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

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SPEAKING WITH AHN

In a conversation with Jonghwan Ahn, it was suggested that a potential site for the 6 Feet Up project could be here - a carpark above the new subway station for Seoul National Cemetery. 

SUGGESTED SITE
map via local.daum.net

A new structure would act as an anchor along the link through Seoul National, across the river and on to Mt Namsan on the other side. This would localise relavence to the contemporary bereaved, bringing a new attachment to the site and perhaps lift the National Cemetery, behind it, out of its state of forlornment. By constructing a new urban mountain in this prominent site with all the auspiciousness of the geomantic location, a focus for a new model of memorial could be created in an appropriate manner.

However, auspicious though the site may be, it would suffer from the same issues of separation that the existing cemetery has. Now both memorials would be cut off from the day to day by hill, river and highway. The new memorial may be closer physically, but is it likely that it would be any closer mentally? Perhaps after the initial shock of the new it would simply fade away into the background, ignored save for Memorial Day once each year - or worse, begin to loom!

In any case, these are issues that may be applicable to any eventual resolution so it is important to not discount the suggested site just yet. Instead I will weigh up any benefits against the original ideas and promises I made at the start of the project, taking into account the ebb and flow of the themes within.

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SEPARATIONS

SEOUL NATIONAL CEMETERY

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SHAPES / memorial

These are some of the photographs I took while visiting the Seoul National Cemetery. I intend to go back to attempt to sketch out my thoughts properly. I had no idea how large the place was, and though I arrived in the early afternoon, by the time I'd walked round most of the perimeter, the light was fading, and the cemetery closing for the day.

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SPIRIT OF THE NATION

Reading the signs and placards dotted around the site and visiting the exhibits makes you realise that this is a country that struggled to have a chance to exist, and from all over the cemetery you can see the city that capitalised on that chance, so you can imagine visitors looking back to the city that they live in and contemplating that relationship.

Towards the western slopes - photo by TD

The cemetery is clean, and well tended, much like the rest of the city, but seems to attract fewer people than perhaps it should. Admittedly there were walkers and berry-pickers but again less than might be expected, were I in a park or an ordinary hillside. 

The exhibits were empty and when asked whether they had many visitors, a custodian replied 'No, not many, mostly students' (referring to the school trips that seem to frequent these places). This didn't really make sense. The site had so many qualities to incite habitation by living Koreans, it was as if an equation had been written, but somehow it did not equal 'people'.

Hill walks - photo by TD

Yet perhaps this is understandable. The cemetery is cut off in so many ways from the living Seoul physically; highway, valley, river Han - that it would be rational for it to be cut off mentally as well.

Towards the eastern slopes - photo by TD

80% of those interred here, died during the Korean war. Fifty years have passed since the end of the Korean war and there are now very few visitors to the graves of the war dead, giving the place a forlorn feeling. To bring back some life to this place and to ensure that those who sacrificed their lives for our country can rest in peace and be remembered, the Cemetery is staging the One Flower, One Citizen campaign. The Seoul National Cemetery Management Team

Perhaps the forlornness is due to the fact that few contemporary Koreans have immediate familial connections to the National Cemetery and could be solved by siting more internments there. A visit to an active contemporary site might confirm this. One option for 6 FEET UP could be to provide that proposal - a scheme to reinvigorate Seoul National Cemetery by linking modern memorial to historical.

I suspect the issue is a little more complicated, and believe additionally that a cemetery that is already removed from its community cannot be reattached by simply constructing a new memorial nearby with stronger bonds. If Seoul National Cemetery proves to be the most appropriate option then I will have to resolve those beliefs within the project.

Memorial exhibit - photo by TD

Walk a few metres into the room above, the first in the memorial exhibit and a ceremonial fanfare plays loudly, followed by speech, no doubt regaling those present tales of bravery and valour. I'm sure the effect is quite rousing when the room is full of its irregular school visits, but alone and English, it was rather eerie and quite sad.

Koreans seem to be a practical people. It turns out that if an escalator is left unused for a period of time it will stop until someone approaches. Though applaudable it is rather sad that I discovered this at rush hour at the new subway station for the National Cemetery.

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