Daegu's Photo Biennale

Daegu's Photo Biennale was held this month, which is basically a huge photography exhibit. I ended up going twice, as it was a big exhibit and I wanted to spend some more time with the photos. Part of this was because of an exhibit called "Speaking Out Peace." This was featured as it is the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. It had one room of Robert Capa's war photography, including the Korean War, and another of various Korean War photographers. The name Robert Capa is probably familiar, he is famous for the quote "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough" (refering to war photography) and being one of the only photographers at D-day (Omaha Beach in Normandy, France).

If you were wondering, the photo above was taken in Daegu before they changed the spelling. (you can click on the pictures to enlarge them, just click the "back" button when you want to return to the blog)

This is an American soldier being carried by the South Korean peasants that were used as artillery carriers during the war.

North Korean POWs

Military trials for the POW's

This is an American soldier accepting surrendered North Korean citizens. Look closely, you can see the soldier giving him a thumbs up.

This is a line of POW's walking on a landing strip.

This is one of my absolute favorites of the collection.

This was taken in Daegu, these are all of the taxi drivers celebrating after a victory.

This is Robert Capa's last photograph - he died shortly after taking it, because he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam.

The whole thing really was amazing. There were tons of other photographs that were not related to the war at all, but I decided not to post any because it really didn't touch me as much as these did. I don't want to distract you from the main attraction here, which is my cultural and historical education. Expect another post very soon about my trip to Seoul and the DMZ this past weekend!

To see more photos of the exhibit (with the names of all of the photographers), and of the Busan War Memorial (that I went to last month) click here to go to my Flickr page.

Chuseok Adventure Part 2

Busan is the location of the United Nations War Memorial

(for the Korean War, or as its called here "The War").

The UN Guards were very interested in me, why I was there, and where I was from. Their English was impeccable and if I had the time I would have wanted to stay and hear their story, what lead them to the UN, what it was like working at such a historically significant site.

They had a huge list of causalities listed by country (and in the US section, by states).

The cemetery was set up by country, and had a section for unidentified fallen soldiers. It was rather busy because of the holiday, but was quite a solemn affair nonetheless. A few countries had statues by the graves, one in particular had "We will never forget you fallen sons of Canada" inscribed on it. There were very few graves for American soldiers, although was one of the longest lists of deaths on the Wall of Remembrance.

I had enough time to see the National Museum of Busan (remember the National Museum of Daegu from a few weeks back?). It was a pretty interesting place, actually. I liked exhibit about the folk masks best. They have me pretty excited about the Andong Mask Festival that I am going to tomorrow.

There was a tribe in Busan that intentionally flattened their heads and removed their front teeth. The skulls were shocking. I wish I read Korean, and could have read more about the history, the English explanations were lacking.

I went to the Beomeosa Temple, which is located just outside of the city, partway up a mountain. This is in the temple entrance, protectors of the temple.

This is one of the "bad guys" by the protectors' feet.

The temples color's were more based on yellows than the other temples I have been to. I loved the colors and paint was elaborate and beautiful.

I love the bells handing from the corners of the temples, I finally broke down and bought a small one for my apartment with a little fish hanging from it.

These are slabs that you can write prayers or wishes on, for a price, and the monks will pray for you. For Chuseok, I assume, they allowed people to paint on them.

I left the temple, having taken a taxi there, without really knowing how to get back to the city. I ended up walking about 20 minutes down a one way road looking for a bus or cab. Unplanned travel is exciting and open to change. It was nice to not be on a schedule.

It was a great vacation. I spent some time at the beach and in the hotel pool, I greatly appreciated having a bathtub again. A friend joined me for a day trip, we checked out the bars around the beach, and attempted to go to the world's largest department store, which was closed for the holiday. Even just wandering around the place was interesting though - they have a movie theater and an ice rink inside! As fun as it was in Busan, I am happy to be home and back with my cat, who seems needier than ever since I've come back!