The Recycling of Pain

I am truly fascinated with the Korean concept of “Han.”

This untranslatable word, which seems to permeate so much of this nation's psyche, shows up again and again in readings and random conversations. As far as I understand, “Han” signifies the great lamentation of the oft-invaded Koreans, a sort of angst-filled sense of endurance and yearning for revenge against injustice, steeped in sadness and broken-hearted melancholy.

There are examples, and internet links, to “Han” everywhere, and it would seem to influence everything from K-Horror to K-Drama, from the random fights one can see on the streets of my borrowed hometown of Daejeon to the aggrieved feelings of fans toward their national football team when it returned winless from the most recent World Cup. One article I read even referred to it and the sentiments of Korean-Americans during the1992 Los Angeles riots, as they watched their shops being looted and destroyed (accidental byproducts of others' anger).

As an artist and lifelong philosopher, I believe I have some understanding of “Han,” and have in my own mind, linked it to the poetic sadness I have read in the Irish or Russian cultures, but I also see linkages to things like the ghost mythology in my second country of Thailand, where women who have suffered great injustices usually end up as grieving and bitter ghosts in the afterlife, haunting the living. Perhaps I just empathize with people's pain and the tragi-comedy of existence that is humanity's lot.

Regardless of all this, I went looking for some “Han” in Seoul this last weekend.

Specifically, I was looking for it as I wandered about the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul, which includes such emotive pieces as the Statue of Brothers, an 11-meter high depiction of a moment of grasping reconciliation between brothers (one South Korean, the other North Korean), as well as a replica of the patrol boat PKM-357, damaged during the Second Battle of Yeonpyeong in 2002.

PKM-357 Memorial

This naval battle, a half-hour firefight between the PKM-357 and at least one patrol boat from the North Korean side, occurred during the waning days of the 2002 World Cup, and therefore is forgotten for the most part outside of the country (and some might argue inside the country as well). The ship took a beating during the exchange, and the effects of this are detailed all over the replica, with bullet and shell holes painstakingly recreated over the breadth and length of it, circled in bright red on the gun mounts and on the hull.

After a brief walk on the ship's deck, we went below to find a room jam-packed with young army recruits, all packed in to catch the hourly 3D audio-video recreation of the ship's tragic history. It was an impressive production, a sort of anime documentary with propagandistic overtones. In the movie, the vessel is alive with the energy and ultimate heroics of the crew. A pilot steers the vessel even after taking a spray of bullets, and two gunners in their dying moments unleash streams of fire on the enemy vessel. The captain of the ship, sprawled on the deck, tells the crew to “keep firing,” and in the end, a medic-turned-warrior mans a gun in a fit of desperate rage.

“Han,” I think, was on display in full form in this film – the injustices and death of war, enduring through insurmountable odds, and rage against the enemy.

Meanwhile, the North Korean vessel was presented in broad strokes, denuded of any signs of life; it was a dark, gray powerful threat - the robotic enemy. The battle film even begins with the audience being led down the gun barrel of the the North Korean ship to the tip of the shell, and then catapulted backwards over the ocean in a blaze of fire.

Bullet holes on display

The film was certainly well-done, with the thunder of battle, but the most poignant moment for me came afterwards, as everyone walked to the area behind the screen to find six backlit cases which contained mementos of the six sailors who had been killed. Over these carefully-arranged boxes, there were touch-screens that linked viewers to more personal history, and maps that pinpointed the exact location on the ship where each sailor had died. These men have received a comprehensive memorial, and it seems appropriate that each has been humanized and granted their own unsought immortality.

But an objective observer would also say that the South Korean navy has generally doled out more pain that it has received. My quick Wikipedia research of naval encounters between the Koreas (a handful of clashes from 1999 to 2010) has tallied far more losses for the North than the South. Even in this particular battle, the North lost 13 sailors to the 6 lost aboard the PMK-357.

I was left with a strong feeling from my brief visit, how wars are often perpetuated through a kind of recycling of pain, the memorializing and mythologizing of figures in the great struggle of nations, and the accruing of endless debts that must be pain down the line. The six martyrs of the PMK-357 are always referred to as heroes in the great struggle, but there was precious little talk about peace in the near future.

I kept wondering how the twenty-odd recruits felt about the film – were they terrified at the hidden dangers of the future, or were they filled with a kind of steely resolve, and like the medic in the film, ready to charge into gaping maw of battle in a blast of “Han” rage?

It seems to me that Korea has a special right to its “Han” simply for being one of the last “divided” nations after the Cold War has come and gone. And I couldn't help but notice, during my later tour of the museum, that several sculptures portrayed groups of soldiers who had made suicide charges during the Korean War, stopping some enemy assault or attacking some position, paying the ultimate price, and being immortalized in their glory with statues and plaques. Is “Han” tied into a kind of fatalistic view of the world? Can revenge only be attained at the cost of one's life?

Earlier in the afternoon, Tan and I walked away from this memorial ship and back to the main part of the museum to the wide steps that led up to the main hall. We arrived just in time to notice a student group, who were being herded together for a photograph, and who were given Korean flags to wave. We watched fascinated as the children reacted on cue to the exhortations of the cameraman. Were they feeling the first inklings of “Han” in their hearts and minds in the wake of this place, in the shadow of the Statue of Brothers?

Perhaps ... but I noticed more attention being paid to spastic flag waving than anything else, as well as loads of youthful elation when several of them found an area to slide down on the way home.

 Children are much the same everywhere. They usually are upset by one thing and then disperse with that emotion in the next minute. They are not adult enough, I guess, to hold on to grudges. “Han,” recycled pain, injustices that need to be avenged ... for these future Koreans, these greater cultural concepts could wait for a later time ...

Statue of Brothers