End of the senior citizens` theater

The Golden Age of Korean cinema was the 1960s. “Sadness in the Sky” and “Hateful But Once Again” were big hits. Fashionable ladies and gentlemen stood in long lines in front of movie theaters. This era was also a golden age for Hollywood, with "Lawrence of Arabia” and “The Sound of Music” popular in Korea. Watching a movie at a theater was the lone cultural activity for Koreans at the time. Seeing a film was like an escape for those who often lived in an era when many things were in short supply.

Movie theaters began to disappear with the emergence of multiplexes. Old theaters such as Dansungsa, Scala Cinema and Daehan Theater were replaced by new ones. The owner of Kookdo Theater, a movie house set up in the 1910s, demolished the theater overnight because he feared the building would be designated a modern cultural heritage. He feared that he might not be able to renovate it and would be at a disadvantage in exercising his ownership rights if it received the designation. The memories of senior citizens have disappeared with the replacement of the old theaters.

Seodaemun Art Hall in Seoul shut down Wednesday. Opened with the name Hwayang Theater in 1963, the theater was the last one-screen theater in Korea. It managed to survive and was changed into a theater dedicated to senior citizens in 2008. It played movies from the 1950s and 60s with an admission fee of 2,000 won (1.74 U.S. dollars). Instead of popcorn, the theater sold three pieces of rice cake for1,000 won (87 cents). On the theater`s final day, elderly patrons shed tears over losing their “Cinema Paradiso.”

The Culture, Sports, and Tourism Ministry conducted a survey on cultural and art nostalgia in 2010, and found that just 28.6 percent of those in their 60s or older attended cultural events, or less than a third of those in their 20s (92.6 percent). The elderly have the most leisure time but are not accustomed to attending cultural events and often cannot afford them. To enjoy art and culture requires education. Those who lived in poverty did not have an opportunity to do this. Culture is a powerful tool that can raise the quality of life of the elderly. Ironically, the removal of the theater for senior citizens shows just how the elderly in Korea are culturally isolated and marginalized.

Chief Editorial Writer Hong Chan-sik (chansik@donga.com)