Shades of history

I've been trying to get some insights into Korean history as presented in their museums and so on. My success has been variable. While I located the massive National museum of Korea, it only focused on ancient history, with little to be explicitly said about 20th century history, and WW2 in particular.

I also found the National museum of contemporary history, but it focused mostly on the Korean war, as did the War Memorial, mainly only discussing the WW2 period as "shameful" (because of Korea being colonized by Japan).

But I did at least find one thing that hit me like a punch in the gut: the memorial to Korean "comfort women". It was created in 2011, and reminds everyone of the war crimes of Japan. Especially the Japanese, since the memorial is right across the street from the Japanese embassy.

And for those of you who don't know: approximately 200 000 Korean girls were forcibly recruited as "comfort women" during WW2. And to make the subtext text: that's sexual slavery. Of them, only about 10% returned to Korea after the war.

I think this memorial is one of the most powerful I've seen, but you make your own call.

Some Korean palaces and people

Saturday and sunday were spent in various locations with various people. First, i took some time to walk around the namsan park, which sports a famous tower.

Some pics from Namsan

Then in the evening, i met up with my friend Jina and her boyfriend:

And they took me on a korean barbecue!

On sunday, i met up with my friend Anders, who took me palace-visiting.

The southern gate

The main palace

War memorial of Korea

One of my first places to visit was the war memorial of Korea, a museum commemorating the modern wars of Korea - specifically the Korean war.

The frontside of the memorial

The memorial is very blatantly focused ob building a common korean national identity. The parts of the museum about earlier wars focus on portraying Korea as constantly assailed by others such as japan and China (to be fair, that is a valid perspective). Likewise, the Korean war is portrayed as a family tragedy, a conflict between brothers.

The two korean brothers, north and south.

More disturbing, in its way, is the short shrift given to the colonial period: the japanese occupation is glossed over, merely mentioned as a shameful experience, and Korean opposition against Japan is highlighted.

This means that those who collaborated with Japan aren't mentioned at all. And that silence, in turn, makes the kind of identity-building the memorial works toward, exceedingly fragile. Like all master narratives.

Oh well. At least they have a pillar hall! And a B52!