다크 투어리즘(Dark Tourism)=휴양과 관광을 위한 일반 여행과 달리 재난과 참상지를 보며 반성과 교훈을 얻는 여행. ‘그라운드 제로(사진)’, 유대인 대학살 현장인 폴란드의 ‘아우슈비츠 수용소’, 수백만 명이 학살된 캄보디아 ‘킬링필드’, 원자폭탄이 투하됐던 일본의 히로시마와 나가사키가 이 여행의 대표적인 사례다.
Unlike trips made for recreation or tourism, these trips to the scene of a tragic disaster are made for self-reflection and edification. Representative examples of this kind of tourism are Ground Zero; the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland where Jews were slaughtered; the Killing Fields of Cambodia; and Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the sites of atomic bombings.
English translation from Korea Beat.
Okay, the Joongang Ilbo isn’t calling the burning of Sungnyemun a mass killing; rather, it is comparing the somber gatherings of crowds, “Dark Tourism,” in the above named places. Nevertheless, the comparison is way over the top. A few years from now, Sungnyemun will be Korea Sparkling again, unlike the others, which contain permanent memorials to all those who died there.
24 Comments
There is simply no comparison.
They would be better off using the Seodae-mun prison for their comparison - but I guess that’s not at the top of the news.
Here’s an excerpted qutoe from the English translation:
“…The representative of this kind of site is “Ground Zero” in New York, site of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The US has preserved it intact and it has become a place of worship. In 2002 2.6 million people visited it….”
As one of the commenters points out, it’s not being “preserved” as is; it remains as a hole in the ground because of interminable wrangling over what form a memorial should take.
So much so that I’ve given up trying to keep track of the status of a memorial (but I’ll go take a look now, maybe somebody is keeping a wiki article on the 9/11 site up to date with the latest developments).
My own preference would have been to get the buildings back up ASAP to the same heighth as before. If that would have been too much office space for the market, the higher floors could have been shells, with only sufficent facilities for continously manned anti-aircraft gun platforms.
More of the “our Korean suffering” TM is world-class, too! Korea Blubbering!
How many people died, were tortured or were murdered in the fire?! Oh, that many! Poor, poor Korean victims!
Gwangju Cemetery might work, or anything involving North Korean suffering.
That is ridiculous. I agree with slim (#6); something related to the North Koreans/Korean War would definitely be on par with the above-mentioned atrocities, but the destruction of Sungnyemun? No way.
BTW, I don’t think the Korean media is being self-pitying/garner attention. Rather, I honesty think it’s trying to compare the symbolic loss of something felt by an entire nation - but once again, the destruction of Sungnyemun is by no means on par with the above-mentioned atrocities.
But why the grandioso international comparisons? I was out of the country for 9/11, but the only comparisons I recall were to other “Where were you when you heard…” national events like the assassination of JFK and the Challenger explosion. Comparison/contrast is a legitimate way to define something, but the comparison ought to be logical or proportional. I guess the folks at the Joongang Daily have never heard of the Granite State’s beloved Old Man of the Mountain.
yeah, it’s wrong to compare sungnyemun to ground zero or the holocaust.
it was also wrong to compare hiroshima to sungyemun. one is far more important than the other.
Whoever the dumbfuck is that wrote this article must be dragged out by is hair and given a serious beating to near death.
What’s so ‘dark’ about wanting to look at a few ashes? It’s not as if people died in the fire, after all.
fookers!
“But why the grandioso international comparisons?”
The grandioso comparison would be if they also called Sungnyemun a “representative” example of this dark tourism, but the article does not say Sungnyemun is a “대표적인 사례”.
There’s been quite a bit of hyperbole carelessly thrown around. 9/11, Ground Zero, Cambodia, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the burning of the Reichstag:
http://briandeutsch.blogspot.c.....n-911.html
@#13:
No, Sungnyemun is not described as a 대표적인 사례; it is very recent. No matter how it’s phrased, to put Sungnyemun in the same paragraph as hallowed names like Auschwitz and Hiroshima is ridiculous.
I don’t see why you’re so worked up about this. The article seems to be using well-known names such as Auschwitz and Hiroshima solely for the purpose of explaining what dark tourism is. Nowhere in the article does it suggest that the burning of Namdaemun and the Holocaust are equivalent. Hell, the article doesn’t even put Namdaemun and Auschwitz in the same paragraph as you incorrectly suggest.
The problem a lot of us have is that writers—and perhaps ordinary people, too, who knows—are equating the emotional pain and sense of loss felt for Namdaemun with that associated with 9/11, Auschwitz, Cambodia, etc. This “Dark Tourism” article isn’t the worst example . . . go back to my post and read through that Chosun Ilbo article where the psychiatrists were saying that, even though nobody died in Namdaemun, Koreans felt the same sense of loss and panic as Americans did on 9/11. Better yet, go check out the Joongang Ilbo editorial I linked. It tries to make the case that Namdaemun was MORE traumatic for Koreans to witness because, unlike Americans, Koreans are not used to seeing their landmarks destroyed on television and in movies. The opinion piece said that 9/11 was like a filmed action sequence, and that Americans were used to seeing this in their movies . . . no mention in any of these articles that all of Korea’s landmarks were ACTUALLY destroyed in the war 60 years ago, but that would have been too sensible.
@#16:
The name Sungnyemun did not appear in the paragraph defining the odd new term “dark tourism;” However, the subject of the article is “dark tourism” to Sungnyemun, and the article includes other references to 9/11. I already made clear in the OP that the destruction of the gate itself was not being compared to the large-scale killings.
I also got a kick out of this perception:
이날 숭례문 주변은 수천 명의 시민과 외국인 관광객들로 발 디딜 틈이 없었다.
Most of the foreign faces were probably residents, not tourists. Once I was approached by a young woman near a university Korean language institute. She had a survey for foreign tourists that she wanted me to complete. I explained to her in Korean that I was not a foreign tourist and that nearly every foreigner in that vicinity was a student or a faculty member. I suggested that Kyeongbokkung or another palace would be a great place to find foreign tourists. She gave me a disappointed, puzzled look and walked away.
Unfortunately, the comment section has been filled with people who did not read that part of the OP.
“Nevertheless, the comparison is way over the top.”
Problem is, this particular article isn’t even trying to make comparisons. It simply defined the Sungnyemoon case under the umbrella term ‘dark tourism’. Now, other articles given in Brian’s websites, where they blatantly make the comparisons, the criticism is valid. Just not this article.
Sungnyemoon = dark tourism
9/11 = dark tourism
therefore, sungnyemoon = 9/11
The third line of logic is what you are assuming the article is trying to say, but that’s not the correct observation of this, particular, article.
I had never heard of the term “dark tourism” and suspected it was coined in Korea. It is, in fact, a recently introduced British term, defined as follows:
http://www.dark-tourism.org.uk/
Essentially dark tourism refers to visits, intentional or otherwise, to purposeful / non-purposeful sites which offer a presentation of death or suffering as the raison d’être (Stone 2005). Likewise, Tarlow (2005:48) identifies dark tourism as ‘visitations to places where tragedies or historically noteworthy death has occurred and that continue to impact our lives’
No one died and no one suffered physically from the burning of the gate, save, perhaps, for some cases of smoke inhalation among the firefighters.
The British website goes on to explain:
There are an increasingly number of death-related visitor sites, attractions and exhibitions, often trading under the guise of remembrance, education and/or entertainment, which attract people eager to consume real and commodified death. Indeed, the act of touristic travel to sites of death, disaster and the macabre is becoming a pervasive cultural activity within contemporary society.
Dark tourism appears to have surfaced in Korea in 2007 to describe the promotion of tourism to sites where civilians were executed in Jejudo by rightists in the emerging ROK. Now THAT is dark tourism.
Describing visits to view the charred rubble of a gate, even a historically significant one, is really stretching it. A physical object burned. No one was seriously injured or killed. The gate can and will be rebuilt. Five years from now, a new gate will stand proudly, its predecessor merely a historical footnote enscribed on a plaque.
Sungnyemun= dark tourism
The whole premise of the article is lame.
The man burned that place because he loved Korea too much.
Oddly enough, I mentioned Seodaemun Prison as an example of “dark tourism” in a piece for the March issue of SEOUL.
Does anyone know which agency’s jurisdiction Seodaemoon prison was at its ‘prime’? KCIA? military intelligence? etc.?
Point taken Sonagi. If actual definition of dark tourism requires human lives lost, then Sungnyemoon would not be one.
If not death, then at least physical suffering has to have taken place there, and it is the awareness of death or physical suffering that draws visitors. As mentioned, Seodaemun Prison is an example of one subtype - prison tourism. The Korean media, however, have already crowned Sungnyemun as a dark tourism destination, and in comment #22, Robert hints that he will be writing a Sungnyemun = dark tourism story for Seoul Selection, so I’m howling at the moon in this post.