National War Museum

There is something to say about a country and its militarism when the National War Museum/Memorial is about fifty times larger than its National Art Museum. Yesterday I spent the morning and early afternoon walking around this huge museum, which traces the history of Korea and its various wars/invasions starting from the BC's. It felt like any conflict Korea has ever been involved in was represented in the museum which spanned two massive wings and three floors. A huge majority of the exhibit space was devoted to the Japanese occupation and the Korean War. I felt the information was fairly accurately presented, at least the English translations, and the exhibits were all well created. There were the video installations, artifacts, and this strange Star Wars-esque presentation of battles, where holographic characters come on a screen and bad voice acting accompanies them. They also had a replica of admiral Yi's famous turtle ships.

Perhaps the most powerful room was the memorial hall, a circular room with a fountain in the middle producing the calming sound of running water. As you look up the ceiling slowly comes to a point and is entirely black. Mid-way up the ceiling is a painting on the walls, a redish color with jagged points. I couldn't tell what the purpose was but standing at the bottom and looking up it felt like purgatory. I get the feeling that was probably not the intended effect but that is now I felt.

Outside and to the West of the museum was a giant garden where everything from military airplanes to tanks to what amounted to big guns stood. It was a little unnerving to see little children running around and climbing on all of them knowing that in fifteen years they had a good chance of operating them. There also stood a massive statue devoted towards reunification, I liked the small slit that symbolized the separation but overall it looked a little too phallic for my taste. My favorite however was one called "Brothers in Arms" sadly my finger got caught in the camera frame.