Happy National Founding Day (Gaecheonjeol) everyone! Today was one of Korea's national holidays commemorating the mythological story of Korea's origins. According to legend, on this day 2457 BC, Hwanung descended to earth to live with mankind. He came to earth with his son, Dangun, who is the legendary founder Gojoseon, the first dynasty of Korea.
According to the story, Hwanin (god of heaven, father of Hwanung) permitted his son to descend to Baekdu mountain, because he desired to live on earth. Near the place where he established Sinsi (city of god), a tiger and a bear lived in a cave. They would come to Sinsi to pray Hwanung, asking to be made human. Hwanung gave them garlic and mugwort and told them if they ate this for 100 days and lived out of the sunlight, they would become human. The tiger did this for 20 days, but then gave up and left the cave. The bear fulfilled the 100 day requirement and was transformed into a woman. This woman, Ungnyeo, prayed for a child. Hwanung took her as his wife. She gave birth to Dangun, who became the first king of Gojoseon.
Interesting story right? I think the fact that this traditional story still is remembered on this day is a pretty strong indication of how much Korea reveres its history and traditions. Though all of my friends think the story is quite sensational, it is nice to see a country remember what its ancestors believed. You cannot fully understand your own culture until you know the history of your people. I also thought it was awesome because we got the day off!
For my Gaecheonjeol holiday, I went up to Seoul to visit the Korean War National Museum. Polina and Chelsea joined me on this day trip. We took the subway (only a 2 1/2 hour ride) to the museum and then had lunch in Itaewon before coming back to school.
The Korean War National Museum presents the history of Korean warfare, namely the Japanese invasion and the Korean war. It also discusses some of the little known conflicts from the Three Kingdoms period as well as the battles during the Japanese occupation. I consider Koreans a very peaceful people, for having a 4000 year history (going back to Gaecheonjeol again!), Korea has only had a few major wars, and all of them were in defense (from the perspective of the South).
One thing that I learned that was quite interesting was that during the occupation, the resistance fighters, which were Koreans that fought against the occupation, were supported financially by the US and Allied forces. A large group of these fighters were in Manchuria trying to take parts of the northern region of Korea from the Japanese during WWII. They were planning an invasion of Japan occupied north Korea when the atomic bombs were dropped, ending the occupation. I knew the Allied forces supported the exiled Korean government in Shanghai, but I didn't know that they supplied weapons to these guerrilla forces in the mountains of Manchuria. I wonder what history would be like if Truman did not drop the bombs in Japan....what would an invasion of Korea from the resistance fighters result in? What would the joint invasion of Japan by the USA and Russia result to? History would have been very different.
Another thing that really struck me seeing it displayed in the museum was how many people were involved and killed in the Korean war. The amount of Korean soldier casualties is overwhelming, about 600,000 were killed. That is a lost generation, considering the population of Korea was estimated around 30 million or so. The USA involvement in the war is quite extraordinary. Over 1 million troops were sent to Korea during the war. It is hard for me to comprehend the influence this war must have had on the USA. This took place right after WWII, with most of the free world believing that the outcome would define the decades to come.
After visiting the museum, we went to lunch in Itaewon, which is considered the foreigner street of Seoul. You can find just about any ethnic food on this street. It is a pretty cool place to visit, seeing people from around the world chatting in dozens of languages. We had lunch in a Saudi Arabian restaurant, which was very delicious! It was a nice change in pace from the routine chili pepper sauteed Korean food we eat at school. Don't get me wrong, I love Korean food, but I enjoy variety, which proves to be near impossible in small town Korea.
This week is regular classes. This Friday, I'm going to cheer the Korean National Football team as they play Poland at the World Cup Stadium. I am extremely excited about this chance to be in the atmosphere of some hard core soccer fans cheering their beloved team. Best believe, I'll be wearing my Korea Football shirt!
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