One of the things I’ve loved so much about Korea is the history. It never ceases to fascinate me, and I’m always looking for something old when I’m out on the bike.
As I mentioned briefly yesterday, Joon and I rode to Byeongch’eon and the birthplace of Yu Gwansun. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful place to be, so today I suggested Sundae to Micha for lunch (also, as I’d mentioned yesterday, Byeongch’eon is famous in Korea for it’s Sundae (blood sausage). I love the stuff down there.)
As we got near the exit, I noticed the traffic was getting bad — backed up for quite some distance before even getting off the highway — so we skipped the Sundae and went down the road to our favorite Korean beef restaurant. But I was set on seeing more of the Yu Gwansun memorial hall, so I drove the ten kilometers or so back to it on the way home.
As I wandered the grounds, I could really feel the weight of the place and the March 1st (Korean independence) movement. I’m fascinated by the courage of the people who gave so much for the country. Yu was a 16-year-old student at Ehwa Hakdang (now Ehwa Women’s University) in Seoul when she was an eyewitness to the birth of the movement in 1919. When they closed her school in mid-March of that year, she returned to take the message of independence to the people of her hometown, organizing a protest at the town market on April 1st. Japanese constables arrived and soon fired upon the crowd, killing 19, including Yu’s parents. Yu was arrested, convicted, and ended up at Seodaemun prison in Seoul, where she was beaten and tortured, eventually dying from her wounds on September 28, 2020 — less than three months before her 18th birthday. Yu was posthumously awarded the Order of Merit for National Foundation in 1962, and her obituary was published in the New York Times in 2018.
The memorial park wasn’t crowded, but something I saw while I was there taught me more about Korea. Shortly after arriving, as I climbed the steps to the memorial hall, I noticed a young family. A father carrying a baby, and a mother and daughter ahead of him. The daughter went to the front of the memorial, where she bowed her head as her mother took a picture. I didn’t think much of it until later, when I saw another father in the memorial park’s museum, sitting with his young daughter watching a short film about Yu. These were young families teaching their daughters about a Korean girl not ten years older than them when she gave her life for her country.
As Micha told me when we drove to Yu’s birthplace on the way to the memorial, “Yu Gwansun died when she was eighteen [Korean age], but her name lives forever in Korea.” It was so cool seeing these mothers and fathers teaching the lesson of Yu’s courage and strength to their daughters today. It was a good lesson for me too.
