Seodaemun Prison

This is Seodaemun Prison.

I previously posted about the holiday here in Korea every March 1st commemorating those Koreans who demanded their freedom from the Japanese during the Japanese occupation of Korea.  Most of the people involved in the peaceful demonstrations were imprisoned here at Seodaemun Prison.  My friend Kiho gave us a tour of the prison and some of the history behind it.

First I'll put in my pictures, because most of them have us smiling and happy.  The prison was far from a happy place.  So I'll do all of our sunshine first, and then thrown in some depressing rain about what the prison was really like.

 Here's Ryan being handcuffed.

 This is one of the cells.  The hole in the wall is where they received their food.  There were no bathrooms, heating, or air conditioning, so many people died either from hypothermia or disease.

 Here we are -- caged in.

Kiho thought it would be fun to get us all jumping in front of the flag.  We took about 5 pictures, and I guess the three of us have really bad timing!  None of them worked.  :)

 Here's Kiho with the kids.

 This is the exercise yard for the prisoners.  There was just barely enough room to walk.

Here's another picture of the prison with Flat Stanley.  Yes, we are hosting Flat Stanley in Korea for a friend.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take this picture without him.  Oops.

All of the little squares on the wall behind us are pictures of the prisoners who were detained here.  It was shocking to look at them.  Some of the pictures were of children, no older than Ryan.

I didn't take a lot of pictures at the prison, because most of it was really depressing.  It reminded me a little of the Holocaust Museum in DC.  That's a museum I highly recommend, but you leave feeling sick about how human beings can treat other human beings.  That's exactly how I left Seodaemun Prison.  Sick.  The prison was horrible.  A lot of the people who entered the prison didn't leave.  A few did, but many died from the torture.

I started to write about the torture, but then erased it.  If you want, you can google the prison and find many pictures and write ups about what happened to the people here.  I don't think I can write about it.  Just know it was horrible.  The thing that makes me the most sick though, is all of these torture tactics that the Koreans were so angry with the Japanese for using, are still being used in North Korea today.  If you have read Escape from Camp 14 or seen the documentary with Shin Dong-Hyuk that the book is based on, you know all about this torture.  It is disgusting to me that the North Koreans, many of whom were part of the freedom movement to oust the Japanese, now keep their people enslaved the same way the Japanese did.  It's unbelievable to me.  

On a positive note though, as hard as it is to see humanity at its worst, it's also inspiring to read about those people who were willing to give everything for their freedom.  There were interviews of prisoners who were freed after WWII talking about how everything they endured in Seodaemun was worth it, because they did it for their freedom.  They are heroes.

After we finished our tour of the prison, Kiho took us to one of his favorite Chinese-Korean restaurants.

From the outside it looks like you're walking into a whole in the wall in the basement.  (You can see the sign to the left of the Coca-Cola sign.)  But boy was the food good!  I'd been telling Kiho how much I loved the Chinese-Korean dish called Jajamyong, so he told me I hadn't really had Jajamyong until I'd eaten it here.  He was right.  It was DELICIOUS!  Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures without Flat Stanley again.

 Here's the Jajamyong.  They call it black noodles.  It's kind of like spaghetti with a beef based sauce.  It's yummy!

Here's the Yaki Mandu we ordered as well.

We finished the day by walking through some of the markets.  It was a great day in Korea.