Long Live Korean Independence!

Long Live Korean Independence!

It was freezing cold on the day when Father left home. I waited and waited for his safe return home all

during the Spring months. Our family did not have enough food to eat, not enough clothing to wear and

not enough heat to keep warm. Winter was a cruel enemy to my shivering family.

Grandma worried that, with the spring thaw, my birthday would come upon her. On my birthday in the

spring, flowers broke out everywhere and Father would be less cold in the north somewhere, but

celebrating my birthday without Father and at a time when our food stock would be at the rock bottom.

Even though my family's food supply ran out late in the Spring, Grandma managed to come out with

bowls of white rice and a cooked chicken egg on my birthday - until that year. Even a single egg was a

major food item in our household, as our daily menu was mainly bowls of thin gruel at best. Celebrating

my birthday was the farthest thing on my mind in that Spring. I was still in shock from my father's arrest

and I was worried sick about my father's being away for so long.

Not long after my father's departure, the March First Movement erupted on March 1, 1919. All the pent

up angers and sorrows of living under the Japanese imperialists for ten long years exploded on that day.

In ten years after the annexation, Korea had become a gigantic dungeon, no better than those of the

Middle Ages. The Japanese colonists used naked military power to suppress the Korean people's

aspiration to become free again. The Japanese took way our freedom of press, freedom to hold meetings,

freedom to form organizations, and freedom to march. They took away our human rights and properties.

The Korean people formed secret organizations, independence fights, mass enlightenment activities, and

had built up considerable potential energy against the decade of plunder and exploitation by the Japanese.

Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists and other religious leaders, patriotic teachers and students had planned

and executed the March First Movement. The Kapsin Reform, Kaboh Peasants War, Patriotic Mass

Enlightenment and Righteous Army ensued one after another, and our nationalistic feelings were

sublimated and ripe for kinetic explosion, like a volcano letting out the pressure built up over the

years. Thus, at noon, March 1st in Pyongyang, church bells rang out in unison to signal the start of the

march. Several thousands students and citizens gathered at the front yard of Sung-duk Girls School

located at Jang-dae-jae. Declaration of Independence was read aloud and it was solemnly proclaimed that

Korea was a free nation. The crowd began the march shouting "Long Live Korean Independence", "Out

with the Japanese and their army". They were joined by tens of thousands of citizens.

The villagers of Mangyong-dae lined up in a file and marched into Pyongyang and joined the crowd of

marchers already there. We got up early on that day and ate our breakfast; all of us joined the march.

When we left the village, there were only a few hundred of us, but by the time we reached Pyongyang,

our rank swelled to several thousands. We beat on drums and gongs and marched toward Botong Gate,

shouting "Long Live Korean Independence!" at the top of our lungs. 

I was only eight years old at the time, but I joined in the march wearing my worn-out shoes full of holes.

I shouted and shouted with the marchers and reached Botong Gate. The marchers rushed inside the castle

past the Gate; I could not keep up with them in my tattered shoes and so I took them off and ran after the

marchers as fast as my little legs could move. The enemy mobilized mounted police and army troops to

stop our march, They slashed and shot the marchers indiscriminately. Many of the marchers fell spilling

blood. But the marchers marched on and fought the enemy with bare hands.

For the first time in my life, I witnessed people killing people, Korean blood staining our own land. My

young mind and body was enraged. After the sunset, the villagers from Mangyon-dae went to Mangyong

Peak and held a rally at the summit. Torches were lit and bugles blared. We beat drums and metal pans,

making enough noise to wake up the dead. We shouted hurrah for our independence. This continued on

for several days. Mother and her sister took me along when they joined the crowd at the summit. Mother

was busy carrying drinking water and burning oil for the torches to the protesters at the summit.

The marchers in Seoul were joined by the people who were in Seoul to attend King Kojong's funeral.

Several hundreds of thousands of people joined the march. Hasegawa, Governor General of Korea,

ordered the 20th Infantry Division garrisoned at Yongsan to squash the movement. The Japanese

soldiers attacked unarmed marchers with swords and rifles, turning Seoul into a sea of Korean blood.

But the marchers stayed their course; when the vanguards fell, the next in line took the lead. The

marchers pushed on stepping over their fallen comrades. People marched in all major towns and cities in