“Hurry! I don't want to miss it!” Comrade rushed me along beneath gourds and fruit hanging from the arched trellises. I thought they were ingenious, edible adornments decorating a memorial celebrating independence. Much like the vegetable gardens that dot the city of Chungju itself, this was a sort of functional beauty that America could learn from. But she was right, and the plants passed from my mind the moment we stepped out onto the plaza.
The dancers whirled about to the hypnotic, percussive drone. With each toss of their head, the streamer attached to their hats blurred in a white circle around them. It took me a minute to take it all in. They weren't just dancing, they were also drumming at the same time. Then the dancing and drumming were complemented by a show of acrobatics.
I asked my students later if they danced like that. They laughed at my silly wayguk question and explained that it is very expensive to learn- something for the privileged and not the average Korean student who idles their days away in an English classroom.
Onward and upward we wandered to the Independence Hall- the memorial museum dedicated to Korea's dark and tumultuous history over the past 200 years. Comrade and I left some thirty minutes later, unable to bear any more of the horrible images and tales. The only message of hope we managed to spot was this sculpture celebrating the Samil ('three-one') movement- an underground resistance to the Japanese occupation.
Outside I found what I had been looking for all along. A bandstand held a group of four performers clad in black leather pants and playing more Korean drums. Throngs of people gathered around to watch and participate. The drummers whipped the crowd into a modest frenzy- clapping along while crying out nationalist slogans. Here was the pride I had hoped to see. After what we witnessed in the Independence Hall museum, I think Korea and her people deserve to celebrate their autonomy.
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