[Terry's Tale] The Mountain Ant on the White Peony

Even before His Majesty

The Scarecrow does not remove

His plaited hat.

- Dansui

At one time Korea was ruled by kings, just as was much of the world. At one time the territory under Korean rule extended well up into what is now Manchuria. At one time Korea was divided into three kingdoms. Today Korea is divided into two countries and the southern part is run via democratic processes familiar to peoples of the western or occidental world. The reign of kings ended for Korea with the devastating occupation by Japan beginning in 1910 when the Japanese brutally tried to eliminate every aspect of Korean culture and language.

All images in this blog obtained from Wikipedia as my own photographs are not readily available at this time.

The Deoksugung Palace in Seoul, South Korea

During that time the peoples of Korea were treated as second class citizens in their own country. Things went so far that in World War II, Korean girls (some were preteen) and women were kidnapped by the Japanese military for use as sex slaves by members of the Japanese army. The practice of creating sex slaves was initiated by the Japanese military as a means of minimizing the murder, rape, and mayhem committed by Japanese troops on civilians as happened to the civilian population of Nanking, China. The atrocities that the Japanese troops committed accompanied the occupation of Nanking in 1937 during the Sino-Japanese War. A great deal of documentation including the many rolls of film were made during the incident have been and are readily available but since there never was a proper investigation of the incident the exact numbers of civilians affected by the situation and the numbers of troops involved will never be known. There are, though, reasonable claims that the Japanese troops could not be fully controlled (in effect an army riot, and considering the enormous numbers of descriptions of the brutality of Japanese troops in all areas of Japanese action throughout the war a very creditable concept) and this led to the rape, torture, mutilation, and murder of more than 300,000 civilians – with some sources indicating deaths may have been as high as 500,000 (casualties comparable and possibly greater than those created by the dropping of two nuclear bombs on Japan, COMBINED). To avoid such incidents in the future, the upper echelons in the military created the ‘sex service’ so that discipline and order would not be again lost.

The Changdeokgung Palace, built in 1403, in Seoul

In addition, it was during the 1930’s and the 1940’s that the Japanese began kidnapping Korean civilians in general to provide their military medical services with live, human guinea pigs. Just as the Nazis were doing in some of their death camps in Europe, vivisection, amputation, mutilation, and many other inhumane activities were being performed on the non-Japanese civilians in the Asia Pacific areas, especially on the Chinese and the Koreans.

The Changgyeonggung Palace, built in 1484, in Seoul

So, the extent of the brutality wrought on Korea and Koreans was enormous, and is something for which the Japanese, for reasons of pride or perhaps of shame – I cannot know which, have long refused to accept full responsibility thus damaging Korean-Japanese relations in the post World War II era.

One of the buildings on the grounds of the Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul. This palace served Korean royalty from 1392 through 1910.

At any rate, I have somewhat digressed. One of the many interesting features of the period of kings was the creation of palaces to house these kings. In Seoul alone there are five, the largest of which, the Gyeongbogung, was intentionally destroyed by the Japanese during their occupation as part of their efforts to bring an end to Korean language and culture. It was later rebuilt in all of its grandeur and stands as a testament, not only to Korea’s past, but to Korea’s resilience in the face of massive tribulations.

Another building from the grounds of the Gyeongbokgung Palace

These palaces were built, as were the Buddhist temples I portrayed in earlier blogs, to manifest the philosophy and the aesthetic of eastern Asia. Thus, when they are seen in contrast to the background ambiance, you can see how the harmony of man and was designed to create an elegantly woven blending with the harmony of nature.