Movements were pretty big things this weekend. One of the nice things I love about the English language is the fluidity and adaptability of certain words. Movement happens to be one of those words. 광주 (Gwangju) probably best represents the sociopolitical connotations of that word in the context of South Korea. B-boying is a style of dance that lives and breathes in its fantastical movements.
Under the strong recommendation of a good friend that will be taking a gap year (shout out to Paul Lee!), Frances and I headed over to Gwangju, located pretty south in South Korea. Following our four hours or so bus ride, we found ourselves at the host city for the Universiade 2015. Think college-level Olympics if you’re unfamiliar. Although the games will be on after I leave, it was nice to see the festiveness being littered around the city much like the Asian Games in Incheon.
If you have actually read my blog since last summer, you’ll recall that I had previously mentioned Gwangju in passing for one particular thing. That thing still defines the city to this day: the Gwangju Massacre (aka 5-18). I brought up the event when I visited Jeongdongjin, site of the historic television show, “Sandglass”, which was an artistic depiction of the timeline. Going into a little more detail this time around, I’ll overview the event that shook Korea.
국립5-18민주묘지
Apparently the people of the 전라 (Jeolla) province have a reputation of being fussy, whereas the people of the region view themselves as Korea’s moral voice, per se, through the historical fact that their region has been the site of many movements of liberty (if you visit the 국림5-18민주묘지, aka 5-18 National Cemetery, you can see a wall giving the Jeolla view of these events, which are pretty biased if interesting). Such a stereotype was definitely not helpful to the people of Gwangju when students and civilians started to form a pro-democracy movement against the coup d’état of General 전두환 (Chun Doo-Hwan) shortly following the assassination of the authoritarian 박정희 (Park Chung-hee), father of current president 박근혜 (Park Geun-hye). Chun’s wave of martial law became heavier as universities and other public sites were being shut down and press censorship started to increase. Unsurprisingly, people were not happy with the suppression and students from 전남국립대학교 protested, which was met with the brute force of paratroopers on May 18, 1980.
Things escalated quickly as the city grew chaotic in terms of control over traffic, human or otherwise, and the violence that increased between parties. Despite the military’s attempt to contain the situation, word got out and protests blossomed in nearby regions and casualties increased. May 27 marked another but quickly quelled stand by the protestors. A point of clarification: the troops that Chun used were simply not just officers, they included paratroopers and special forces, the cream of the crop, to silence civilians. You can look at that any way you want and realize, regardless of your politics, he committed a pretty (expletive)ed up action. In an act that furthered the fall of his popularity, Chun sentenced 김대중 (Kim Dae-jung), South Korea’s future “left-wing”, Peace-Prize-winning president who would enact the Sunshine Policy towards North Korea, to death. That blows my mind because if you are a person who is getting a lot of criticism for killing a lot of people, giving someone a death sentence is probably one of the worst decisions you can make.
Apparently not, though, because the guy remained president for two more terms, albeit through elections where he was the only candidate. I am choosing to not go too much further into this because the history is murky because Korean documents and perspectives are incredibly biased and seem pretty low in reliability. If you don’t believe me about that you should just check out the Wikipedia pages on all this, neutrality disputes galore. In any case, it is clear though today that tons of folks died in an effort to be heard, which will always be upsetting.
On a somewhat lighter note, 오리탕 (duck stew)! Gwangju is famous for a number of foods thanks to being the bread basket of South Korea. However, out of everything I ate, which felt predominantly healthy and came with tons of 반찬, this took the cake for the blend between being moderately spicy, rich thanks to the duck, and the fusion of flavors with the peanut sauce we dipped our meat in. I miss it already :'(
I came right back from Gwangju to see my b-boy teacher, Differ, compete in Red Bull BC One’s South Korea Cypher. For those unaware, a cypher is a b-boy showdown, where the winner, logically enough, goes on to the next level tournament. Differ has won a few times before and I guess wanted to make a return to the national championship cypher. He has been doing this for a long time and teaching a few things to a number of other b-boys but age has a way of slowing you down in the dance world unfortunately. Differ was good, I mean he went on to the final battle and did just as well as his opponent, Octopus from Jinjo Crew. Plus he is the fundamental b-boy, so to speak, by focusing on making sure the moves connect in a way that sheds a great rhythm and brings you back a bit to some of the old school wonders. However, Octopus’s style was very new school in the sense that it worked a ton with flexibility, a regular concept in both his own Jinjo Crew and Gamblerz Crew, the young and hot crews big in the South Korea Scene. Regardless of the outcome, the event was tons of fun and getting to see some of the b-boys I see just fooling around in the studio battle against each other was exciting. In addition, TIP and New Crew performed right before the final battle and slayed the audience with their moves.
