Seoul sets new world record for largest reading relay

Autumn is often called the perfect season for reading in South Korea. This year, the tradition took on a historic scale.

Thousands of people gathered Saturday at Gwanghwamun Square, a landmark in central Seoul, to take part in what city officials said was the world’s largest reading relay.

To commemorate the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule and promote Korean literature, the Seoul Metropolitan Government — collaborating with the Seoul Metropolitan Library and the Seoul Outdoor Library — hosted the outdoor poetry reading event to set a new Guinness World Record title for “Most people in a reading relay” with more than 3,500 people.

The city government announced that a total of 3,532 people read “Sky, Wind, Stars and Poems” (1948) for 10 hours and 12 minutes, from 8 a.m. until 6:34 p.m. to set the world record.

Starting at 7 a.m., groups of 100 to 200 participants waited under a big tent, each person holding a paper with one to two lines of text.

Those lines were from "Sky, Wind, Stars and Poems," a posthumous collection of one of South Korea’s most beloved poets, Yun Dong-ju, who wrote subversive poetry against Imperial Japan.

Some couples were sharing their lines of poetry given to them by one another, while others were quietly looking at their papers, seemingly tense.

Young students seemed excited just to make a special memory with their family, but some parents also wanted to let their children know the significance of Saturday’s event, what their participation meant, and share who the poet Yun Dong-ju was.

“I was glad to participate in today’s event with such a meaningful purpose. If you're Korean, I think it’s impossible not to have heard of Yun Dong-ju. My son might be a bit young, but I hope he will begin to grasp the poet’s love and concern for the country,” a mother of an elementary school student surnamed Lee told The Korea Herald, adding that she hopes her son develops an interest in reading as well.

The book lovers who waited in line each took their papers and went onto the stage to read them aloud. This procedure was repeated continuously without a pause, each reading lasting less than 10 seconds.

A Seoul Metropolitan Library official explained that the poetry book “Sky, Wind, Stars and Poems” used for the event was republished in 2020. Once the entire 176-page book was read aloud, the reading started over from the beginning.

The different voices of the participants reading the lines were more than enough to catch the attention of both locals and foreign tourists.

Some participants posed for photos with friends and family after coming down from the stage. Others headed to the photo zones and took pictures with their certificates.

“Being able to make a small contribution to setting a Guinness World Record was exciting. But it is such a meaningful event. Alongside Han Kang’s winning of the Nobel Prize in literature, I hope more overseas book lovers show interest in Korean literature after we set the new world record,” said Cho Mi-sun, a housewife in her 50s.

Though the Seoul Metropolitan Library initially received applications from 3,180 people, already enough to surpass the existing world record of 3,071 participants set in India in 2015, the organizer announced that an additional 352 people joined the event after registering on-site.

“The success of the ‘Most people in a reading relay’ reflects the city’s ongoing efforts to sustain the recent growing interest in books and reading activities through initiatives such as the Seoul Outdoor Library. Going forward, Seoul will continue to lead the development of new reading cultures and work to spread them nationwide,” the head of the city’s culture bureau, Kim Tae-hee, said in a recent press release.