Friday July 5

We had nothing scheduled for us until noon today, I think to give everyone some choices to do things in Seoul that hadn't been on the official agenda, or to just catch up on sleep after the field trip. I went to the Korean War Memorial, a museum, with about 10 others. We plotted our subway route, until the hotel concierge told us it was much cheaper and easier to take a cab. He was right - it was easy to get 3 cabs right in front of the hotel, it was an 8 minute ride, and cost us each about $1.

The Korean War is purposely not covered much as part of the official Fellowship agenda. The organizers assume (correctly, I think) that currently the Korean War is the only aspect of Korea covered in our curriculums. They want us to consider all the other aspects of Korea's culture and history too.

We had only about 1.5 hours at the museum so we stayed only in the 2 exhibits focused on the Korean War. The museum also has exhibits on warfare covering the 5,000 years of Korea's history. We got there before the museum opened and were able to tour the outdoor sculptures, statues, and airplanes from the Korean War.

One especialy moving statue shows brothers who were caught on oppposite sides of the division finally re-uniting. The statue is on top of a dome constructed with granite from all over Korea, with a break symbolizing the division of the peninsula. Inside the dome is a tribute to all of the nations who contributed forces to the UN role in Korea: the US, Turkey, Australia, Thailand, New Zealand, UK, Ethiopia, South Africa, Philippines, Greece, Canada, Colombia, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

Inside, the museum covered the events from the North's surprise invasion of the South in June, 1950, to the US/UN intervention. With the US/UN intervention the South eventually recovered all of the territory that had been lost to the North, pushing North Korea's forces back to the 38th parallel. It is hard to believe that 63 years to the day before our visit North Korean tanks had been rolling through Seoul, and so many citizens of South Korea had become refugees from this conflict. Another reminder of South Korea's amazing transformation. It is also hard to believe that this conflict is still not officially over. That will become even clearer tomorrow on our visit to the DMZ. There is no sense of glory from this conflict, instead only regret at how Korea has been divided for so long.

At every opportunity the educators on this trip have asked about the potential for re-unification. All the Koreans that we have asked answer that Korea is one nation, and they look forward to the day that they are represented as one again. The experts also acknowledge that despite this desire for unification it may be many years away and it will be a difficult transition. Much more difficult than Germany's. The further the North falls behind the South, the more difficult it will be.

Tomorrow we go to the DMZ. Our Korean guides are not allowed to go with us, and the older Korean woman who has organized this trip for 25 years said she has no desire to go as she does not want to be reminded of the war and the division.

We learned yesterday that North Korea and South Korea have scheduled low-level talks about Kaesong, a shared industrial park that has been closed since April. The talks are scheduled to take place in North Korea's portion of Panmunjom, the "peace village" at the border, right when we are scheduled to be there. It's possible these talks will mean we won't have access to certain areas of the DMZ or that we may be turned away entirely. While this would be disappointing, if it means a step in the reconciliation of Korea it's a pretty small price to pay.