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UER Forum > UE Photography > Gwanghwamun (Viewed 640 times)
Steed 


Location: Edmonton/Seoul
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Gwanghwamun
< on 6/16/2021 1:28 PM >
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Gwanghwamun is the name of the front gate to the main palace in Seoul. The first one was built in 1395 shortly after Seoul became the capital. The area out front has traditionally been known as the "Six Ministries Street" as it has hosted several governmental bodies. There are still a few ministries left there today, and also the US Embassy.

This would be our version of the US National Mall, if America were about twice as old as it is, or Tiananmen Square (the "-men" in that name means gate, same as the "-mun" in Gwanghwamun, as they are both derived from the same Chinese characters.

When we say "Gwanghwamun," we usually mean the area in front of the gate rather than the gate and palace themselves. It is the geomantic heart of the nation. And despite or because of that, politicians have spent way too much on renovations to the area. A little over a decade ago, they created a wide plaza in the middle of the street, and in 2016/17 it became the venue for Koreans' protests against the president who was impeached and is now imprisoned.

1. This picture shows Gwanghwamun itself, the three-doored gate structure at the north point of a modern-day three-way intersection. You can see Gyeongbok Palace behind it, and in the distance at the base of the mountain there's a blue-roofed structure which is called Cheong Wa Dae, or Blue House, the modern-day presidential residence. This area was constructed based on geomantic principles, with mountains in the northwest, north, northeast, and south, and a body of water to the south.



2. During the Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945, the Japanese colonialists tried to disrupt Korea's qi by building a massive modern government building in place of Gwanghwamun. On my first visit to Korea in 1996, it was covered in netting and undergoing a long, slow demolition process. Witnessing this sent me down the path to urban exploration almost a decade later.


3. During the impeachment protests, Gwanghwamun area became host to an informal "Rooftopping Olympics." This picture was taken on Nov. 12, 2016, the first impeachment protest that had more than 1 million people come out. (If you like pop-punk, this music video has a lot of footage from Gwanghwamun in this era)


4. This picture shows Gwanghwamun Plaza, the pedestrian strip in the middle of the large public space below me. This was during an experimental 2013 car-free event, in which they closed off traffic for the western southbound lane, which is where all those festival tents are set up.


5. This is Gwanghwamun Gate itself. This version was built in 2010. Before that, there had been a solid concrete structure made to look traditional, established in 1968 during a military dictatorship. During that structure's demolition, they apparently found secret bunkers inside its massive form. The current one, the parts that look like wood are actually wood.


6. Sometime within the last couple years, the city government announced a new Gwanghwamun Plaza renovation. It was decided that having the plaza as a traffic island in the middle wasn't good, so they shifted the plaza west and moved the southbound traffic lane to the east of it. It seemed unnecessary, and I didn't think it was going to happen. Then the mayor jumped off a mountain. But by then it was too late to stop it. This image shows the idea for the final square, shifted west with traffic shifted east.


7. Then one day, Gwanghwamun was fenced off and excavation began. Construction projects in the downtown area are required to go through an archaeological survey to see what kind of medieval ruins are located under the surface. This led to me coming up with a new branch of UE, which I call anarchaeology.


8. Soon enough, images started going into the news about what they were finding under this site, and people were losing their shit. So I returned to see what I could see. Under the blue tarp are ruins from an ancient gutter that conveyed water through the area. The building on the left that looks like a school or a prison that's seven or so storeys tall is the US embassy.


9. Built on the surface was this shallow chute that used to convey water along the edge of the plaza. It was a recreation of the gutter unearthed.


10. The stream itself that these are derived from is still active underground, and I've gone draining in it.


11. This particular section of the plaza renovation went viral, and I tracked it down right as they were covering it with tarps. I figured I'd missed my chance. I was wrong.


12. On April 16, I returned to the area for the anniversary of the Sewol sinking. In 2014, a ferry sank killing about 300 people, mostly high school students. The parents went to Seoul to get an audience with the president (the now impeached one) and were stopped by riot police. They set up a protest camp in Gwanghwamun at the southernmost end. They've been there ever since, although now it's not a sit-in protest squat site, but a memorial site, and there don't seem to be signs of them leaving even though the government has changed. Even during the renovations, they've stayed, forming this little enclave surrounded by construction fences, visible here.


13. From that point, I started visiting Gwanghwamun regularly, looking for new developments. This is the same site as image 11, the one that went viral, seen from the other end looking toward the palace gate.


14. Amazingly, the city government announced it would offer tours to citizens who signed up. Unfortunately, there was an extreme limitation to the number of people, and it filled up way before I ever found out about it. But they uncovered all the ruins for the lucky guests to see, and I figured I could see at least some of it. This image shows the same gutter area, looking south with the gate behind me.


15. Looking north toward the gate.


16. Here's another area a bit further south. I believe these ruins have been identified as the original justice ministry.


17. This area is the original site of the Ministry of Public Works, and sticking up out of the site you can see a traditional Korean subway vent, dating back to 1996.


18. The statue of Admiral Yi Sun-shin is standing in a sectioned-off part of the renovation space. Admiral Yi is said to have been one of the most successful naval leaders in history. During the 1590s invasions, he fought off the superior-numbered Japanese navy, using innovative ships and geographic knowledge. He was struck dead at the very end of the war as the Japanese were retreating. The Japanese had invaded Korea in order to invade China, and for several years they turned the Korean Peninsula into a warzone, which included burning down the entire Gwanghwamun/Six Ministries area. It seems likely the Japanese were retreating from China, and the Koreans were battering them back as they were on their way home. But Yi is a huge national hero here. This statue was placed here in 1968, apparently, as an implicit threat to Japanese tourists who were getting a little too wild when visiting here. You can see the same statue in image 12.


19. This used to be a subway exit. One time, back in 2019, I was leading a tour of the area and we started here. At that time, the square was still crowded, and we found ourselves emerging into the middle of a very loud far-right protest.


20. Looking a bit more to the left, you can see a bit more of the plaza. Those huge mounds of dirt are probably what was dug up from the archaeological excavation sites. Behind them, you can see the statue of King Sejong (r. 1418-50) who oversaw the creation of the Korean written language, a phonetic system that is easier to learn than traditional Chinese characters and has led to Korea essentially wiping out illiteracy. Seriously, it's even easier to learn than the alphabet.


21. I stumbled around the edges of the construction fences, and encountered this sign, advertising the city tours offered to the limited few. This happened to be the first day of them, and they were going on right now.


22. I waltzed in through the construction gate that was opened for the tourists, and managed to get this shot.


23. People online were criticising the archaeological excavations, saying they were careless and leaving the ruins exposed to the open air. So on one rainy day, I headed back for a closer look.


24. I think you can tell, compared to the people in the last photo, these are the city's lucky tourists.


25. Here's the northwestern gutter area. This area was originally home to Samgunbu, which means Three Armies Command. I guess this channel was put in to bring them water.


26. I went back on a dry day. I pulled up on my scooter in a weird corner where I probably shouldn't have been, then noticed I was about two meters away from a worker, so I took this picture showing another worker donwn there, and peeled away.


27. Here, I stopped in a somewhat dangerous place, and this worker was telling me to go away. But I think he was more concerned for my safety, because he didn't seem to object to this photo.


28. More workers. This is about a week after the lucky tourism program ended. It turned out they were starting to bury the ruins. You can see on the other side of this pit, the ground is kind of sandy-coloured. That's because they filled in one of the excavation sites with sand. The plan seems to be to just leave the ruins down there.


29. I decided to return late at night and see the site after the workers leave. Here, you can see this archaeological excavation has been totally filled in with dirt.


30. Looking south, you can see the back of Admiral Yi, and in the distance to the right you can see a building that says chosun.com. That's where Japanese tourists used to stay in the 1960s, and they'd go out whoring from there.


31. I climbed on top of the dirt mounds and got this view.


32. There was a light still on in the ground. Must be solar controlled or something.


33. Maybe that's what those other little lights in the dirt were.


34. Worth noting that the rainbow flag seen in the last shot was on the US Embassy. The year before, the embassy put up the rainbow flag, and then tempted fate by also adding a Black Lives Matter banner. And also from a bus stop across the street it turned King Sejong into Nyan Cat. Shortly after this, both were removed, predictably.


35. Incidentally I met the US ambassador the year before, and he did not live up to my expectations for a Trump appointee -- he was very supportive of the LGBTQ community, and I think he was out of step with the Trump administration. His legacy in Korea will be his heavily politicised moustache as well as how he supported Trump's anti Korea-US alliance mindset when it came to negotiating costs, just assuming the US was in Korea for Korea's interests only and it was a waste of money for the US. Now under Biden the Americans are trying to get Koreans to support their anti-China bloc, and suddenly finding that they should have factored in that they were in Korea for containing China every bit as much as North Korea. Anyway, political rant over.


36. I decided it would look better if I came back with a tripod and predawned the area.


37. Whoops, focus was in the background, not the foreground.


38. So I went back next morning.


39.


Anyway, that's a lot of reading, so let's leave it at that.




BoredFun27 


Location: Boston
Total Likes: 32 likes




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Re: Gwanghwamun
< Reply # 1 on 6/17/2021 2:14 AM >
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Posted on Forum: UER Forum
I read that all the way through, and I'm glad I did.

Couple things;


This led to me coming up with a new branch of UE, which I call anarchaeology.
I like it


Then the mayor jumped off a mountain.
Whatever I was expecting, it was not that


The building on the left that looks like a school or a prison that's seven or so storeys tall is the US embassy.
That would be the US, when you cant tell the school or the prison apart

Edit-edit:

First edit: Posted instead of adding quote

Second edit: Add notes about edit



[last edit 6/17/2021 2:31 AM by BoredFun27 - edited 2 times]

Steed 


Location: Edmonton/Seoul
Gender: Male
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 |  |  | Daehanmindecline
Re: Gwanghwamun
< Reply # 2 on 6/17/2021 4:02 AM >
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Posted on Forum: UER Forum
Posted by BoredFun27


Whatever I was expecting, it was not that



Neither did I. I really liked him as mayor and he was trying to move away from wholesale destructive redevelopment toward regeneration. Before entering politics he was a human rights lawyer who did a great deal of work on women's rights in the workplace. Then it leaked that his assistant filed a sexual harassment complaint, and the second he found out he left work and went up a mountain (possibly the pointy one right behind the palace in some of these pictures) and never came down. The new mayor is mostly known for huge vanity projects.




UER Forum > UE Photography > Gwanghwamun (Viewed 640 times)


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