{"id":325,"date":"2015-08-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yule-tide.generalsemiotics.net\/index.php\/2015\/08\/04\/post-318-gwanghwamun-protesters\/"},"modified":"2015-08-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-08-04T00:00:00","slug":"post-318-gwanghwamun-protesters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/2015\/08\/04\/post-318-gwanghwamun-protesters\/","title":{"rendered":"Post-318: A Glance at the Gwanghwamun Protesters"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nThe malcontents were out in force on\u00a0<\/span>June 12th, 2015 at Gwanghwamun Plaza [\uad11\ud654\ubb38\uad11\uc7a5] in Seoul. This was the height of the\u00a0MERS Panic of 2015. The MERS virus cleared the customers out of the department stores, but alas was not strong enough to clear out Gwanghwamun’s\u00a0<\/span>protesters. A few of the protesters wore surgical masks. I didn’t.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Gwanghwamun was once the core of downtown Seoul. That was a long time back, when Seoul had a single, identifiable downtown — until around the mid-20th century. Today, Gwanghwamun is home to plenty of office space, a few government agencies, and has been molded into a tourist center. You’ll find museums, monuments, and the main former royal palace (Gwanghwamun is the name of south gate of the main palace). The U.S. embassy is there. The huge Kyobo bookstore is there.<\/p>\n

The most interesting thing about Gwanghwamun, to me, though, is that by today it is a central place for South Korean malcontents<\/strong> to gather and hold their signs, shout their slogans, and annoy passersby. My impression is that the malcontentry has increased in the 2010s over what I recall in my first times there in 2009. The “malcontents” are of all sorts, most often in the guise of Christian religious extremists and far-left political protesters.<\/p>\n

I got some good\u00a0pictures of two particular protesters that day and can “profile” them a little:<\/span><\/p>\n

(1) “U.S. Military, Get Out!”<\/font><\/strong>\n<\/div>\n

\n\ufeff<\/span>Read More<\/font><\/font><\/a><\/strong>\n<\/div>\n
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\nA snapshot\u00a0of the South Korea Far Left. Here we have an anti-American, implicitly-pro-North-Korean protester (being explicitly pro-NK is\u00a0illegal), holding vigil in front of Gwanghwamun’s gleaming golden King Sejong The Great statue.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>

<\/span><\/span>
The\u00a0<\/span>protester\u00a0kept his head down. You see him and his sign at the very bottom right of the first picture. The same man\u00a0and his sign are fully visible in the second picture.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>(The U.S. flag waves in front of the U.S. embassy across the street.)\u00a0Here we go:\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\"Picture\"<\/a><\/p>\n
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\n\"Picture\"<\/a><\/p>\n
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\nThe sign’s contents with my translations:\n<\/div>\n
\n
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\n
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\n\ud0c4\uc800\uade0 \ubc18\uc785 THAAD \ubc30\uce58 \ubbf8\uad70\uc740 \uc774\ub545\uc744 \ub5a0\ub098\ub77c! \uba54\ub974\uc2a4 \ud655\uc0b0 6.15 \ubd80\uc815 \ubc15\uadfc\ud61c\uc815\uad8c \ud1f4\uc9c4\ud558\ub77c!\u00a0
U.S. Military, Get Out of Our Land! We Don’t Want Your Anthrax and THAAD Missiles!<\/strong>
Park Geun-Hye Regime, You Can’t Control MERS! Resign Now!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\uc790\uc8fc\ud1b5\uc77c\uacfc\ubbfc\uc8fc\uc8fc\uc758\ub97c\uc704\ud55c \ucf54\ub9ac\uc544\uc5f0\ub300<\/span>
The Korean Solidarity Organization for Independent Unification and Democracy<\/strong>\n<\/div>\n

\n
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\nThe slogans come from two recent news stories, neither of which I was much aware of.\u00a0First story: “<\/span>Live Anthrax Accidentally Shipped to S Korea and US Labs<\/a>“. The second story references the debate on whether a U.S.-made anti-missile defense system called THAAD\u00a0<\/span>should be deployed in South Korea<\/a>\u00a0or not.<\/p>\n

I wrote above that the Gwanghwamun of the 2010s is a big tourist draw. This was a good Friday afternoon, but the place is remarkably empty. This was the several-week-window when MERS changed a lot. We see only a single pair of tourists and can count eight yellow-vested policemen. These police are all around, and in my impression much more visible than before. (The U.S. embassy is right across the street and the ambassador was slashed by a would-be assassin a few months ago.)\n<\/div>\n

\n
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\n(2) “Stop the Seorak Mountain Cable Car!!”<\/font><\/strong>\n<\/div>\n
\nAnother protester at Gwanghwamun that day, a ways to the south.\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n\"Picture\"<\/a><\/p>\n
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\n\"Picture\"<\/a><\/p>\n
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\nThis man’s sign says this (with my translation):\n<\/div>\n
\n\uc124\uc545\uc0b0 \ucf00\uc774\ube14\uce74 \ubc18\ub300!!
Stop the Seorak Mountain Cable Car!!<\/strong>\n<\/div>\n
\nI had no idea, but it seems there is a plan to construct a cable car to the very highest summit of Seorak Mountain [\uc124\uc545\uc0b0], in addition to a lesser cable car than already exists (which doesn’t go to the summit). Seorak is perhaps South Korea’s most famous mountain. I must say I agree with the protester. A lunkering cable car up to the summit would detract from it all. This is a common sort of development in Korea, and I expect it will likely go forward.<\/p>\n

Here is another recent protest against the new Seorak Cable Car I find online:\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n\"Picture\"<\/a><\/p>\n
\nProtest Against Seorak Mountain Cable Car \/ Sokcho city. (Found on Pinterest photography page of Jessica Wilkins Bates).\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nAt left, the small sign says:\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n\ub9dd\uac00\uc9c0 \ubc84\ub9b0 \uc790\uc5f0\ud658\uc744 \uc6b0\ub9ac\uc544\uc774\ub4e4\uc5d0\uac8c \ubb3c\ub824\uc904 \uc218 \uc5c6\uc2b5\ub2c8\ub2e4.
Ruined Nature Cannot be Passed Down to Our Children.<\/strong>\n<\/div>\n
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\nThe Seoul protester was standing at the highest foot-traffic area of Gwanghwamun Plaza, right in front of the intersection (once the busiest automobile intersection in the country).\u00a0Admiral Yi Sun-Shin overlooks this intersection:\n<\/div>\n
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\n\"Picture\"<\/a><\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The malcontents were out in force on\u00a0June 12th, 2015 at Gwanghwamun Plaza [\uad11\ud654\ubb38\uad11\uc7a5] in Seoul. This was the height of the\u00a0MERS Panic of 2015. The MERS virus cleared the customers out of the department stores, but alas was not strong enough to clear out Gwanghwamun’s\u00a0protesters. A few of the protesters wore surgical masks. I didn’t. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}