Korean War Memorial Visit

"War divides the country" is the more accurate, and less used, way to describe Korea. After all, the uneasy truce that created the Demilitarized Zone, was a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. Cessation? Often illusion; numerous attempts on executives' and citizens' lives have been made by the North for the past forty years, and continue today. Seoul didn't always have a top-rated international airport, Jongno Tower, or even the perpetual "armpit" (Lonely Planet) that is Itaewon ... in most of our Parent's lives, it doubled as capital city and wasteland ... a role it's held for hundreds of years. As I type this I sit in a valley between mountains that nearly perfectly geographically divided the country, hence was a strategic target throughout the fighting. The weathered faces that hock radishes in the market have seen more suffering than most care to elucidate.

But the Koreans I've encountered don't use the "proper" terminology to connote threat or fear so much as hope. Everywhere there are cries that the bloodline "will" be reunited. Only once realpolitik takes the forum floor is that hope winded. A massive and determinative war, or even a regime collapse that results in a flood of refugees--neither of these are pretty pictures to those whose mandatory military service reminds them of what life could be like.

Metaphorically also Korea (South) is a divided country. Traditional markets and BMWs, G20 membership and FTAs ... but today I drop the metaphoric for the literal. Oddly enough what brought me to Seoul that weekend was an ATEK meeting, a meeting for those expats who, displeased with foreigner abuse, seek to share information that can be used in the spars of litigation. Having a few hours to burn I visited the War Memorial before the meeting.

Quickly I noticed the conflict between somber rememberance and capitalistic opportunity. There's a wedding hall at the war memorial.

Actually, two.

Let me repeat that:

There are two wedding halls located at the memorial to a war that is still technically ongoing, a war that tore a country in half for forty years and counting.

(Korean wedding etiquette is something deserving of its own post, and I'll get to that in another catch-up post over my vacation.)

But I digress.

Ignoring the Wedding Hall there are numerous displays of arms and maps, ranging from ancient to modern. Most interesting about the War Memorial is that it is not exclusively about the 20th century conflict we know as the "Korean War." It is about war, in Korea, since the time of arrowheads and spears. Since Goguryo was invaded by Baekjae and then Silla and the Mongols crushed Baekjae, and went on to take Goguryo, unifying the three Kingdoms into "Goryeo," which gave Korea its name ... some hundreds of years ago.

I could keep commenting but often the symbolism is obvious and the words are vacant. The flickr photostream is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/badukkong/sets/72157623028162228/.

And I would like to thank the Korean government for offering gas-mask use training in English. I walk past the glass cases of emergency equipment every time I take the subway in Seoul, it's only with an odd ease that, like most around me, I assume their use will remain unnecessary for years to come.