Independence Hall and Moving to Seoul

Hello from Seoul! I am back at the Byeons for the summer. The trip up to Seoul went well, I took a bus to downtown Seoul where Oppa Byeon came to pick me up.

First, let me recap about yesterday:

Yesterday I went to the Independence Hall of Korea. It is located about twenty minutes from SCH. It is a museum that covers the independent spirit of Korea: A nation surrounded by several prominent powers over the course of history (China, Japan, Mongolia, and Russia), yet it has been able to maintain it's individuality. The museum focuses primarily in the late 19th and 20th centuries before, during, and after the Japanese occupation.

The trip to the museum was an optional fieldtrip from the school, so I was joined by many of the international students and a group of the Chinese students. We had lunch at the museum before going to the introduction presentation.

After this brief review of Korea at the presentation, we were able to walk through half the exhibits (up to the years preceding the end of the occupation). The museum was huge. I didn't realize how extensive it would be. We were rushed through these exhibits, but I did learn and see a few interesting things.

I was able to see some of the swords that belonged to Yi Sun-sin, who was the greatest Korean general in history. His intuition and naval strategies aided considerably to Korea being able to keep the Japanese from occupying Korean in the 1500's. He is one of the historical figures that I really admire. Not only was he a brave general, he was well educated and a poet. His poems are beautiful and his creativity led to the invention of the Turtle Boats, the first ironclad ships in history. His swords were the typical 6 ft long style from that period. I can only imagine what those swords have witnessed in history...

I also learned about some of the events that led to the occupation and some of the events that occurred during the Japanese colonization. The treaty of Ganghwa is quite an interesting turning point in Korean history. It was the treaty that was signed to open Korea up more to the world economically. It was drafted through the Japanese, who were already trading with most of the Western powers of that age. Through this treaty, Korea was no longer recognized as a protectorate of China. This status is an interesting piece of history as well.

When referencing Korea as a protectorate of China, it does not mean that Korea was ruled under China. It is more of a spiritual recognition. Chinese leaders are called emperors because they are not only rulers of the physical world, they are the mediator to the heavens. Korean leaders up to this time were called kings because they were only physical leaders, the spiritual responsibilities were that of the Chinese emperor. This relationship between China and Korea also included a mutual agreement that if one country was attacked, the other kingdom would come to its aid.

This is what happened during the Japanese invasion in the 1500's. Japan demanded Joseon (Korea) to join them in attacking Ming (China). Joseon refused, leading to the Japanese invading Korea in order to wipe out Ming's ally while slowly moving towards Ming. China came to Korea's aid during the invasion, which contributed considerably to driving Japan out of Korea. China's loss from the war was in fact larger than Korea. The friendship between the two was the result of this protectorate relationship.

Japan knew if they wanted to take control of Korea, they would need to convince Korea to end that agreement with China. They did so with this treaty and later giving a Japanese princess in marriage to the last King of Joseon, which occurred after his first wife was assassinated by the Japanese. Interestingly, The Temple of Heaven in Seoul was built by this last king of Joseon, because he was now the spiritual protector of his country. In Seoul, it is across from the palace where he lived, which has a traditional palace and several Western style buildings that were built immediately after this treaty.

When Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan was considered the dominant power of the region. Russia acknowledged Japan's relationship with Korea as "Paramount." At this point, China no longer had its "brother" like friendship with Korea while Russia, the other larger power in the region, considered Korea a tributary to Japan. In addition, the USA signed an agreement (Taft-Katsura) in which the USA considered Korea a part of Japan. There was a lot of political unrest in Korea at that time, so Japan used that time of chaos to establish its influence and eventual dominance over Korea. The Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty in 1907 confirmed this dominance, leading to the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910-1945

Though the museum included a lot of interesting historical facts, there were some inappropriate displays for children with no notice beforehand and several historical facts that were terribly distorted in favor of Korea.

Concerning my first statement: there was an exhibit displaying all the methods of torture the Japanese inflicted on the Korean rebels. Not only were there graphic descriptions of these disgusting acts, there were life size, life like robots that were displaying these tortures, screaming in pain as it occurred. I know the museum wants everyone to understand what happened during those years, but there were three school boys who were no older than 7, standing there in horror as these robots were being tortured. I think everyone needs to understand what happened, but it may not be the best time to share this information with a 7 year old. I know when I was seven, I probably wouldn't have been able to handle that, I was still freaked out by the Nazis being killed by the Ark in "Raiders." It was a shock to me seeing this display, but I can't imagine how these kids were able to process this information with such a shock factor staring them in the face.

Now to the second issue. In our introduction, the woman giving the lecture made this statement: "The occupation was a terrible time, but because of the Korean spirit, Koreans were able to drive out these invaders in 1945." Uh....What? From every history book I have read, it was because the Allied forces defeated Japan and under the conditions of their defeat agreement, had to leave Korea and turn them over to the Allied forces.

All in all, it was a good trip. In the evening, the remaining international students had a final dinner together. It was bittersweet to have this last bit of time together before we go our separate ways, unsure of when we will be together again.

Today, after Oppa Byeon picked me up, we went to get Seungyoung from his tutoring for dinner. We had Budae Jigae, which is a spicy soup that I have mentioned before. The soup made by the US army during the war that was pretty much anything they could put together: sausage, kimchi, green onion, ham, etc. After dinner, we went to visit Oppa's ping pong buddies at the place where he and Omma practice. Me and Seungyoung played a bit of ping pong while Oppa visited with his friends. The other people practicing there were so interesting to watch. Some of them I had seen at the Ping pong competition I watched Omma compete in November. In contrast to their Olympic like abilities, me and Seungyoung were happy just to be able to hit the ball back and forth without sending it flying off the table. It was fun to see where they practice and to play a round with Seungyoung.

I start my internship on Monday, so this weekend will mostly be a preparation/unpack/relax type weekend. I will keep you all updated about this internship, should be interesting....