Global Courant
The hostel in the center of Seoul has a lot to offer. The rooms are tidy and affordable enough for K-pop fanatics on a budget and families who need a lot of space on vacation. It lies at the foot of Namsan, the scenic leafy mountain peak in the heart of the city. There is even a roof terrace with a panoramic view of the city.
Just try not to go to the basement.
Namsan, with its winding paths and cherry blossoms in spring, has long been a top tourist destination in Seoul. But not so long ago, “going to Namsan” meant something different, something ominous.
The phrase was typically used during South Korea’s post-war authoritarian years as a euphemism for bringing pro-democracy protesters to the headquarters of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency and interrogating them. Torture was common and one of the favorite locations was the basement of the Seoul Municipal Youth Hostel, which once housed the KCIA
The building now stands as a symbol of the country’s tangled relationship with past and present, though its embarrassing reputation barely seemed to register with guests milling about the lobby on a recent afternoon, requesting towels from reception and cheerful group shots. made .
The pleasant, shady path to the hostel is lined with subtle, easy-to-miss references to Korean history. A small plaque on the ground is inscribed with the words “Trail of National Humiliation”, a reference to the nearby location where the Japanese Resident General of Korea lived during the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula, which ended in 1945.
The Sixth Bureau Building, another KCIA torture site, is also located nearby. That building, with its distinctive red exterior, features a mock interrogation bunker that visitors can see as an audio track echoes ominous voices above their heads.
In Korean, the number six is pronounced yuk, which is another word for meat. “They say people were taken to the Sixth Bureau to be butchered like meat,” said Yang Seung-phil, a former manager of the hostel.
During the Korean War, South Korea was virtually razed to the ground, and as one dragon rising from a ditch – an old Korean saying – a new nation was born. Observing what remains and what has decayed or been destroyed – or revived – is an exercise in understanding the country’s national identity.
“History is not without words; it’s only when it’s not talked about that it’s quiet,” reads a brochure in front of the Sixth Bureau Building memorial.
In Seoul, gleaming tall buildings tower over meticulously maintained ruins dating back to the Joseon Dynasty, whose rulers ruled Korea from the 14th century until the early 20th, when the country became a Japanese protectorate. The occupation lasted more than three decades before Japan surrendered to the Allies at the end of World War II.
Korea was then rocked by civil war between the communists in the north and UN-backed forces in the south. The violence has split the peninsula in two.
In the South, national monuments burned and shelled during the Korean War were painstakingly and faithfully rebuilt as symbols of national pride. But the remnants of Japanese colonial rule were deliberately destroyed in South Korea as late as the 1990s.
The headquarters of the KCIA, where shouts once echoed through the corridors, may remain. Some see it as a necessary reminder of the country’s flirtation with autocracy, others say it represents a bitter chapter many would rather forget.
When Kang Yong-joo was a medical student in his early twenties, he was accused of spreading pro-communist material and tortured in Namsan in 1985. He said many KCIA survivors suffer from post-traumatic stress and repressed memories. It is not uncommon for victims to “feel sick when they see Namsan,” said Mr Kang, who has rarely visited the mountain again.
Once the most powerful institution in South Korea, the KCIA was founded in 1961 with help from the US government after a successful coup led by South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee. A State Department official once described the agency as “a combination of the Gestapo and the Soviet KGB”. The practices also include extortion, lobbying US legislators and harassing Korean immigrants in the United States.
The headquarters on Namsan was built in 1973. That same year, Choe Jong-gil, a professor of law at Seoul National University, was tortured to death during interrogation. Some historians believe he was the first victim to be killed on the spot. The right-wing government insisted he caused his own death by jumping out of a window.
“In the case of Namsan, the way the past and present interact is really kind of promiscuous,” said Bruce Cumings, a historian and the author of “Korea’s Place In the Sun.” “Japan’s largest Shinto shrine during the colonial period was at Namsan. It was destroyed immediately after liberation in 1945.”
In its place, the Korean government built a large statue of An Jung-geun, the Korean nationalist who assassinated Japanese Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi in 1909. the Japanese,’ said Mr. Cumings.
The KCIA underwent a series of changes following the pro-democracy movement in South Korea and is now called the National Intelligence Agency.
At the hostel, staff are quick to smile and greet guests, and the simple rooms with bare walls and bunk beds make it hard to imagine what suffering once took place in the same rooms. Most visitors are blissfully unaware of its history.
The local government, which owns and operates the hostel in conjunction with a non-profit organization, has been working since 2006 to make the building a welcoming place for young people. During the pandemic, the building was converted into a treatment center. More recently, renovations have been made to modernize the rooms as tourists returned to Seoul in droves.
The basement is now operated by the Seoul Emergency Operations Center and is strictly off-limits to civilians.
Han Hong-gu, a history professor at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul, said he wants the hostel to be turned into a museum dedicated to the democratization of South Korea. In 2009, when the Seoul city government was considering demolishing the former KCIA buildings on Namsan, Mr. Han, 63, organized a campaign against the plan.
“Some buildings need to be preserved to teach history lessons to later generations,” he said. “A site with a dark history should be preserved.”
At the entrance to the hostel, an unobtrusive mailbox invites visitors to write letters reflecting on human rights. Hwang Eui-sun, who used to work at the hostel as president of the non-profit organization, said the mailbox has no real function these days, but was there as a “commemorative symbol of the road to democracy.”
Spider webs have gathered around it.
Jin Yu Young and Choe Sang-Hun contributed reports from Seoul.
