But the entire Korean herd landed outside the motel door after that and we were off to sightsee. The first stop was the memorial for the dead of the Kwangju Uprising on May 18th of 1980. This was one of the signature moments in modern Korean history and it gives a good idea of what kinds of political forces contend there.
THE MEMORIAL
The Uprising was a violent manifestation of the civilian discontent with the military junta which had siezed control of Korea in a coup. Kwangju is in the middle of the Cholla province which already had a reputation in Korea for being hard-headed and rebellious. The Cholla province, for instance, was most effective and consistent at raising so called "holy armies" against Japanese invasions. The rebellion began when the military government declared martial law in an attempt to squash growing complaints and calls for democratization of the political process.
Major General Chun Doo-hwan sent paratroopers to all major Korean cities in an attempt to intimidate oppnnents of the government. In Kwangju this mobilization was called "Operation Brilliant Leave" and it involved troops from the 3rd, 7th, and 11th (all prime numbers?) Airborne.
In Kwangju the anti-government protests were initially composed of students and professors. At 10 o'clock on the morning of May 18th, protesters, reacting to the closure of their schools, demonstrated in front of the Chonnam Mantion University front gate. The troops responded violently, beating protesters and chasing them away. The students reformed their ranks and marched towards downtown Kwangju. Paratroopers again responded with violence, beating and arresting students. This tactic backfired as it began to alienate non-student sections of Kwangju and citizens began to swell the student's ranks.
By May 20th high-school students and taxi-drivers had also joined the demonstrations and taxi-drivers "marched" en masse in their taxis in support of the uprising. That same day protesters burned the studio of the Munwha broadcasting Company which was sending out highly-distorted pro-government accounts of the uprising. The Memorial has a riveting video covering much of this ground, and what is most disturbing (although predictable) is how the press and government covered the uprising up in a thick layer of lies. One of the "highlights" of this video is footage of quite messy and dead Korean citizens on the ground under a voice-over assuring the rest of the country that no citizens had been harmed in Kwangju.
GRAVES OF UNHARMED CIVILIANS
On May 21st the paratroopers more or less snapped and began to fire randomly into the crowd of citizens which had gathered to demand and apology for previous brutal treatment. According to Ed, to this day no one knows who started firing or if anyone gave such an order. As a result of this the army retreated from Kwangju and the locals formed a defensive militia called the Citizens Army. The army, by this point, had Kwangju completely surrounded and cut off from the rest of Korea. Kwangju citizens tried to organize to find a peaceful end to the uprising, but it was not to happen.
During the peaceful 7 days during which the army waited on Kwangju's outskirts, the town was completely unified as people pooled food, ran blood drives, collected weapons for self-defense and otherwise acted like stinking commies!
STATUE MEMORIALIZING THE CITIZENS
On May 27th this came to an end as the army, using tanks and helicopters, forced its way into the city's center and, in a last bit of violence, quashed the rebellion. The army brought, in garbage trucks, the civilian corpses to the Mangwol-dong cemetary and buried them (anonymously?)
For almost 20 years this remained the case, and the government continued to lie the revolt had been planned, organized and run by North Korean provocateurs. Near the anniversary of these events, the army continued to surround the graveyard so that mourners could not gather. In 1997 this all changed and the memorial was built.
The role of the US in this massacre has always been a matter of contention. As the head of US troops in South Korea is also the military leader of all Korean troops by treaty, many Koreans assume that these operations were carried out with the knowledge and approval of the US. Koreans, with a history of imperial domination to look back on, seldom attribute any good will towards their "benefactors."
US Army documents seem to indicate that the US was not aware of the particulars of the operation at the outset, but that the US did not use its powers of control to halt operations either. The US took a hands-off approach and the closest historical comparison I can come up with is when Israeli troops pulled back in Sabra and Shatila to allow Maronite Christians to slaughter Palestinian refugees. Not good no matter how you look at it.
BIGGER DOG TEMPLE
After visiting the depressing memorial we raced of to "The Big Temple in the Hills" which was.. well.. big. We didn't stay long because Jae's dad rushed us in, took one group picture, and barked, "let's go home!" Not much else to say about that except that here are pics:
SOME KIND OF BUILDING
SOME OTHER KINDS OF BUILDINGS WITH WHITE CRANE MOUNTAIN BEHIND
THE CURE AND THE DISEASE
One theme running through this trip has been illness. I have intestinal trouble twice and a cold once. Eddie has had the intestinal thing. POSSLQ has had the same things I have and Jae has been hideously ill with the flu. For these various ailments the native Koreans (primarily Ed and Jae's parents) carry with them bags and bags of what they call "medicine." Actually, they call in hanyak and I'm afraid to ask what the literal meaning of that word it. I suspect hanyak is actually the ground-up and water-based remainder of things that even Koreans won't eat (The notion of something Koreans won't eat just came to me and its a frightening one, since they will eat pretty much anything). Koreans are either the heathiest people in the world or the sickest. Koreans have so many medicines for everything and take them all the time, so you could argue that without their medicines they would certainly immediately expire as a race. On the other hand, the closest western counterpart to Korean medicine is called "poison" and the fact that Koreans routinely survive dosing themselves with this wretched shit might mean that they are the toughest sons of bitches in the world.
I'll I can say is it seems to be killing me.
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