WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PARK YONG-HA?

Search for Bundang Memorial Park on the internet, and you are most likely to find information on its most recent famous incumbent, Park Yong-Ha. Park's acting and singing career had been on the ascendant, having won awards at Japan's Golden Disk awards four years in a row (the first to do so, and the first Korean to win at all).

THE LAST JOURNEY OF PARK YONG-HA
photo by Han Youn-joung at Asia Economic Daily via 10asia.com

He had been in Japan promoting his latest album, and during a short return to Korea to visit his ill father, hanged himself, and was discovered by his mother in the morning. Local police ruled his death as a "suicide taken on impulse" after drinking the previous night and claimed their were no emotional or financial issues involved. Sources close to Park said he recently had been having a difficult time juggling his career, his company and family problems. Many suspected that he had been suffering form depression and severe stress. Park Kun-ouc 10asia.com

A CHANCE TO MEET
photo by TD

I passed Park Yong-ha's grave at Bundang. Two young girls were knelt before it, surrounded by bouquets of flowers, sheltered by a small canopy. The mood did not seem at all solemn, the girls were talking happily amongst themselves, and a passing mourner stopped to chat about the songs and films the star had performed in. It was almost as if they were watching a clip on television and had stopped to gossip about the subject - as if his fans were acting out their relationship with him as it was before his death. The grave acted as a locus for this process, which I'm sure continues wherever Park appears in whatever media.

GRAVE SIDE FAN-DOM
sketch by TD

Seeing this interaction felt no more invasive that were I to eavesdrop on the analogous event in front of the television. A later encounter in Bundang was very different. In one of the columbarium sun-rooms of Bundang a man was sat. Before him were two glasses, a bottle of soju, and a portrait of his dead wife. The bench that ran along the perimeter of the room acted a table upon which to place the objects to enact their reunion.

AN INTIMATE MOMENT BETWEEN MAN AND WIFE
sketch by TD

I paused only long enough to snatch a photograph, pushing my voyueuristic limits by itself, and walked on - not wanting to intrude on the moment any further. I saw the man twice more, once outside the columbarium as he paused for a cigarette, on the grass terrace, before going back in to speak to his wife, and once passing him on his way back down the hill, past the offices, and masons yard, to the bus-stop.

TAKING THE SCENIC ROUTE
photo by TD

These chance meetings left me thinking. Who are memorials really for? Is it 'I am here, remember me' or 'I am here, I remember you'? Should a site be guided towards those who occupy a plot, or to those who will visit them?

Historically, Koreans were obsessed with obtaining an auspicious site for burial, even resorting to bloodshed - but this was not to commemorate those who had died, but to provide for the descendants yet to come. An auspicious site passed on its benefits much as good soil does to the branches of a tree - through the trunk. It is new growth that sustains a tree, and so it is the future that is considered, not the past or the present.

But what about those who are left behind - in the present? From the mourners at Bundang, it appears that the grave acts as a replacement for the living presence of the person it represents during a certain part of the grieving process. Where that marker is, defines the place that the continuing relationship occurs. If that marker is situated in a serene, sunlit place with a good view then it makes that part of grief all the more bearable.

In a way a memorial is for neither the grieving nor the grieved, but instead the now vacant place once held by the grieved person in their relationship with the grieving persons before death, or at death, or sometimes even after death.

This period of grief does not continue indefinitely. Eventually a different relationship forms. For a memorial to be appropriate, it should fully accommodate those relationships. For a cemetery to be appropriate it should recognise that those relationships do not begin and end at the welcome sign.

FEEL FREE TO ENJOY YOURSELF ONCE PAST THE SIGN
photo by TD