A Visit to the Independence Hall of Korea on Independence Day By Alek Sigley On a recent trip through the southwest of the Korean peninsula, I happened to end up at the “Independence Hall of Korea” (독립기념관; 獨立記念館) near the city of Cheonan in South Chungcheong Province. My travelling companion described it rather aptly as something that felt like the Disneyland of (South) Korean nationalism. Completely by chance (we did little pre-planning), the day we visited turned out to be the busiest of the year, it was none other than the 15th of August—“Liberation Day”, the only public holiday shared by both North and South Korea. Known by slightly different names in Korean between the North and South (광복절; 光復節 in the South and 조국해방의 날/조국해방기념일 in the North), it commemorates the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule at the end of the Pacific War on the 15th of… [Read More]
Archives for August 2017
