NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

We took a train south from Seoul to reach the city of Pyeongtaek. At the train station we were met by Mr. Kang Sang-Won, the director of the Pyeongtaek Peace Center, who took us to his office. We spent some time in his office, learning the history of the problems that they have had with the always expanding military bases in the area, and later were taken on a tour around the area to see the bases themselves. To give you a little background, in 2006 Pyeongtaek became a central struggle in the anti-base movement in South Korea. In the areas around Pyeongtaek, there are two US military bases, Osan which is an Air Force base and Camp Humphrey’s which is an Army base. In anticipating of moving US forces from Yonsang in Seoul down to Camp Humphreys, the South Korea government announced plans (three years earlier) to take huge pieces of land from farmers and small villages around the two bases. In an effort to stop the taking of these lands, local farmers and peace activists from around Ko

While at the Pyeongtaek Peace Center, I had the chance to meet with Yongdong Yang, an artist and one of the main photographers who captured the resistance of the people of Daechuri village, which was almost completely demolished in order to make way for the expansion of Camp Humphreys. He published a book a few years ago chronicling the fight of the villagers, and I was lucky enough to purchase a copy while I was at the Center. Unfortunately the book is entirely in Korean and the only thing I can read in it are the dates on which the photos were taken. Nonetheless, many of the pictures are very powerful and a few very brutal. We see in some the simple but direct resistance of people who are fighting for their land, fighting to not lose the land or homes some held in their families for generations, and be forced to live in high-rise apartments like the majority of South Koreans today. But in other images we see the overcompensation of the state, the vast army of riot police that it sen

I asked a few people before I left Guam what, if anything, they would want me to try and get for them while I was in South Korea. Most people, thankfully said nothing, since I knew I wouldn't have alot of time for commercial exploring or shopping on this trip. My brother Jeremy (Kuri), is helping my stubstitues with the AV equipment for my classes while I'm gone and so when he said that he didn't want anything from South Korea, I pushed him further to come up with something I could get for him, to pay him back for helping me out. Put i tiningo'-hu put i che'l-hu, ya hafa ya-na, siempre guaha minalago-na. Last year in one of my Guam History classes a friend of my brothers outed him as a closet K-Pop fan. Apparently a few weeks before, a K-Pop group had been on island for a vacation, and so when Kuri and his friends heard about this and found out what hotel they were staying at, they rushed down their to try and meet them. As they wandered around the hotel, like all

The highlight of today's trip is a visit to the city of Pyeongtaek to visit the Pyeongtaek Peace Center and also hear the latest news of that community's struggle against the expanding US military bases nearby. In 2006 there was a very big conflict between the residents of two villages who were to be displaced to expand the size of two bases, Osan and Humphreys. Over the years I have heard small snippets of information about what has happened there, seen images of violent repression by police, different tactics of resistance employed by the villagers, and the tragic faces of those who eventually lost their fight and their land. I looked forward to learning more about this area and its history. A note on the title of this post. The first image above is the logo for the Pyeongtaek Peace Center, and I find it a very creative variation on the famous Bible verse, now world peace and UN slogan: They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation

I have only been in South Korea for two days and I have already met dozens of political prisoners, some of whom were imprisoned for a matter of months, others for years. When I say political prisoner I don't mean someone arrested at a protest, but rather people who have been condemned and wrongfully incarcerated by the South Korean government. In fact, within the span of one day, I met three men who were political prisoners longer than Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in South Africa. I didn’t make this connection right away (this connection to Mandela), but it was something that was regularly reiterated throughout the day. I’ll return to this at the end of the post. Most people on Guam or in the United States don’t know anything about South Korea, and certainly not about its government. But that is why nationalism and the imaginary cognitive mapping that it provides is so important when dealing with “the rest of the world.” Most people might know about the Korean War or know that S