Upcoming Panel Discussion: "A Taxi Driver" Post Film Screening

I’ve been invited to speak after a screening of the award winning 2017 South Korean film “A Taxi Driver” by the Gateway Korea Foundation on Thursday, May 19, 2022. The event takes place in Creve Coeur, Missouri at the Cityplace Auditorium off of Olive at 1 Cityplace Drive beginning with a short reception at 6:00pm.

In this movie based on a true story set in 1980, a down-on-his-luck taxi driver from Seoul, South Korea is hired by a foreign journalist who wants to go to the town of Gwangju for the day. They arrive to find a city under siege by the military government, with the citizens, led by a determined group of college students, rising up to demand freedom. German reporter Jürgen Hinzpeter and Kim Sa-bok, the taxi driver who drove him to Gwangju, become caught in a life-or-death struggle in the midst of the Gwangju Uprising, a critical event in modern South Korea.

The post-screening discussion will be with the Chairman of The Foundation, Dr. Seungkwon You, News Director at KBIA-FM, and an Associate Professional Practice Professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, Ryan Famuliner, and myself. The plan is to talk about the actions of the journalists in the film and their importance, more than the actual reasons behind the uprising.

I’ve been told that my best contribution would be to talk about my experience of "bearing witness" to the events that I’ve covered as a journalist and documentarian, and the importance of doing so. To that end, I do have reporting experience with some highway shutdown protests in St. Louis in the late 90s, reporting for CBS and CNN Radio from Tokyo after the 9/11 attacks in the US from Tokyo, some work with French foreign correspondents reporting on the aftermath of the Mike Brown killing in Ferguson, Missouri, and my own work on my University City Musician Documentary Project.

I’m honored to be asked to take part in this presentation, especially in the middle of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. I asked ahead of time to make sure that they wanted me to be one of the three panelists, especially since I had zero knowledge of the history of Korea from the time period covered in the film. I was assured that my other experiences were good enough for this event, so I accepted. Still, I think I have some homework to do, and I’ll fire up the Korean language sections in Duolingo and other language apps so that I can at least introduce myself.

I’m looking forward to seeing the movie, the discussion, and learning about some South Korean history. I’ll post something after the event takes place.

Maybe I’ll see you there too!