[KS] (no subject)

[hhund]

Dear KS group

While I am delighted that Koreans, after many decades, are paying more and more attention to the foreigners' cemetery, it is true that sometimes the only thing worse than no attention is too much attention.  Sometimes Korean cultural ideas of what is appropriate to the memory of people considered historically important cause a kind of grandiose monumentalism that is at odds with the basically simple Western concepts of burial embodied at Yanghwajin.  I hope people involved in this project will keep such an atmosphere in mind.

Furthermore, I think it important to remember that for the last 100 years the Seoul Foreigners' Cemetery has been under the management of the Seoul Union Church, which meets on the grounds, and that Mapo-gu is very late on the scene (and this is the first I'd heard about Hongik).  Even though the land belongs to the 100th Anniversary Committee of the Korean church, I hope that any group working on the cemetery will remember that the responsibility has been in other hands for many decades, and that those people should have a primary role in future decisions.

Blessings,

Horace H. Underwood

Message: 4 
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 02:10:46 -0700 (PDT) 
From: K-Flexx <manyongdae at yahoo.com> 
Subject: [KS] Photos of Yanghwajin Foreigners Cemetery and Foreigners 
Museum Project 
To: Korean Studies Discussion List <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws> 
Message-ID: <20050805091046.10795.qmail at web50210.mail.yahoo.com> 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 

Dear all 

Mapo-gu is in the process of cleaning and sprucing up 
Yanghwajin foreigners' cemetery. There is talk of also 
opening a permanent museum for artefacts and photos 
related to the lives of foreigners in Korea over the 
centuries. 

What I am helping to look for at the moment is any 
photos showing the cemetery (either as the main focus 
or in the background) pre-World War Two. Does anyone 
have access to any, or know who might? 

Also, to those who live in Korea, we are trying to get 
an informal meeting once a month for any and all who 
are interested in this project. In particular 
long-termers and old-timers are welcome (and needed!) 
because their input will help shape what this thing 
becomes. 

There is still  much to be decided, but a team from 
Hongik University has already won the contract from 
Mapo-gu, and some prominent people are involved (Dr 
Donald Clark being one of them). So this is a 
legitimate deal, and I hope it turns into something 
that can be more than a tourist attraction, but 
something actually of value historically. 

Any and all replies are welcome. 

Best regards, 

jacco Z.