Goyang Yaho: What RESCENE Signed Up For in May's Hometown

On 2 July 2026, five members of RESCENE stood inside Goyang City Hall wearing hats shaped like a cat and shouted a greeting at a camera. The cat is 고양고양이 (Goyang Goyangi), the city’s own character. The greeting was ‘고양야호’. The next day the city put the video on its own YouTube channel, and by late August it had been read at more than 1.1 million views — a number attached not to a label’s account but to a local government’s.

What happened in that room is easy to summarise and easy to under-read: Goyang named RESCENE its ambassadors, the first of the current municipal administration. The more useful question is the one that follows. The group signed up to promote specific things, in specific formats, and one of its members grew up around several of them. Here is what was named, and who said it.

A City Hall appointment, and what ‘제1호’ means

Incheon Ilbo reported that the appointment took place at Goyang City Hall on 2 July 2026. Seoul Economic Daily reported that RESCENE were appointed the city’s first ambassadors of the ninth elected municipal term — 민선 9기, the way Korean local governments number the successive terms of their popularly elected administrations. Incheon Ilbo glossed the phrase used in the announcement, 제1호 홍보대사, as the first ambassador named under the new municipal administration.

A 홍보대사 is an ambassador: a person or group a public body appoints to represent it in campaigns, videos and events. MyDaily named the five members appointed that day — Woni, Liv, Minami, May and Zena.

The statements from both sides were about scope. Mayor Min Kyung-seon said, per Seoul Economic Daily, ‘민선 9기의 첫 홍보대사로 리센느와 함께하게 돼 기쁘다’ — that he was glad to be working with RESCENE as the term’s first ambassadors. Speaking to Incheon Ilbo, he said the group would ‘contribute to raising Goyang’s city-brand value across the global stage and among younger generations’ (‘글로벌 무대와 젊은 세대를 아우르며 고양시의 도시 브랜드 가치를 높이는 데 기여해 줄 것’).

RESCENE’s own wording, reported by Incheon Ilbo, put the connection first: ‘멤버 메이의 연고지인 고양특례시의 대외 홍보를 맡게 되어 책임감을 느낀다’ — that taking on external promotion for Goyang, the city member May is from, made them feel a sense of responsibility. In MyDaily’s report the group said being appointed ambassadors for May’s hometown was meaningful to them, and to Seoul Economic Daily they said they would make the city’s varied attractions, culture and tourism resources widely known at home and abroad.

The cat on their heads: 고양고양이 and ‘고양야호’

Goyang’s name contains the syllable 고양, which is also the first half of 고양이, the Korean word for cat. The city’s character, 고양고양이, runs on that pun. Seoul Economic Daily reported that the members wore hats of the character for the appointment.

The second thread is a shout. ‘야호’ is the call Korean hikers send across a valley, the equivalent of a yelled ‘yahoo’. Seoul Economic Daily reported that in the appointment video the group calls out ‘고양야호’ — the Goyang version of that greeting. The city’s own upload leans further into the pun: its title opens with ‘고양 야옹~’, swapping the shout for a meow.

Speaking to Joongboo Ilbo, the group described the character as having ‘an appearance so cute and friendly you can never forget it once you’ve seen it’ (‘한 번 보면 절대 잊을 수 없을 만큼 귀엽고 친근한 외모’), and proposed making ‘리센느 버전 고양고양이 꾸미기’ content — a RESCENE version of dressing up the Goyang Goyangi character.

MyDaily framed the appointment as a double occasion for the city, pairing it with the character’s return to public attention — a framing that appears in MyDaily’s report and not in Seoul Economic Daily’s or Incheon Ilbo’s coverage, which describe the character without reference to its history. What is visible on the city’s channel is that 고양고양이 content has kept coming since: uploads on 22 July, 12 August and 20 August 2026.

The work plan: four assets, two formats

The plan is unusually legible for this kind of appointment, because both the city and the group named things.

Speaking to Joongboo Ilbo, RESCENE listed the assets it would promote:

• Kintex — the exhibition and convention centre in Goyang
• the Goyang International Flower Festival
• Ilsan Lake Park
• Haengju Fortress

On the city’s side, Incheon Ilbo reported that the plan includes an official appointment video featuring the 고양고양이 character, plus video content promoting Ilsan Lake Park and other cultural and tourism infrastructure. Incheon Ilbo also reported that the city intends to use the group’s social-media reach to communicate with younger audiences and to build sustained city-brand promotion through video platforms and SNS — the standard Korean shorthand for social networking services.

MyDaily reported the same two-format promise from the group: attractions and culture, carried through video content and social media. In other words, the deliverables named in public are a video pipeline and an account presence, pointed at four places and one cat.

May’s Goyang, in her own words

Seoul Economic Daily reported that May graduated from Jangchon Elementary School and Daehwa Middle School in Goyang, and named Ilsan Lake Park as her favourite place in the city.

On 20 July, Joongboo Ilbo published an interview in which she described the same places at more length. ‘Goyang is the precious hometown that made me who I am today,’ she said (‘고양은 지금의 나를 만들어 준 소중한 고향’).

She named One Mount as a place she went to often as a child, remembering its water park in summer and its snow park in winter. She came back to the lake park: it is her favourite place in the city, she told the paper, and going back carries weight — ‘당시의 따뜻한 추억이 떠올라 언제 찾아도 의미가 크고 소중한 장소’, a place that is meaningful and precious whenever she visits, because the warm memories of that time come back.

That is part of why the promotion list reads the way it does. Ilsan Lake Park appears in the city’s video plan, in the group’s own list of assets, and twice in May’s account of her childhood.

A million views on a municipal channel

Goyang’s official YouTube channel published the appointment video on 3 July 2026, under the title ’고양 야옹~ 고양특례시에 진짜 ‘Pretty Girl’들이 떴다! 🧚‍♀️ #고양고양이 #리센느#홍보대사’ — the city’s cat greeting, followed by a nod to RESCENE’s single ‘Pretty Girl’.

Read through the YouTube Data API on 27 August 2026, that upload showed 1,112,573 views, 14,213 likes and 1,045 comments. Those figures are a single reading on a single date and will move.

The channel has not treated the video as a one-off. Its 고양고양이 uploads continued on 22 July, 12 August and 20 August 2026 — which is what a plan built on ‘sustained city-brand promotion through video platforms and SNS’, in Incheon Ilbo’s description, looks like in practice.

And then what: the August half

The July appointment is one half of Goyang’s RESCENE story. The other half arrived in August, when the city built a campaign around May’s birthday. That campaign is covered in How Goyang Turned RESCENE May’s Birthday Into a City Campaign.

Read together, the two pieces answer different questions. July is the agreement: who was appointed, on what date, to promote which four assets in which two formats. August is the execution. Together they show what a city ambassadorship actually consists of once the hats come off.

Key takeaways

• Goyang appointed RESCENE — Woni, Liv, Minami, May and Zena — as ambassadors at City Hall on 2 July 2026, the first of the ninth elected municipal term, per Seoul Economic Daily, Incheon Ilbo and MyDaily.
• Speaking to Joongboo Ilbo, the group named the assets it would promote: Kintex, the Goyang International Flower Festival, Ilsan Lake Park and Haengju Fortress.
• Incheon Ilbo reported the city’s plan covers an official appointment video featuring the 고양고양이 character, further video content on Ilsan Lake Park and other cultural and tourism sites, and sustained promotion through video platforms and SNS.
• The group proposed ‘리센느 버전 고양고양이 꾸미기’ content — a RESCENE version of dressing up the city’s cat character — and called the character unforgettable once seen.
• May told Joongboo Ilbo that Goyang is ‘the precious hometown that made me who I am today’, naming One Mount and Ilsan Lake Park; Seoul Economic Daily reported she graduated from Jangchon Elementary and Daehwa Middle School in the city.
• Goyang’s official YouTube channel published the appointment video on 3 July 2026; read via the YouTube Data API on 27 August 2026 it showed 1,112,573 views, 14,213 likes and 1,045 comments.