You can see the queue of people waiting for their turn to write something or give a white flower but the people in the foreground are all police (just in case!). This is at the end of the road the school is on.
A lot of these pictures are dark and/or blurry. Sorry about that. It was around 8pm and there were a lot of people pushing me.
The queue went all the way up the road to the British Embassy and back down again.
And off in every direction, as far as I could tell.
There is currently a long string that runs the length of the road and people have tied ribbons to it. We had to go down into the subway and up again to get past people.
There are all kinds of tributes and pictures stuck on the subway walls.
People were writing on a huge piece of paper on the ground as well.
We then had to make our way through the crowds of people outside Deoksugung, a palace more or less opposite City Hall.
A flower seller.
Once we'd passed the long queue and the large crowd, we found people lining the shops along the road, all reading the newspaper that had just come out.
Further on, there was another little gathering.
The view behind as we left the area.
Just across the road from that last gathering, there were tons of police. I took about five better, closer photos of them but they were all dark and eventually the police told me to stop, so we left.
I have to say that this sort of thing just wouldn't happen in England. I don't want to say 'hysteria' but, I mean, the guy was impeached for corruption and people didn't like him. As Amy pointed out, this sort of thing glorifies suicide and as it's the fourth largest cause of death in South Korea, it doesn't need this sort of press. Interesting though.
My gosh, this is quite something. There is no glory in suicide, it's just very very sad. And indeed fascinating. You live in an interesting place Hannahface! x
ReplyDeleteIt's true he was impeached and people didn't think he was a good President, but I've learned recently that he's always been quite admired by a certain sector of the Korean population. Prior to his presidency, he was a human rights lawyer, and a lot of people still think of him as someone who crusaded for the rights of the little guy, despite whatever failures he had as a President. That's my understanding, anyway.
ReplyDeleteYes, actually today I've learned a lot more about him and it seems that prior to everything that happened while he was in office, he was a good guy. We just watched his hearse go past. It was bizarre and very surreal being a part of the crowd.
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