Posts Tagged ‘Roh Moo-Hyun’

2
Jun

Week 10: People

   Posted by: Rhona    in South Korea

On our final day in Seoul we went to the public memorial of Roh Moo-Hyun, the ex president who committed suicide last week. His body was brought from his hometown of Bongha to Seoul in the early hours of Friday May 29 and the funeral was held at Gyeongbokgung, a palace which was once the main royal residence. Around 2,500 dignitaries attended and hundreds of thousands of mourners packed the streets. From there the coffin was taken to Seoul Plaza, the biggest open space in the city, then to Seoul station and to the crematory in Suwon, an hour to the south. The main ceremony was earlier than we expected and so we watched the news over breakfast and saw the incredible crowds. We hurried over and saw the remnants of the crowds (still impressive) and actually managed to get around and see some stuff so in a way it was the best of both worlds. Roh Moo-Hyun certainly seemed to be well respected and we’ve seen footage of lawyer types getting into egged buses, they might be the ones who were prosecuting him for corruption. There has also been a few signs of anti-government sentiment with signs saying “MB Out” being waved about. (Lee Myung-bak is the current president).

From Seoul we headed to Suwon where we spent a few days walking the UNESCO world heritage listed fortress wall, watching traditional performances and exploring the Korean Folk Village. The 5.7km fortress wall was originally built between 1794 and 1796 by King Jeongjo (1752-1800), the 22nd king of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) who seems to have been quite active around here. He also built Hwaseong Haenggung, a palace that he built in honour of his father, Crown Prince Sado. Prince Sado had been killed by his own father by being sealed in a rice chest after it was reported that he had a mental illness and was behaving erratically. We visited the palace where this reportedly happened, Changgyeonggung in Seoul (see this post). The wall itself was nothing overly exciting though the UNESCO listing might be more for the fact that there are full records of its design and construction, pretty impressive artefacts 200 years later.

On weekends there are free traditional performances outside Hwaseong Haenggung and we managed to catch three of them. On Saturday we arrived just in time to see a style of percussion called samul nori which originated in farmers music. Dressed in basic but bright blue red and yellow some of the men also wear black hats with long white ribbons attached. The ones with the ribboned hats often play a small hand held drum which doesn’t make all that much noise, probably because the coordination needed to spin their head as they hit the drum means that they’re not always accurate. The main music comes from two types of larger drums, gongs, an Indian sounding bugle and a shallow metallic instrument that sounds like a pot lid being hit. The leader of the band is one of the pot lid players and he seems to decide when to change the rhythm or speed. The ribboned hat players are the most active, dancing around, spinning their heads so that the ribbons twirl as if it were rhythmic gymnastics.

There was also a performance of martial arts used during the Joseon dynasty, with various gruesome looking weapons wielded artfully and gracefully. They demonstrated a charge and the various uses of each weapon in a battle situation including a pitchfork like weapon which was used to guard against fighters with spears. It could also, handily, be used to impale someone when they were relinquished of their spear.

It was truly a performance rich week as I saw even more at the Korean Folk Village. Brett was in need of a day of sleeping and relaxing (and I think he wasn’t overly enthused about yet another folk village) so I explored on my own. I saw another two performances of samul nori, a horse riding show and a traditional wedding. The horse riding show was cool but I realised that to a Montana man like Brett fancy tricks like hanging down on one side of the horse or having a person stand on the shoulders of another man while at full gallop can be seen at any rodeo. I didn’t quite scream as loud as the high school groupie girls as the strapping young men galloped past but I was impressed. In some of the houses at the village there were people doing some traditional crafts like spinning silk, weaving bamboo baskets and making straw sandals. It was cheesy but the photographer in me loved having a place where it was possible to poke my head into and photograph every corner.

Needless to say this post is going to be short on writing (well I thought it was) and longer on photos. It’s been a busy week for my camera. Today we arrived in Jeonju where we will spend a few nights before heading on to Jeju island and China.

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27
May

Week 9: Seoul

   Posted by: Rhona    in South Korea

We’ve been in Seoul for just over a week and I’m not sure what I think of the place. I guess it’s hard to adjust to being in the big city after so long in the less populated areas (though we have also visited the 2nd and 3rd largest cities). The thing that’s struck us the most is the incredible number of foreigners here. Apparently there are 130,000 foreigners living in Seoul although 60% are Chinese so we can’t necessarily tell them apart until they speak. Given the number of white faces at tourist attractions I’d say there are a lot of people who come to Seoul and then leave Korea. We certainly haven’t seen many of them in other parts of the country – even Gyeongju which surely must be on even a basic Korean itinerary.

Our first excursion was to a granite capped hill poking out through the jungle of highrise apartments. Korea’s overall population density is 480 per sq km but almost a quarter of the 48.4 million people live in the capital, many of them in massive high density forests of apartment towers. The hillside was associated with shamanists and we saw some of them waiting for customers or carrying out rituals. We couldn’t get to the top for a view though as it was occupied by the military. It’s easy to forget how close to the North Korean border we are here and even Pyongyang isn’t all that far away.

We’ve also visited a couple of the palaces, residences for Korea’s royal family in the Josean dynasty (1392-1910). Changdeokgung was probably the best preserved one as it was rebuilt in 1610 after the Japanese invasion of 1592. It was originally built by the 3rd Josean king who claimed that the topography of the previous palace wasn’t auspicious enough, though the brochure points out that he killed a number of people in order to ascend the throne and may not have wanted to live in the same palace as hosted the bloodbath. It seems intrigues, murders and betrayals are common amongst royal families all over the world. In another episode at Changgyeonggung Prince Sado, heir to the throne, was sealed in a rice chest by his father after it was reported that he was mentally ill and behaving erratically. Thankfully things have changed since 1762, we’ve been impressed with the number of mentally and physically disabled people we’ve seen out and about.

In the same area as Changdeokgung and Changgyeonggung is the Jongmyo Royal Shrine where the spirit tablets of Joseon Kings and Queens were enshrined. Like most things in Korea the buildings were destroyed in the 1592 Japanese invasion but the spirit tablets were saved. There are 83 kings and queens enshrined in two buildings. After a royal death was mourned at the palace for three years the spirit tablet was moved to the Main Hall but in order for someone to “move in”, another spirit tablet had to “move out” to the Hall of Everlasting Peace. Only royals who achieved outstanding deeds were allowed to remain indefinitely in the main hall. Once annually a ritual offering of food is carried out by male descendants of the royal family. The Lee family is symbolised by a plum blossom which you see decorating many of the palaces and it seemed there was no final purge of important family members like there has been at the end of some royal lineages. A grandson of King Gojong (1852-1919) apparently operates a guesthouse just north of where we’re staying.

Resistance fighters during the Japanese colonisation weren’t as decently treated. We visited the Seodaemun prison, built in 1908 to house 500 prisoners at a time when the total holding capacity of prisons on the entire Korean peninsula was 300 people. Animatronics dummies and recorded screams detailed the various tortures used and a bizarre interactive display let you sit in a chair in what used to be the execution room. After being “judged” the chair dropped an inch and the noose above your neck let you know it used to drop further.

Early in the morning on the 23rd the ex prime minister committed suicide. We spent the day exploring Nandaemun market and having a very productive stock up and get things fixed day but kept seeing busloads of police kitted out in riot gear. Eventually a man passing by told us what had happened: Roh Moo-hyun finished his 4 year term last year and was very popular for his honesty and anti corruption focus but in the last month he has been hauled up on charges that family members accepted US$5 million from a wealthy businessman. It seems the younger generation supported Roh Moo-Hyun and dislike the current prime minister as he has done some bad things that everyone knows about (except us). The police were amassed in areas likely to be gathering grounds for protests. There seems to be a massive outpouring of grief and we’ve seen a few alters with crowds of people offering white chrysanthemums and bowing before a photo of him. In a largely Christian country suicide is uncommon and an ex world leader taking his life is drastic in any country. Having said that, I’m not sure that Australians would mourn a past leader with quite the same reverence.

Tomorrow we’re headed to the DMZ and Panmunjom which should be an interesting day, especially given current headlines then on Friday we’ll leave Seoul for Suwon. En route to Jeju Island we’re also planning on stopping in Jeonju to explore the hanok village there. Then it’s back to Seoul to catch a boat over to Beijing and on to Tibet before Brett heads back to work. I’ll probably hang out in China while he’s away and then we have to decide if Kyrgystan or Xinjiang is next on the list. Long term I’m looking at possibly trying to get a job based in Germany that takes mentally and physically disabled people on holidays.

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