunmu Minbak, which introduces destinations where you can experience sustainable travel and meet the friends of Ganghwa Universe, and chatting with the host.

What does it take to become a sustainable local brand?
Our aim is to become not a commercial brand but a community-based brand that builds culture, and to keep living here, making Ganghwa our home, for a long time.

What are your plans for the future?
We want to create a village in Ganghwa where many people can become friends in many different ways.

Memo 4. The members of Cheongpung call anyone connected to them in any way a “friend.” We talked for barely an hour, yet I felt as if we had become close. Is it because of that word, “friend”? I suspected I wasn’t the only one. Curious about Ganghwa Universe, people will visit Ganghwa, become friends with them, and before long fall for the charms of Ganghwa that those friends introduce, and keep coming back.