South Korea

In an episode of The Gilmore Girls, Lorelai tells Rory to turn off the stereo because it’s time for Rory to leave for school, only for Rory to say it wasn’t her listening to the music. Cut to Lorelai opening Rory’s bedroom door to find Lane dancing. “Where does your mom think you are?” asks Lorelai. Lane’s answer? “On a park bench, contemplating the reunification of the two Koreas.” (The conversation continues—Lorelai: Not here, skanking to Rancid? Lane: Wouldn’t be included.) I do like that The Gilmore Girls had Korean characters in amidst the whitebread Connecticut set of Star’s Hollow. My other association? The 1988 Seoul Olympics of course. Watching Debbie Flintoff-King win gold for Australia as I watched the action obsessively.

We hear a little more about North Korea than South Korea these days, what with rumblings about weapons of mass destruction and all that jazz. The Korean empire ended in 1910, and South Korea was established in 1948. 15 August both marks the 1945 Liberation Day and the 1948 creation of the First Republic. Happy Liberation Day! These days, the country is still working towards reunification.

The Korean civilisation is an old one—5000 years. And, something I really didn’t know, it has the world’s sixth largest armed forces and tenth largest defence budget. How could I have had no idea? Sounds like a powerhouse, though it’s overshadowed by neighbouring China, its attention-grabbing sibling to the north, and Japan just across the way.

Korea produced the Jikji in 1377—this is a Korean Buddhist document, and it’s the oldest existing book printed with the world’s oldest movable metal printing press. Gutenberg eat your heart out.

The split between the Koreas came about with Cold War antagonism—the north established its communist government, while the south went for capitalism. 25 June 1950 saw North Korea’s invasion of the South, leading of course to the Korean War. And technically, since there never was a peace treaty signed, the two countries are still at war. Ah, for technicalities.

The coolest thing about Korea? Well, how can you choose just one? My two favourites, then: it’s a world leader in robotics; their film industry has been doing some awesome stuff.

Plus, there are of course South Korean poets to think about. Today’s poem us “Foreign Flags” (we’ve seen a lot of them on this blog…) by Kim-Nam-Jo.


Foreign Flags

There I first glimpsed
such desolate loneliness.

Above the soaring towers of the old castle
at Heidelberg
a flag is waving
like a boat being rowed
like a windmill turning in the wind
waving on and on
until the threads grow thin
then casting away that body like a corpse
they raise a new flag

I wonder
what it’s like to be up there all alone
in the sky with the drifting clouds,
what it’s like
to be shaking all over, looking down
on the mutability of people and things?
There I first glimpsed
such adult prayer.

—Kim Nam-Jo
translated from Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé
from Language for a New Century