The terrible Taean Oil Spill of December, 2007 caused such damage to the eastern coast of Korea that many were demoralized. Fishermen found themselves suddenly without a livelihood. That spill took place at the time I worked as advisor to the governor of Chungnam Province.
Of all the work I did with the province of Chungnam, I think the response to the oil spill was the most meaningful. I visited the headquarters for the clean up site, helped clean the tar on the beach and spoke with both residents and members of the local government team in charge. It was an opportunity to help coordinate the international response. But it was my visits to local elementary schools that made the deepest impression on me. Here were these children struggling to understand how their parents suddenly no longer had work as fishermen. They were gripped by an invisible threat hovered over their communities. The teachers were quite frank about the psychological stress.
I worked with several people at the local level to make up this proposal for an international children’s festival that would bring new hope to the children. Here are versions in Korean, English and Japanese. Ultimately, there was just too much sensitivity about the oil spill and we could not actually hold it, but there were several figures in local government who did their best at the time.
“The Delicate Little World of Taean”
A Festival for Children of Art & Music Celebrating the Environment
July, 2008
[proposal]
A thick oozing sheet has coated the pristine coast of Taean in Korea since December of 2007, transforming once spotless beaches into a black crust lining a sea of death.
As the shock of Korea’s worst oil spill sinks in, we are forced to think about the terrible consequences of our dependence on oilnot only for the fishermen of Taean, but for the entire world.
We think about such matters most of all when we watch our children. After all, the implications of oil, from creeping pollution to climate change, gather like dark clouds on the horizon, dark clouds that we are fearful to speak of with our young ones.
The only way forward is to create a sustainable world.
To do that, we must change culture itself, and we can only achieve that goal if we first turn to our children and offer them a vision of how the world could be.
Delicate Little World of Taean (English)
Delicate Little World of Taean (Japanese)
Delicate Little World of Taean (Korean)
