a day in Masan

I had proposed to my buddy Neil that I might go down to Masan, an administrative region of the city of Changwon (Changweon). According to Neil, the monsoon is happening early this year, even up north in Seoul (it is indeed going to be rainy for much of this week), starting later this afternoon (the 15th). As I took the express bus south on Saturday, things went from cloudy to rainy, but by the time I arrived in Masan, the rain had become little more than an aggressive drizzle. Neil suggested that we do lunch at a nearby place that serves a tasty pork/rice soup (which was, in fact, quite good). I spent the next few hours receiving a bit of a guided tour of Masan—a fish market or two, the local "art village," and a walk by the water in a recently constructed area. The weather went from drizzly to just cloudy to occasionally sunny. The walk ended on a bit of a morbid note as we took in a monument to a student, Kim Joo-yeol/김주열, killed during a pro-democracy demonstration in 1960. A big deal was made of the fact that Kim, a young student, was killed in Masan when a rocket-shaped tear-gas round entered his eye socket and shattered his face when he was standing near the water. His body was fished out, and he was taken to a hospital where medical professionals pieced together the cause of death. The area where Kim's monument stands includes a statue plus several dozen banners sequentially describing Kim's death and the aftermath. It was a close thing, as I almost forgot to do this, but I did manage to hand over to Neil my two plastic boxes in which I'd placed (1) several slices of my very rummy rum cake (family recipe; I decided to offer the cake despite knowing it had a funny aftertaste) and (2) a batch of almost-keto almond-flour cookies (the carbs were in the cashews and the chocolate chips).

Enjoy the following photo essay. Any mistakes in the captions/narration are mine alone.

The Seoul-Masan bus's seating chart. I was Seat 9. Red = on the bus; blue = reserved but not on the bus.

It must be spring, what with the rice paddies all covered in water.

more paddies

dwaeji gukbap (돼지국밥), a soup of pork, rice, noodles, and veggies, served with side dishes

side dishes (banchan/반찬)

one of several thresholds we passed through

Koreans love their abstract art. This one lights up.

one of several small galleries we stopped in

an interestingly colored alley

The name speaks for itself.

The platform's name is a pleonasm: the Agora Plaza (아고라 광장). In old Greece, the Agora was basically an open plaza where wise men and philosophers held forth and discoursed. Agora was also a generic term for a plaza where people could gather, sell their wares, practice their religion, etc. Like plazas today.

a meeting of birds or angels...? coincidentia oppositorum?

a purplish space between buildings, leading to...

...CAT-scanned apples?

I'm always taken by calligraphy. This was gorgeous.

Note the combination of fluidity and discipline.

This part of town, the art village, was pretty quiet, partly because of the rain.

photos from times past

August 1989, right before I shipped off to Nice, France for my présession before going on to study a year in Switzerland. I was a French major; at Georgetown, language majors were expected to spend a year abroad, usually during their junior year.

how things change... and how they don't

These pics were part of a "memory tree" occupying this building's wall.

I should have stepped back and photographed the whole memory tree.

Changdong Art Village (Yesul-chon/예술촌)

a peek in a window

We entered a small gallery where the lady proprietor was also the resident artist. Her main medium was golden wire, which she sometimes used in short segments as part of a larger work and sometimes used in long, chaotic curlicues. I asked her what the filaments represented, and she said time and memory, flowing and eddying hither and thither. I took her to be saying something about the nonlinear nature of time and experience. Einstein would have appreciated her since, according to him, time flows at different speeds in the universe according to the warping of space through gravity. As a result, there is no such thing as absolute simultaneity. Just because it's 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday in Seoul doesn't mean it's the exact same time all the way across the galaxy.

a flower pot of filaments

Title: "The Right Season" (I think)
Artist: Jo Eun-gyo (the proprietor)

time descending...?

Maybe it's time descending like snowflakes: the title of the piece is "Accumulation of Time."

One work or many little works? It's like asking whether there's only one sanshin for all mountains or a bunch of separate sanshin (mountain spirits).

a second example of one-or-many

out of the gallery and looking at a printed cloth in a different shop

See the little jangseung perched on the sculpture?

I'm not sure what that says on their "chests."

The store's name appears to be "Happiness Terra Cotta."

These were fascinating.

made by kids, I gather

Blue background in the middle: "I love Changdong."

Hoo diss? (On another wall.)

threshold at the entrance/exit of this alley

with a Korean flag, no less

street view

We approach the water; Neil says they've been building (on) an island.

Danger Guy! "Watch for slippage."

a barefoot mud walker, like on my walk to Hanam City

looking out across the water

This was all built a couple years ago, says Neil.

A nifty-looking footbridge connecting us to the island, but the island isn't ready for the public quite yet.

closer, ever closer

a performance space, being used

up we go

Going up those steps was a bit of a challenge. I should note that I don't normally eat and then walk. It leaves me out of breath and with pressure in my chest—probably a sign of other blockages in my coronary arteries. There's no painful angina, but the breathlessness and pressure are worrisome. However, when I fast and then walk, or when I walk first and then eat, I have no problems. I really hope nothing untoward happens to me this year; if it does, I'm pretty sure a second heart attack or stroke will be the end of me. But if that happens, and if it's like last time... well, that's really not a horrible way to go. I won't even know I've carked it.

moving along the footbridge

almost as if we were on a ship

Note how part of the bridge splits and loops under.

another loop

I wonder what this looks like during high tide.

a narrower part of the walk

the Korea Democracy Center

I suddenly feel as if I were in Europe.

the center's name in Korean (Minju jueui Jeondang/민주주의전당)

click to enlarge

Neil in a pensive moment

This should've been the establishing shot.

We then moved on to the tragic and (at least in my opinion) morbid memorial for Kim Joo-yeol, the student who inadvertently became the face of the pro-democracy movement in 1960 (the Daegu Democracy Movement).

the main statue, with Kim in a noble pose

"Kim Joo-yeol, Patriotic Martyr" (note the etched panel with his blasted-out face)

The tear-gas rocket entered his right eye; the panel says he was fifteen.

Roughly: "The firework  flame of democracy was lit."

A rough translation from ChatGPT: "Statement of Purpose: This monument is erected in memory of the late Kim Ju-yeol, a youth of our province and a symbol of harmony between East and West, to honor his sacrifice and to carry on the spirit of the March 15, April 11, and April 19 democratic movements that opposed injustice. It also commemorates the son of Namwon who offered his life at Najasan, and through the April Revolution, it seeks to reflect the ideals of the people who began to think critically and of the citizens of Changwon who joined in that spirit." I'll let my expert readers tell me how accurate that translation is.

just a random directional marker that has nothing to do with the monument

approximately where Kim was dragged out of the water

"Kim Joo-yeol, Patriotic Martyr: In these waters, democracy's torch was raised."

a replica (in green) of the rocket-shaped tear-gas canister that struck Kim in the eye socket

a Korean/English plaque at the spot where Kim's body was taken out of the water

a closer look at what entered Kim's face

This is kind of morbid, but it's an effective way to keep people mindful of the tragedy.

yeesh

Kim's memorial photo

family pic

Can't get much more vivid than that.

placed in a boat

The caption at the bottom says the doctors at this hospital try to determine the cause of death.

Wow. No words.

From the look of it, the gas canister must have burst inside his head to produce that wound.

I belatedly noticed the swastika pattern. I wonder what Koreans think of this.

Let's end on a more pleasant note. Neil sent me this photo, taken with his camera by a gallery staffer earlier in the day. I had on my jacket, despite the heat, because the drizzle had been a bit strong at that point—but not for much longer after that.

And thus ended a Saturday that was much better than it had any right to be. I know a little bit more about Masan, and if possible, I'll be back that way again. Neil later texted that the wife liked the rum cake, and that he had enjoyed a cookie.