Why Chuncheon’s Silrae Village is the Next Must-Visit Literary Destination for MZ Generation

Translation result

[Herald Economy = Reporter Ham Young-hoon] Students from Ewha Womans University’s Korean literature department spent a peaceful Friday, the 27th, exploring Sille Village in Chuncheon — the hometown of novelist Kim Yu-jeong and the setting for many of his stories.

The students visited the Kim Yu-jeong Literary Village, the Book and Printing Museum, and other spots around Sille Village, capturing and sharing the area’s literary heritage and tourism highlights through their own perspectives and creative sensibilities.

At the Kim Yu-jeong Literary Village, they discovered that about 12 of the author’s roughly 30 short stories were inspired by real-life episodes involving local residents.

The hillside from Dongbaek (Camellia), the gambling den in Manmubang, Bongpil’s house in Bom Bom, and Deokdol’s tavern in A Mountain Traveler all serve as settings in his fiction.

Whereas Lee Hyo-seok — another Gangwon-born writer — turns the waterwheel into a romantic hotspot in his story A Strange Night, Kim Yu-jeong uses it as the place where a woman who entered a sham marriage to raise money for her sick husband hides him.

The author died single in his 30s after three unrequited loves. Maybe that’s why, in Bom Bom, the innocent male lead who longs desperately for marriage feels so like the author. At Kim Yu-jeong Station, that longing is playfully turned into a theme-park motif for fulfilled love, complete with an oversized engagement diamond and a sculpture that reads We got married today. The area is also known as the backdrop for Na Hoon-a’s I Want to Live in Gangchon and serves as the starting point for the rail bike to Gangchon.

This Ewha visit went beyond a typical field trip. It was a hands-on tourism promotion collaboration designed to let young people experience local content firsthand and amplify it as social media material.

Chuncheon expects content produced directly by the MZ generation — millennials and Gen Z — to spread organically across social media, creating viral buzz and raising Sille Village’s profile.

Sille Village is one of Chuncheon’s signature feel-good destinations, where literary history and natural scenery come together. Around the Kim Yu-jeong Literary Village you’ll find the Book and Printing Museum, the traditional brewery Yesul, Sille Bookstore, artisan workshops, and cozy cafés — a compact cluster of cultural and hands-on spaces. It’s a place to linger, feel the warmth of the locals, and soak up literature and nature’s quiet wisdom.

Walking routes like the Chuncheon Literature Road, the Sille Story Path, and the Geumbyeongsan trail align with the MZ generation’s travel trends — walking, experiencing, and documenting — offering visitors special, everyday moments to treasure.

Sille Village was selected in 2026 as a target for the small-scale potential tourism development project, and local authorities are working with the Korea Tourism Organization’s Gangwon regional cooperation team to boost tourism.

Chuncheon plans to focus on refining and promoting Sille Village’s offerings through collaboration with young creators, highlighting its blend of literature, nature, and hands-on experiences and the abundance of shareable content that resonates with younger generations.