Long Live Korean Independence! ②
Wind, campfire and river sounds change with every scene, and the music follows the story.
In August 1910, the Korean Empire was robbed of its country by Japan. Japan ruled by force, through its military police and police — a rule under which teachers stood in their classrooms wearing swords. On March 1, 1919, a Declaration of Independence was proclaimed in the name of the 33 national representatives, and at Tapgol Park in Seoul students and citizens poured into the streets shouting “Long live Korean independence!” The wave of “Manse!” soon spread to towns and marketplaces all over the country.
Characters
1919, age sixteen
Founded a school in his village
Led the Aunae Manse protest
Manse movement in Kaesong
Night of March 31, 1919 — Mount Maebong, Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province.
A girl climbed to the mountaintop and set dry branches alight.
From a ridge across the darkness, a single light answered.
Another, and another —
Tomorrow was market day at Aunae.
This girl had first cried “Manse!” a month earlier, in Seoul.
The afternoon of March 1, 1919, at Ewha Haktang (Ewha School). When cries of “Manse!” rang out from the direction of Tapgol Park, the students climbed over the school’s back wall and ran out into the streets.
let’s go!
On March 5, thousands of students cried “Manse!” again in front of Namdaemun Gate. Yu Gwan-sun was among them; she was arrested, then released through the school’s efforts.
On March 10, the Government-General of Korea ordered the schools to close. Yu Gwan-sun went back home to Jiryeong-ri in Cheonan.
She had to tell the villagers what she had seen in Seoul.
Her father, Yu Jung-gwon, had founded a school in the village. Night after night her paternal uncle Yu Jung-mu, the village elder Jo In-won and others gathered in the sarangbang, the guest room.
of the 3rd
lunar month,
market day
at Aunae,
let’s cry
“Manse!”
Yu Gwan-sun and her mother stayed up through the night making Taegukgi flags. She went from one neighboring village to the next, spreading word of what was planned for market day.
It’s late.
this flag, they’ll take heart.
April 1, 1919 (1st day of the 3rd lunar month), midday — the Aunae marketplace.
Taegukgi flags passed from hand to hand among the market crowd. Some 3,000 people had gathered.
Jo In-won climbed onto the rice sacks and read the Declaration of Independence.
Long live Korean independence!
Then the Japanese military police came swarming in.
Gunshots tore through the marketplace.
Her father, Yu Jung-gwon, demanded to know why the military police were killing people — and fell, run through by a bayonet. Her mother, Yi So-je, who was holding on to him, also lost her life on the spot.
Mother!
Nineteen people died at the Aunae marketplace that day.
Yu Gwan-sun was seized on the spot and dragged to the military police detachment in Cheonan.
ringleader.
Let the
others go.
The court in Gongju handed down a heavy prison sentence, and on June 30 of that year the Gyeongseong Court of Appeals sentenced her to three years in prison.
You have no right
to try me!
Cell 8 of the women’s block at Seodaemun Prison. With her were Eo Yun-hui, who had cried “Manse!” in Kaesong; Im Myeong-ae, who had led the protest in Paju and was arrested while pregnant; Sim Myeong-cheol, who could not see; and others.
you’re in no
state for this…
When March 1 comes,
let’s cry “Manse!” again.
March 1, 1920 — Seodaemun Prison.
It was one year to the day since the Manse movement began.
One person’s cry spread to the next cell, and then to the next.
The whole prison shook with cries of “Manse!”
The guards came running. Yu Gwan-sun was dragged out and brutally beaten.
After that, she never got up again.
At eight in the morning on September 28, 1920,
Yu Gwan-sun breathed her last in Seodaemun Prison.
She was seventeen. Her birthday was just over two months away.
After repeated demands to the Japanese authorities, the teachers of Ewha Haktang received her body. On October 14 a funeral was held at Jeongdong Church, and she was buried in the public cemetery at Itaewon.
That grave was lost later, when Imperial Japan did away with the cemetery; it no longer exists.
Twenty-five years passed.
August 15, 1945. People poured into the streets and waved the Taegukgi once again.
It was the “Manse!” she had cried with all her heart.
Words attributed to Yu Gwan-sunHaving but one life to give for my country — that is this girl’s only sorrow.
In that spring of 1919, countless “Yu Gwan-suns” whose names have not come down to us cried “Manse!” in marketplaces across the country.
