The Gangneung Cultural Foundation said on the 25th that poet Jeon Se-jung's poem "The Mother's Path Flowing to the World" had been selected as the grand prize winner of the 17th Baekgyo Filial Piety Literature Prize, which the foundation co-hosts with the Baekgyo Filial Piety Culture Promotion Society. Two works were chosen for the Excellence Prize: Park Sang-jae's essay "Crossing the Daegwallyeong Pass" and Seong Hyun-gyeong's poem "Gangneung, the Wellspring of Filial Piety."
Kim Hu-ran, head of the prize's judging panel, said the grand prize-winning work "calls for the filial piety of Saimdang and Yulgok not to end in a single era but to spread across the world." The two Excellence Prize works, the judge added, "consistently emphasize human filial piety and express the wish that Gangneung's Samojeong Park may endure forever as the wellspring of filial piety." Samojeong Park was donated to the city of Gangneung in November 2009 by Kwon Hyuk-seung, chairman of the Baekgyo Filial Piety Culture Promotion Society, who has served as president and publisher of the Seoul Economic Daily.
Established in 2010, the Baekgyo Filial Piety Literature Prize solicits and awards literary works, including poems and essays, that reflect a spirit of filial devotion to one's parents. This year's themes were "Gangneung, Home of Filial Piety (Saimdang and Yulgok)" and "Samojeong Park and the Mother's Path." The awards ceremony will be held on October 10 in the area around Samojeong Park in Jukheon-dong, Gangneung, to coincide with Filial Piety Culture Week, along with a poetry recital and other events.
