I woke up on Sunday to the terrible news about the crowd crush in Itaewon. At first, I couldn't believe it. Itaewon is only six subway stops from where I live. Fortunately, I didn't personally know any of those who died, but I still feel badly affected. I think everyone in South Korea feels that way.
As of last report, there were 156 people dead, and 172 injured, among them 26 foreigners.
Most of them were young people in their twenties.
Yesterday two of my colleagues and I—Lydia from USA (Disciples of Christ) and Emily from Germany (Berlin Mission Werke)—went to Itaewon to pay our respects to those who lost their lives. There is a makeshift memorial there, right beside the subway station, close to where it all happened. Buddhist monks were chanting; news reporters were broadcasting; many people were there just to share their grief. We placed flowers at the memorial and wrote special messages of condolence. It was quite overwhelming.
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Afterward we attended an ecumenical All Souls' service which was hosted by the German Catholic Church and the German Protestant Church here in Seoul (in Deutsch!) |
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The The president has declared this week a period of national mourning. There is also an official memorial at City Hall, where tens of thousands of people have already gone to pay their respects. |
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This event has triggered memories of the Sewol Ferry disaster in 2014, where 304 high school students were killed. Most of those who died at Itaewon were from the same generation that died in the Ferry incident.
Please pray for all the young people in Korea!
Let me end with an excerpt from the poem 별 헤는 밤 ("A Night of Counting Stars") by Korean poet Yoon Dongju, who died in a Japanese prison in 1945 at the age of 29. Yoon Dongju's poetry is beloved in Korea because it symbolizes the struggle for freedom from Japanese imperialism. And he too died all too young. Having described the beautiful night sky, full of stars, which sets his youthful imagination blazing, the narrator then starts counting what he sees in each of the stars, one by one:
별 하나에 추억과 (in one star, a memory)
별 하나에 사랑과 (in another star, love)
별 하나에 쓸쓸함과 (in another star, loneliness)
별 하나에 동경과 (in another star, longing)
별 하나에 시와 (in another star, a poem)
별 하나에 어머니, 어머니 (in another star, mother, mother),
then, recalling his mother, the narrator declares:
어머님, 나는 별 하나에 아름다운 말 한 마디씩 불러 봅니다
(Mother, for each star I call out one beautiful word),
then, having recounted all the people he has known and had to let go, he remarks
이네들은 너무나 멀리 있습니다. (all these people are too far away.)
별이 아스라이 멀 듯이 ... (like dim stars, far away ...)
a link to a lyric version can be found here
and a link to more on Yoon Dongju can be found here
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