Gwangju, Jollanamdo Province, South Korea
December 18, 2001
The city bus #25-2 made a stop at the entrance to the 5.18 Memorial. Another person, a young man, got off the bus with me. He carried a department store bag and a bouquet of fresh flowers. He walked briskly toward the memorial grounds. He was probably visiting a former classmate of his who had suffered a sad fate.
One fine spring day in 1980, government paratroopers entered the city of Gwangju to stop student-led demonstrations against the military dictatorship of Chun Doohwan. What followed in the next few days was a massacre of students and citizens of Gwangju. The legacy of that movement is the democracy enjoyed today in Korea. Despite regional prejudice against the people of Jollado region in modern Korean history, its people have always risen to challenge injustice. Kim Daejung, a native son of Gwangju, is now the president of the country and the first Korean recipient of Nobel Peace Prize. He planted a tree in the memorial plaza to pay respect to the victims. I was really moved by a sculpture I saw in the plaza. A smiling woman is holding a rice scoop while admiring the efforts of young student demonstrators. Women had cooked for and fed students in the back streets. Some of their own sons and daughters would perish on that day.
I came across a burial mound that had fresh flowers before the headstone. Next to the flowers were peeled tangerines, a half-full bottle of soju, a soju-filled paper cup, a pack of cigarettes, and a lit cigarette. The young man had stopped by here. The headstone read that this resting person was born in 1935. So the person must have been his teacher or father the young man had come to visit.
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