Horrific depictions of torture = fun for the whole family?

This morning I declared today to be Twentieth Century Korean History Day.

JESUS CHRIST what a depressing idea that turned out to be.

I went to Seodaemun Prison Museum where Korean resistance fighters were imprisoned during Japanese occupation, and the Korean War Memorial near Itaewon. The prison museum was... interesting. Pictures under the cut are not for the squeamish.

There were multiple school groups outside around the ticket office, including kids that looked like they were in junior high or younger. So I was thinking, how bad could this possibly be?

And at first it didn't seem so bad. They had kept the prison pretty much intact, only blocking off a few passages and adding some plaques and artifacts. You could go inside the cells and look at the bowls the prisoners ate out of and the swords the wardens wore.

And then I got to what I am going to call, for lack of a better word, the "torture building."

OH MY GOD. Kids are peering into these rooms and laughing nervously. There are signposts outside each room describing in detail exactly what each scene is portraying. There's a room labeled "sexual torture" which mercifully only shows women getting their clothes torn off by sneering guards, BUT STILL. OH MY GOD. Also, I looked at the rack in that last picture up close, and I'm pretty sure those bloodstains are legit.

So, yeah. That was AWFUL. There were signs pointing visitors on the right path, and they led me outside and into a new, less-well-lit building. I guess some of the kids were a little freaked out by the torture building, because a few times when I came out of a side passage unexpectedly they would jump and scream. Honestly, I don't blame them.

The next building seemed to be all about placing you in the shoes of the imprisoned resistance fighters. It was put together really thoughtfully, and some parts were scarily immersive. There are dummies everywhere acting the roles of guards, judges, prisoners, and executioners. Most of them move a little, and if you push a button or trip a motion sensor, they speak. The only thing that kept it all from being pants-wettingly terrifying was the fact that all the dummies look really cheesy, and the voice acting was so over-the-top that it was ridiculous. I think the effect might also have been ruined for me because I couldn't understand what any of them were saying, but I'm sure the writing was just as campy as the rest of it.

The flash from my camera kind of ruins the creepy atmosphere, but this is a room where you stand before a kangaroo court and have your sentence handed down.

There was also another torture room (because I hadn't had enough of that yet). Whoever designed it was a sadistic genius. There were two scenes: in one a woman sat with her hands strapped to a table while a Japanese guard jammed a knife under her fingernails, and in the other a man was put in a wooden box lined with spikes and rolled around. To see the woman's scene you had to sit in a chair, and to see the man's you had to crawl inside the same actual box with spikes inside and crouch there while you watched. But that's not all. At first all you could see through the viewing hole was your own face. Then, when you push the button, the room behind the glass lights up and where your face was you can now see the grimacing face of a tortured prisoner. You watch the scene, the lights fade back out over the prisoner's screams of agony, and the grimacing face fades back into your own. You're left sitting in a chair or huddled in a makeshift iron maiden in the dark.

FUCKING TERRIFYING.

As I said before, the only thing that could have made it scarier would have been more realistic dummies and better voice acting. Especially the guard who was torturing the woman sounded like Snidely Whiplash, which was a constant reminder that it wasn't real.

And then you get outside and read the plaque that has the name of an actual woman who died in this prison and you remember FUCK IT WAS REAL.

Let me just say that I give the place mad props for highlighting the women who went through this prison. A lot of the time women's roles in wartime are forgotten or devalued somehow as less than what the men contributed. It would have been easy to use the women who died at Seodaemun as cheap emotional manipulation. "Here is where manly male resistance operatives were tortured and executed and LOOK they killed innocent flowery maiden ladies too AREN'T THEY EVIL?" But no, they made no bones about the fact that every woman who went to Seodaemun was a freedom fighter. They even had a whole exhibit on a woman named Ryu Gwan-sun who was executed here.

And speaking of execution...

There's a noose above that chair, just out of frame. The handle that dummy on the right is holding works the trap door under the chair. This might have been the most chilling room just because the dummies didn't speak or move; you just looked silently and understood the mechanics of how people died in this room.

Do we need some pictures from out in the sunshine? I think we do. 

I went to Seodaemun looking for a history lesson, but Seodaemun didn't turn out to be very big on lessons. Sure, there were informational plaques and stuff, but nothing really meaty about the occupation. Seodaemun is mostly there to teach one lesson, and teach it loudly and with many visual aids. That lesson is: the Japanese are sadistic sons of bitches, got that? There will be a test.

So I got back on the subway feeling very creeped out and made my way to the Korean War Memorial. I'm glad I did it in that order, because the memorial is outdoors, well-lit, and altogether a good antidote for the depression brought on by the prison museum. It has a completely different feel to it. If Seodaemun was trying to convey anger at the Japanese, the War Memorial seemed like it was trying to convey equal parts sadness, hope, and HEY LOOK AT OUR COOL PLANES!

Yeah, there was lots of military stuff. You could even go inside some of them, which was very cool. I was more interested in the monuments though.

A statement by the artist reads that this statue represents a hope for reconciliation between the North and South, symbolized by brothers torn apart during the war. It's a striking message, especially considering how the Koreas seem to feel about each other at the moment.

Is it just me, or does the little girl in that last picture look way too serene compared to all the other figures in action-y poses?

I also walked through Itaewon today, but this post is already running long and I have to go to bed. Tomorrow I'm having lunch with Jessie-sunsaengnim, and I'll tell you about my plans for extra-Seoul excursions.