The Koreas: The Birth of Two Nations Divided by Theodore Jun Yoo

Author:Theodore Jun Yoo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press

Confronting the Past, Dealing with the Present: The Ironies of Democracy

For the South, the 1990s was a period of reckoning when Koreans began to confront the collective trauma experienced during the dictatorial regimes of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan. On January 10, 1995, SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System) aired the first of twenty-four episodes of Sandglass, a miniseries written by Song Ji-na and directed by Kim Jonghak. Merchants closed their stores early, and the streets were deserted when the show (one of the highest-rated Korean melodramas) began at 9:50 P.M. The show addressed the taboo subject of political repression through the tragic relationships of three friends who lived in the 1970s and 1980s. To convey a heightened sense of reality, the show included archival video footage of the Gwangju uprising in 1980 as well as vivid reenactments based on individual testimonies about the police violence. But it was the theme song, “Zhuravli” (Cranes), by the Russian Jewish “Frank Sinatra,” Iosif Kobzon, that packed an emotional punch and gained widespread popularity in Korea. The lyrics, which mourned the Soviet soldiers whose deaths during World War II transformed them into cranes, resonated powerfully with Korean viewers.

The drama revolves around two unlikely childhood friends, who represent different political archetypes. Bak Taesu, raised in poverty by a mother who ran a brothel, is unable to enter military school because of his tainted political genealogy (his father was an alleged Communist sympathizer) and becomes a gangster. His best friend, Gang Useok, an intelligent young boy with firm moral convictions, grows up to be a lawyer. They both fall in love with Yun Hyerin, a dedicated political activist and the daughter of a wealthy casino magnate. Their lives diverge radically during the Gwangju Uprising, testing their friendships and loyalties. Yun, who joins the student protests against the dictatorship, is arrested and tortured by the police, while Taesu, an innocent bystander, witnesses the atrocities committed by paratroopers. Their friend Useok has become a soldier and must fire on civilians to protect the state. In the tragic end, Useok, now a prosecutor for the government, finds himself compelled to prosecute his best friend. The drama, which exposed the crimes of the state through the sandglass of time, had a profound impact on the Korean public. As viewers relived the horrific events and confronted the sins of their past—the massive injustices and human rights violations perpetrated under the military regimes—they longed for a brighter future. It was a dream their president promised to fulfill.

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