General Sunshin LEE

Every country has a national hero nearly all the people admire with no doubt. To us, General Sunshin Lee (1545~1598), is one of the country's favourite great men and women and, during the Japanese Invasion of Korea in the 16th century, achieved an incredible record of all wins and no defeat at wars on the sea.

These national heroes normally enjoy the enthusiastic support by the future generation, but if they ever knew they were used to consolidate some dictators' power as a part of the obscurant policy, I don't think they are quite happy with this. A statue of General Lee, standing at Gwanghwamun crossroads with a very stern looking, seems to contain a disturbing ghost of Junghee Park, dictatorial former President in 1970s.

Mao Zedong

In the book I'm currently reading, "우리가 몰랐던 동아시아(meaning 'East Asia We Haven't Known', written by Noja Park, 2007), there is a chapter comparing Mao Zedong/ Ho Chi Minh and Kim Ilseong. They have one thing in common: founding fathers of modern East Asian countries. However, the author seeks for a reason why it is not easy to find a biography about Kim Ilseong comparing to easy access to biographies about other two leaders.

Apart from the two Koreas' relations, the writer questions why even mainstream scholars in Western countries are neutral and/or favourable to other two leaders but hostile to Kim Ilseong. In brief, he says they have different growth backgrounds and policy lines: higher education vs military service and political leader vs military leader. Therefore, Kim Ilseong's ideology is based on his specific experience unlike others' on their philosophical reasoning, and the phase of North Korea, Kim Ilseong the Patriarch in DPRK the Family Country, has led to a barrier of favourable reactions by Western society, where Individualism prevails, he concludes.

The poster is about Park Sang Hee's sculpture exhibition, "Hello, 마오쩌뚱(Mao Zedong)!"

Korean War 한국전쟁

Today is the 57th Anniversary of Korean War. (Korean people mostly use '6.25(yukio in Korean)' rather than the term, 'Korean War' according to what we learnt from history classes. At least none of my teachers call it Korean war.) On TV morning news, they were making a fuss about the survey result that 53.2% of 20's doesn't know the year of the outbreak of the war. Though I'm in 20's in western age, because we are the generation who was taught years and groups excessively during Korean history class, it was surprising to me too that about a half of my generation is not aware of this kind of basic year. However, shouldn't it be more astonishing, not just unawareness of a year but our insufficient awareness of the tragedy still going on this peninsula?

(What you see on the photo is the part of North Korean viewed from 'Unification Observatory' located on South Korea's northern most part. The pic was taken a bit long ago though.)

오늘은 6.25가 발발한 지 57년 되는 날이다.

오늘 아침 뉴스에서는 20대의 53.2%가

6.25 전쟁의 발발연도를 모른다는 여론조사가 나왔다고

충격이라며 아침부터 호들갑을 떨었다.

난 서양식 나이로 20대이지만 내가 학교 다닐 때만 해도

한국사를 배울 때 연도와 소속 단체를 과하다 싶을 정도로 배웠기 때문에

이런 기본적인 연도를 모른다는 것은 솔직히 놀라웠다.

하지만 더 놀라야 할 것은 연도의 인지도가 아니라

이 땅의 끝나지 않은 이 비극에 대해

우리의 대다수가 충분히 인지하지 못하고 있다는 것 아닐까?

(사진은 남한의 최북단에 위치한 통일 전망대에서 바라본 북한땅이다.

좀 오래 전에 찍은 사진이긴 하다.)