This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Korean children's writer and poet Park Hwa-mok. Park Hwa-mok is famous for writing the lyrics of old thoughts, a poem written in Korea's representative song, "The Barley Field," and a children's song, "The Garden Road." His lyrical works bring sentimental and warm memories to many people.
Park Hwa-mok (pen name: Park Eun-jong) was born on Feb. 15, 1924, in Haeju, Hwanghae-do. He showed literary talent and musical talent from an early age, and later completed the preliminary course of Pyongyang Theological Seminary. After moving to Manchuria, he graduated from Harbin English Academy and Bongcheon-dong North Seminary, he entered the children's magazine Children's Life in 1941 by releasing Pyramid and Winter Night. He wrote poems based on Christian beliefs, and he was also interested in creating fairy tales after 1948. He published poems such as Poet and Sanyang, in the window of my heart, a collection of poems called Chorongbul, and Butterfly, which became a flower leaf, and in many works, he expressed the sorrow and longing of displaced people by comparing them to the nature of his hometown. After receiving the Han Jung-dong Literary Award for Spring Night in 1972, he was awarded the Seoul Metropolitan Culture Award, the Korean Literature Award, the Christian Literature Award, and the Okgwan Order of Culture.
Park Hwa-mok, who fled to Busan in 1951, wrote a poem called "Old Thought" while recalling the barley field in Hwanghae-do, his hometown, and Yoon Yong-ha added a song to the poem to complete the representative Korean song "Bori Field." In addition, "Gwosuwon Road," which evokes childhood dreams and longing for hometowns with beautiful and delicate expression, can be cited as Park Hwa-mok's masterpiece.
This commemorative stamp shows Park Hwa-mok looking at an orchard in his hometown where acacia flowers are scattered. I hope you can see the life of Park Hwa-mok, who spread the value of children's literature by putting his literary spirit in the form of simultaneous.