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Puzzle, the joy of fitting together to a larger picture!
It’s time to piece the story of May together.

Being an adult does not mean you have to say goodbye to childhood games. Coloring books and puzzles from the kindergarten days have made a spectacular comeback, populating the bookstore shelves as hobbies for grown-ups. 50 pieces, 100 pieces, 1,000 pieces… The world of puzzles rouses the competitive side in us. Piece by piece, van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles and the cherry blossom carriage from Anne of Green Gables comes to life. By the 1,000th time you wonder whether you should give it up, the puzzle is finally complete. With that exhausted cry, “it’s finished!” the unforgettable thrill reverberates throughout your body as adrenaline rushes through your veins. That is the joy of puzzles and what draws us in.

Now, those puzzles are reborn in the form of “May ‘80” through an online platform. It is “May Story Puzzle” developed by ACC as a digital educational content. As its name suggests, the puzzle portrays the map of Gwangju at the time of the 5.18 Democratic Uprising. It is meant to serve as a digital education content that teaches people about the history tied to different landmarks located throughout the city of Gwangju. May ’80 Puzzle also started as a regular paper puzzle. When the program first launched, trained art and culture educators took the puzzles to schools and other organizations, talking about the places and stories about the 5.18 Democratic Movement as they solved the puzzle with the students together. However, since last year, such in-person gatherings have been restricted due to the COVID-19 outbreak. So, the ACC decided upgraded this puzzle to fit the current social environment and situation, and turned it into a mobile game. Users can now visit ACC’s website to play the PC version of “May Story Puzzle.”

Look here! First time with the May Story Puzzle?
12 ‘May’ Historic Sites
Pieces of May, Pieces of our History

Now, let’s dive into the world of “May Story Puzzle,” a game that takes you to the historic sites of the 5.18 Uprising. The puzzle features 12 different historical sites that shine like twelve stars in the sky. Players can start from the Deulbul Night School site on the far left or from the Namdong Church on the far right. It does not matter if you start from the Sangmu Gwan or the Old Chonnam-do Office located in the center. Just choose any location and site you want. The roars of Gwangju of 41 years ago can be heard from anywhere.

Let’s begin with Yangdong Market. The market is a landmark that is famous for its rice balls, an important symbol of the May Uprising. When players click on the screen, they will see an image of mothers at the market making rice balls. A short description of the significance of the Yangdong Market is attached at the bottom of the image.

When players press the “start” button, the image of Yangdong Market scatters into puzzle pieces. That is when the challenge begins! If it was a paper puzzle, it would have been easier for players to try out different combinations… But since the puzzle is presented to the players through a digital platform, it is hard for the users to find the pieces they need and where they should put the pieces. After struggling for a bit, I ended up searching “May Story Puzzle” in Google, and found some tips from other users who have already played this game before I did. According to them, the key to completing this puzzle was simple: Use the right-click button. Click the right button, and then the selected pieces would rotate in all directions. That’s it! That’s how I took my first step towards completing the May Story Puzzle. As I rotated each piece and put them together, the images of mothers’ faces, the rice balls, and the scenery of Yangdong Market slowly began to come into a complete form. The tips I saw on the Internet said that other players usually spent about 5 minutes to complete the puzzle, but you can still take your time and enjoy the experience, since there is no time limit to finish the puzzle. Just like how it took a long, long time for the ‘May of Gwangju’ to find its rightful place in history, the game also waited patiently until the struggling player slowly assembled the fragments of history.

Chonnam National University,
Gwangju Station, Geumnam-ro Nokdu Bookstore,
Deulbul Night School, Yangdong Market Sangmu-gwan, 5·18 Democracy Square, Provincial Office (Annex Building)

… And other historical landmarks of Gwangju …
There… is our spirit, our history! May of Gwangju!

I was able to visit 12 May historical sites as I completed the puzzles. The sites I have visited included: Chonnam University Main Entrance (Historic Site No. 1) where the martial law army brutally beat down and arrested the students; Gwangju Station Square (Historic Site No. 2), the path that connected Cheonnam University to Geumnam-ro; Geumnam-ro (Catholic Center, Historic Site No. 4), the symbolic road of the 5.18 Uprising that leads to the 5.18 Democratic Square Fountain, located in front of the Old Provincial Office, and where bus and taxi drivers marched their cars in May 20; Gwangju MBC Site (Historic Site No. 7) that was burned down for refusing the citizens’ demand to reveal the truth to the world; Nokdu Bookstore (Historic Site No. 8) that served as a living room for the democratic movement leaders and one of the main base for the Uprising; Old Gwangju YWCA Site (Historic Site No. 6), where Democratic Citizen Newsletter and the Fighters Bulletin (“Tusa-hwaybo”) were printed, while also serving as the gathering place of democratic movement leaders, holding multiple meetings; 5.18 Democratic Square (Historic Site No. 5-2)], the headquarter of the Uprising and the agora of Gwangju in May where the Great Assembly of Minjok Democracy (“Minjok Minju Daesung-hway”) was held; Old Sangmu Gwan (Historic Site No. 5-3) that served as the temporary mortuary for the victims and where the pain and grief of losing their loved ones turned into a communal suffering of Gwangju; Old Chonnam Provincial Office (Historic Site No. 5-1), the headquarter of the resistance and the location where the last stand on May 27th took place; Namdong Church (Historic Site No. 25), a place where Father Kim Sung Yong and other democratic movement leaders gathered for meetings and later risked their lives in the “March of Death”, trying to block the martial law army’s tanks heading towards the Provincial Office on May 26th; Deulbul Night School Site (Historic Site No. 27), a site that printed/published the Fighters’ Bulletin (“Tusa-hwaybo”), which exposed the cruel reality of Gwangju and whose alumni include the spokesperson Yoon Sang Won, Planning Officer Kim Young Chul, and Media Relations Officer Park Hyo Shin, etc., who all played significant roles during the entire 5.18 Uprising; and Yangdong Market (Historic Site No. 17), where its famous rice balls captured the essence of Gwangju’s spirit as a community. Each and every one of these landmarks is an important part of our history where the spirit of Gwangju during the May of 1980 still lives on.

This was a meaningful opportunity that allowed us to relive the historical moments of the Gwangju Uprising. It felt like walking down the streets of Gwangju at that time of the incident as I put the puzzles together. Who would have ever imagined that we could hear and feel the essence of Gwangju in the form of an online game, instead of chants? With a mouse or a touch of a finger, instead of raised fists? Simply amazing. Still, in order to make sure that the spirit of Gwangju in May 1980 is passed down through multiple generations, we must make new attempts to come up with more fun and interesting contents. I hope a new, interesting way will be found, which presents the values and spirit of Gwangju in May 1980 by being packaged inside a box decorated with ‘fun’ and ‘humor.’ While doing so, we can rediscover the May of Gwangju in the future as well. With May Story Puzzle, we can take a peek into our future, our own version of ‘May 1980, Gwangju.’ So, why don’t you go and download ‘May Story Puzzle’ and take a nice walk down May-mory lane?

• Written by. Min-Im Choi. samagg@hanmail.net
  Photo. Provided by ACC
  
  2021.07