Gwanghuijeong 2-jeongmok 292-beonji Yoon Gi-byeong Gwanghuijeong people say that the specialty of my village is flies, and no matter which house you go to, it is said that it is more like a house of flies than a house of people because there are so many flies. Flies are often attracted to ugly places, so to promote flies as a specialty is no different from confessing that the village is ugly. What good specialty can there be in a place where bad winds blow?
Flies lay eggs in late autumn and overwinter there. When the spring weather gets warm, they lay 145 female flies, and after a while, they lay eggs again. So, the first female fly that comes out in the spring becomes the grandmother of 79,412,700,000 flies by autumn. If this fly is not caught or dies and lives for a few years, the world will become the property of flies.
The place in the world where you can go to fly a thousand miles is probably Andong County across the Yalu River. When you pass through the streets of Andong County, dust from the streets flies in swarms. This dust is not real dust, but dust that flies have picked up. I don’t think you can even call a Gwanghuijeong fly a business card.
Dong-A Ilbo, August 11, 1924
● It may be hard to imagine now, but 100 years ago, flies were a serious problem in Gyeongseong that threatened the safety of citizens. This means that thanks to someone’s efforts, sanitation in Seoul has greatly changed and developed. When I searched for ‘Fly Catching Day’ in the Dong-A Ilbo database, I was able to see a little bit of the changes in the times. First, here is the article below from July 11, 1928. I’ve edited it to make it a little easier to read. The column called Trash Can is still on the Dong-A Ilbo pages in 2024, and it is a column where reporters’ thoughts are written. This article carries a meaning beyond simply announcing ‘Fly Catching Day’. It expresses skepticism about how formal the sanitation policy at the time was and whether such a policy was actually effective. The article also criticizes how awkward the use of Japanese-style Korean was for Koreans.
▲On the 10th and 25th of every month, they put up billboards in front of police stations and on major streets saying “Fly Catching Day” and even put up huge billboards on cars spraying water. ▲I don’t know if that’s the best propaganda method, but the sanitation managers who admit that posting such advertisements will catch flies don’t really catch flies. ▲Is it propaganda just by posting them? They wrote Japanese and Korean words so that they looked correct, but Koreans who don’t know Japanese would only read them and not understand the meaning. Is this a new era of Japanese-Korean convergence?
Dong-A Ilbo July 11, 1928
In the first month, March, the city of Seoul plans to eliminate sources of harmful insects, and in April, it plans to target 250,000 people, including 200,000 sanitation workers and 50,000 residents of areas where infectious diseases are prevalent, to identify carriers of infectious diseases such as typhoid fever.
To this end, the Seoul Metropolitan Government organized nine mobile teams and will administer cholera vaccinations to 286,000 citizens, typhoid fever vaccinations to 720,000 citizens, and smallpox vaccinations to 153,900 citizens during the month of April.
In addition, Seoul City is carrying out a “fly catching campaign” targeting 700,000 elementary school students from 139 schools and 17,000 service businesses. Elementary school students are encouraged to catch one pack (based on 100 flies) per person, and service businesses are encouraged to catch five packs. In addition, 100,000 low-income households will be given one “sticky” fly catching stick.
In addition, as the number of exchanges and visits by Powell troops and technical personnel increases, there is concern about the possibility of the plague entering the country, so the city of Seoul visits each home of those returning home and individually vaccinates them.
Article from page 4 of the Dong-A Ilbo evening edition dated March 1, 1967
The city of Seoul has decided to prepare for the summer sanitation by designating the four months from June 1 to September 30 as a fly eradication campaign period and focusing on cracking down on unclean areas in entertainment establishments. During this period, the city of Seoul has designated every Saturday afternoon as Fly Catching Day, and unclean areas such as toilets, trash cans, and drains will be disinfected with their lids on, and entertainment establishments will only provide boiled water. In addition, the city of Seoul will disinfect raw fish once a month in 192 unclean areas where flies are likely to breed and 621 rivers, and will smoke disinfection on roads more than 4m wide on the outskirts.
Dong-A Ilbo, May 29, 1969
Editorial from the Dong-A Ilbo, June 5, 1972
2024-08-18 02:25:57