Secret

Or maybe supression.
I have been on Jeju-do for 23 days.  Some days I have wandered.  Some days I have stayed close to Gonae.  On Tuesday I took the bus to JeoJi. On the way back, while waiting for the return bus, a young fellow spoke to me.  (Few do.)  We talked about this and that and I mentioned I'd like to see caves, and he thought I'd said graves; the previous week, April 3, had been the Memorial Day for the Jeju Massacre.
"Haha, no caves! Wait! What? Massacre?"
I had learned through my years of teaching, about the GwangJu 5.18 Democratic Uprising in 1980, where protesters were slaughtered.  It predated Tiananmen Square June.4.'89, but was less known, because of there being less media coverage and no internet.  But "no," he said, "this was not it.  This was Jeju."
Whether it was his English, or his reluctance to churn up sorrowful past, we turned our conversation to caves, and I was left to ponder and google when I got back to my room.
So, in the sliver of time between the liberation from Japanese occupation, and the Korean War that resulted in the DMZ and two Koreas, there was a time.  People thought.  People expressed opinion.  People stood.  Military postured. Foreign powers (USSR, USA) stepped up. Governments were foundational.  Police was local. And Jeju was still an island, separate from the penninsula.
It was in 1948.

Estimates of up to 60,000 people on Jeju were slaughtered, women and children too.  Rape and torture.  Running to the caves. Police siding with the citizens. Radical splinter groups with power. It was the fear of Communisim by a military that had spent 35 years under Imperialist occupation. No time for discussion on Jeju.
I read the Wiki link about the JeJu Uprising (April 1948-May 1949).  So, no, I don't have my university degree in the history of this situation.
But, 60,000 was estimated to be up to 1/4 of the population of the island at the time.  And of course there are still people around who rememember, and people whose parents ran and hid.  And people who were raised in the shadow of this slaughter.  It is a small island.
But the WORST part is that the government of Korea made it a crime - <read CRIME>, to discuss this event.  No internet.  Isolated population.  No news. Never happened.  For at least 40 years, it was surpressed. Artists were jailed for writing, painting, portraying these events.
Oh, the people.  Today, I wonder if they look at me and are triggered.  Maybe she is American. There are plenty of old folks here (I am old), but even older, out and about, on the bus, in the fields, at the markets.  They remember.

There is latent fear and survivors' guilt.  These social layers do not evaporate.  They sift and become layered into the consciousness of people.  Babies.  Youth.
Korea embraces the beauty of Jeju, but they have a "dialect", I am told. BUT? Is this the Quebec of Korea? JeJu is an island.  A modern, busy place with unique landscape and lovely infrastructure. It is playful. But the people seem proud, not pushy toward a tourist, rather, I'd say, actually stand-offish. Independent.
Go Islanders Go.
I wrote this poem when I finished reading the wiki.  Humbly shared.

April 10 on a Jeju coast
I learned last night
About a week ago
That fifty years past
A secret was cast
Of Death

Women and men lost
And children and faith
For wanting a whole
No division for fear
And dread and loss
Of Breath

But the Boys had their say
Even the police agreed
And to caves they fled
Rape and slaughter
Piles of bones
Of Earth

Then say no more
Shouted the Gods of Now
We'll Jail!  We'll Kill!
Speak not or have
No bread for children
Of Birth

Artists wrote and were slayed
Writers drew and exiled
Though now it has some voice
What yet bleeds in the
Cells of Jeju
Of Truth

nem 10/4/19

I know.  It is not my politics.  It is not my business.  But, I sense it.  That is me.

~~nem post 31 Day 44/75