Big Daddy Cha-Cha at Noksapyeong Station
In which Big Daddy Cha-Cha narrates a brief tour of scenic NokSaPyeong Station near the entrance to the Itaewon neighborhood in YongSan-gu, Seoul. Topics of brief discussion include membership to an English-speaking book club in Seoul, the use of the T-Money system to get around the Seoul Subway System, and various figures and martyrs of Korean independence from Japanese colonization (1910-1945.)
For a little added information on a few of the independence fighters seen, Kim Gu was the president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, and he declared war on Japan on behalf of Korea from within China in 1941.
Yoo Kwan-soon (also spelled Ryu Gwansun) was one of the organizers of the March 1st Movement. After a protest in 1919 in which her parents were shot dead, Kwan-soon was arrested by the Japanese for shouting for Korean independence. Under torture, she refused to give up names of collaborators and she was sentenced to 5 years at Seodaemoon Prison in North-western Seoul. At the prison, she was tortured to death. Her body was released to the Western Principals of Ehwa Women's School, who buried her in a cemetery in Itaewon. She became a powerful symbol of Korean independence.
Also pictured, but not mentioned, was Ahn Joong-geun who, in 1909, assassinated Ito Hirobumi, a relatively high-ranking Japanese official. Immediately arrested at the scene, he was executed the following year and buried somewhere in Harbin, China. He is a household name in Korea, and viewed as a freedom fighting martyr. One wonders how the Japanese view him...