nanoomi

I discovered Ju-Hwan Kim’s dissertation “Relocating the Alliance: The U.S.-South Korea Military Alliance in Cultural Representations” (downloadable here) while looking for more information about Nam Jeong-hyeon’s 1965 novella Bunji [Land of Excrement], which Kim describes:

In an epistolary format, the story of Bunji is narrated by Hong Mansu [a direct descendent of Hong Gil-dong] addressing to his deceased mother. Several days after the 1945 liberation of Korea, Mansu’s mother who came out to welcome the U.S. forces with hand-made Korean and star-spangled flags in her hand gets raped on the way by American GIs. Back home, she exposes her defiled body to her son and daughter, Mansu and Buni. Unable to overcome her shame, Mansu’s mother refuses to eat and dies in a few days after a convulsion. Upon his discharge from the military, Mansu, unable to find a job, begins black-market trading with American goods that his sister Buni obtains from Sergeant Speed, an American soldier she lives with. Buni also ends up in misfortune as she experiences sexual torment by Mr. Speed who often disparages the “lower half of her body” comparing that with his wife’s. In resentment of the sergeant’s abuse of his sister, Mansu determines to see Mrs. Speed or Mrs. Bitch as he names her, for himself.

By this time, Mrs. Speed leaves the U.S. to make an unexpected visit to see her husband in South Korea. Mansu, not to miss this God-sent chance, tricks Mrs. Speed to accompany him for tour during which he rapes her in a mountain. Learning the news, the U.S. government mobilizes a mass-scale retaliation dispatching “as many as ten thousand missiles and artillery pieces” including a nuclear bomb to destroy the whole mountain where Mansu is hiding.

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On July 11, 1971, the Korea Times published the following story about an incident in Pyeongtaek which occurred July 9.

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While I’ve known that you could use Google to search Life Magazine’s photo archives (these photos of communist murals in Pyongyang during the Korean War were linked to at the Marmot’s Hole a few years ago) , I hadn’t thought of doing more exploring until a few days ago. What turned up were dozens of photos taken by photographer George Silk in the fall of 1945 when US troops arrived in Korea after the end of World War II. These include aerial shots of the city (click on the source or other links to find the original, full size photos):

I was looking through 1940s-era Stars and Stripes and found some interesting articles from the time of the American military occupation (from 1945 to 1949, which I’ve written about before here and here) which point to concerns – on both sides – about the effects of American influence on Korean women.

First, this article from February 5, 1949:

Army Relaxes Ban
Korean Girls invited to Soldier ‘Shindig’

By WILLIAM MOORE
SEOUL,” Feb. 5 (AP)—If everything works out right there will be 150 Korean girls to dance with American soldiers at their Hourglass Club Feb. 13.

Brig. Gen. William L. Roberts, Redlands, Calif., who took over command here last month said Friday the plan of inviting Koreans to a soldier’s dance was tried successfully last Saturday night at a Quartermaster depot at Ascom City, 20 miles west of here.

The Army had not permitted that sort of thing in Korea since late 1947 when a Korean operated dancehall was put off limits for soldiers.

Girls from Seoul colleges and daughters of good families are being invited, Roberts told the Associated Press.

He said the guests will come and leave in Army buses and during the dance there will be no strolling from the Hourglass Club.[...]

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The scene above may seem unremarkable, but a 1982 Stars and Stripes article I came across reminds us that for more than half of South Korea’s post-WWII history, a midnight to 4am curfew confined people to their homes.

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Korean pop group 2NE1

Came across this image last week. Despite the ‘I couldn’t decide what to wear so I put on everything I own’ look, you do get a sort of punk-ish, ’80s vibe by the looks of them. If you were expecting some edgy electro-punk, however, you’d be disappointed:

At an event hosted by the Ministry of Justice on Tuesday to launch a volunteer group for the G20 Summit in November, the band announced a campaign song to encourage people to abide by the law.

“We’ll try to set examples by obeying rules, even minor ones, as citizens ourselves and work to raise awareness about problems with writing malicious comments on the Internet and illegal downloading,” 2NE1 said.

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From the book I mentioned here comes photos of the interior of the Bando Hotel (seen above). The hotel was built in the late 1930s or early 1940s (anyone know when exactly?) as the Hanto Hotel, and was the tallest building in the city for years. It was used as the US Embassy from 1948 to 1962, and was demolished to make way for the Lotte Hotel in the late 1970s.

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A few months ago I stumbled on a book at Yonsei University Library which presented readers with images and maps of Seoul, places to visit, and future plans – all from the 1950s. Or so I think; I forgot to write down the book’s name, and no date was visible.

There are a few clues, however. If you look at the photo above, of Namdaemunno, you can see the Bank of Korea on the left, and the old post office – built in 1916 – on the right (here’s a photo from a similar view taken during the colonial era).

Now, this may be an older photo, taken years before the publication of the book. The reason I say that is because the post office was heavily damaged during the Korean War (it was shelled and burnt out, though its walls still stood intact), and I’m not sure when it was finally demolished (a shame, as it was a beautiful building, but understandable, as reconstruction, not preservation, was the goal of everyone at the time). One little thing I noticed in the photo above are the jeeps.
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I stumbled onto this article while looking up information about former US Ambassador to Korea Philip Habib. It’s written by Donald A. Ranard, and tells the story of how his father, Donald L. Ranard, a Korea specialist at the State Department, and Ambassador Habib saved Kim Dae-jung’s life in 1973 after the KCIA kidnapped him from Japan. As Kim related, he was on a boat in the East Sea with weights tied to his legs when the US intervened; Ranard clarifies this by noting that it was the actions of Habib and his father, a critic of US Korea policy, that saved him. Both “were… old Korea hands who had served as political counselors in the embassy in Seoul in the 1950s and 1960s,” and knew that there was no time to ask Washington for instructions, and that “they were unlikely to get the kind of strong and unequivocal response needed to save Kim’s life.”

In Seoul, Habib gathered the senior embassy and military staff. “I know how things work here,’’ he told them. “They’re going to wait 24 hours, and if we don’t say anything, Kim will be killed.’’ After the CIA station chief ascertained that the KCIA was indeed the culprit, Habib told his staff to contact every Korean of importance they knew. If they weren’t in their offices, he said, go to their homes. If it was the middle of the night, that was better still – then they would know the United States meant business. [...]

Habib himself met with the prime minister, Park’s number two, and told him straight: If Kim doesn’t come back alive, you are in deep trouble, although “trouble’’ was not the word that Habib, known for his scatological flair, used.

In Washington, my father worked on a statement with his deputy, Wes Kriebel. The wording would be critical. [...] Together, my father and Kriebel worked out the statement. In unusually strong language, it said the United States “deplored’’ the abduction, calling it “an act of terrorism.’’ Washington had a high regard for Kim and a great interest in his security. The statement invited Kim to the United States and called for his “imminent release.’’ There was no reference to the communist threat from the north or any of the other coded phrases that would tell Seoul, in essence: “We don’t like what you’ve done, but we’re not going to do anything about it.’’

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Yesterday I mentioned Robert Neff’s post at the Marmot’s Hole quoting from (and showing a photo from) a 1958 article about the future covering-up of Cheonggyecheon. At the time I remembered some films from the past featuring the stream, including Homeless Angels (1941), which I wrote about here. In that post, I showed this photo and wrote:

Perhaps the stream above is Cheonggyecheon, but it’s worth remembering that there were dozens of streams in Seoul that were covered up in the 20th century by both the Japanese and Korean governments.

Choi In-kyu, the director, went on to direct several other (less “pro-Japanese”) films before being kidnapped off to North Korea during the Korean War, including “Hurrah for Freedom” (1946), the first DVD put out by the Korean Film Archive. It includes a scene in which the main character, an independence fighter, has rescued his friend from a Japanese police officer (I guess we’re assuming he wasn’t Korean) by stabbing the officer, and flees over (and then under) a bridge crossing Cheonggyecheon. I’m quite certain this is the same bridge (Gwanggyo) seen in the post at the Marmot’s Hole, which is now the second bridge to be seen along the restored stream when walking from its source. Thanks to panorama software and a screenshots of a pan across the bridge, we can see almost the full length of the bridge.

Here’s a shot of what it looked like underneath:

What really prompted me to post these was a comment by Sperwer at the Marmot’s Hole mentioning the fact that Obaltan, (The Aimless Bullet), a 1961 film by Yu Hyeon-mok considered a classic today, features a scene in which one of the main characters flees the police after a robbery by running through Cheonggyecheon – under the then-ongoing construction which was covering the stream:

(Due to it being a panorama made from screenshots taken from a pan, both people seen above are the same person)

Very cool. I watched the film when the DVD came out back in 2002, but did not know anything about Cheonggyecheon at the time (it was later that year that it became mentioned more often in the English-language press), so it was fascinating to watch it again, knowing where this scene took place.

http://populargusts.blogspot.com/2010/05/cheonggyecheon-in-films.html