urban studies

Aesthetic Constructions of Korean Nationalism Spectacle, politics and history

Hong Kai

I~ ~~o~;~;n~~~up LONDON AND NEW YORK

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements

Introduction

PART I Modernity, colonial expositions and the city

1 Nationalism and the politics of visual comparison:

xv xvn

1

11

The 1915 Korean Industrial Exposition 13

2 Modeling the West, returning to Asia: The 1929 Korean Exposition 32

3 Seoul in motion: Urban form and political consciousness 44

PARTU Korean nationalism and postcolonial exhibitions 57

4 The temple of ethnic nationalism: War memorial museums in Korea and Japan 61

5 Ancestors, the avant-garde, and the making of "culture" in postcolonial Korea 85

6 Flowing back to the future: The Cheonggye stream restoration

Notes Bibliography Index

103

124 147 159

102 Korean nationalism and postcolonial exhibitions

government facing the urgent task to renew the nation , the projection of the new Korea with the international discourse was instrumental in providing a positive vision of a nation that is no longer a victim of, but an actor within, the global community. Yet to achieve such renewal, the government had to keep alive the memory of the colonial past and the heroic spirit of the Korean ancestors. The colonial past has continuously revisited postcolonial Korea. Yet it is not a simple return to the past. The act of remembering is always in and of the present. The colonial memory was re-imagined and reorganized to engage with the political task of the new government, which sought to show a clear departure from the postcolonial military past as well as from the colonial past. The selective destruction and restoration of the past was indispensable for the construction of the future. In this sense, the discourse of segyehwa was not necessarily in conflict with the demolition campaign, but instead it intensified the importance of the nation to survive as a coherent ethnic unity. In this sense, like the NMCA and the IHK, when Korea became more glob al, it became more ethnically national. The fo llowin g chapter shows these contentious but mutually constituting forces brought into play in the recent urban redevelopment project in Seoul, one for the redevelopment for global progress and the other for the restoration of the national identity.

6 Flowing back to the future The Cheonggye stream restoration

The exercise of power depends on a variety of technologies that target popu- lations as well as territory in order to solve problems of wealth , growth and security.

Aihwa Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception, p.100

A mass gathering in the public plaza is one of the most cherished national spectacles. A history of the public plaza narrates a collective story of the nation - how it came to be, why certain things happened in the course of history and what consequences these may have for us. In narrating national realities and dreams, the plaza sets a stage for the shared experience of the nation. As a space with imagined and physical boundaries, it has been used by various ideological backgrounds. Liberal states have promoted the public plaza as much as the fascist states of Germany and Italy and the socialist states of China and North Korea. For a country that seeks to portray itself as a democratic society, the pubic plaza carries such a poten- tial to realize freedom, openness and greatness of the nation. In the advanced capitalist world, the public plaza has also become a site for the concentration of spectacles designed to create attractive imageries of the place oriented to the neoliberal political economy and at the same time to remedy social problems resulting from it. The radical reconstruction of the image of Seoul through the new waterfront is an interesting case in point.

This chapter tells a story of the Cheonggye stream, part of the network of public plazas, which participates in the (re)construction of collective iden- tity in the ongoing social restructuring processes in Korea today. On October 1, 2005, the stream was reopened after its burial for half a century. Some 4,000 guests, including the Mayor of Seoul, Lee Myung Bak, (2002- 2006), President Roh Moo Hyun (2003-2008), government officials, party members and citizen groups, gathered in the new outdoor plaza built at the mouth of the reclaimed Cheonggye stream. They assembled to witness the rebirth of the 5.8 kilometer-long inner-city stream which was paved over with cement in th · late 1950s. In the climax of the ceremony, the selected

104 Korean nationalism and postcolonial exhibitions

guests together pulled the ropes to let a portion of water, collected from rivers throughout the whole country, flow into the new waterway. Following this symbolic performance, Mayor Lee, wearing traditional Korean clothes, officially announced the "welcoming of the new water" and proclaimed his commitment to making Seoul an authentic, cleaner, greener and more competitive global city (Figure 6.1).

Cheong Gye Cheon 1688 000 1 Information (24 hours! •

Tourist Map of -r-11 1.'

Cheong Gye Cheon

Se-Out t-4etrcpotitan Fndtitic-s Manaqement Corporation wwwsisvl.or_kr /02,2290--6114

Korea Tourist Hotline 1330 _ _ _ www seoul.go.kr

Figure 6.1 The newly constructed Cheonggye stream.

(Source: Re printed from th e brochure of th e heo nggye strea m, o bta in ed 2007.)

Flowing back to the future 105

Under the slogan "open stream, green future," the city staged a series of ceremonial events, including folk and modern dance performances, clas- sical and popular music concerts, art shows, photo contests, a marathon race, a citizen's walk joined by celebrity entertainers and a special exhibi- tion, entitled "Meet Soil and Water," in the newly built Cheonggye Museum. 1 The media also gave a high rating to the "rebirth" of the stream, praising it as an example of the successful urban revitalization which had changed the image of the city from the polluted, crowded and unsafe space to an environmentally friendly place.2 During the first month after its opening, the stream was visited by over six million visitors. Amid the cele- bration, the skepticism, criticism and resistance voiced over the mega- construction project at an earlier stage of the project, had become muted or faded away. 3 In turn, the new stream was expected to provide competitive conditions, which would enable new territorial branding strategies to be introduced and the state's position in the global economy procured.

The image of the stream cannot be separated from the career of Mayor Lee, a former CEO of the Hyundai engineering and construction company and now the president of Korea. During the 2002 Seoul mayoral election campaign, Lee took up the Cheonggye stream as a central component of his campaign. His pledge to reconstruct the stream gained considerable publicity. Immediately after his inauguration, Lee launched the restoration project and completed it in only two years - from July 2003 to September 30 2005 - with a total budget of US$376 million. The fast-track project involved dismantling the 5.8-kilometer-long expressway overpass covering the stream, building twenty-two bridges and pumping water from the Han River, as well as the gentrification of the neighborhood around the stream area. Throughout the process, the Seoul Metropolitan Government widely publicized the issue of public safety, the importance of sustainable develop- ment, the benefit of an eco-friendly environment and the restoration of heritage, through the Internet, advertisements and mass media. The campaign reflected a firm belief by the mayor that the new image of the stream , culturally vibrant and environmentally pleasant, would make the city a business and financial hub of Northeast Asia. 4 He advocated that the stream project was not just an ordinary construction project but a paradigm shift in the trajectory of national progress, from the blind pursuit of the industry-driven development of the 1960s and 1970s to what was considered as a balanced and sustainable development with greater concern for envi- ronmental value.

The Cheonggye stream project encapsulated a desire to remake the city as a financial business centre connected to the global market. The stream project can be seen as a strategy to develop what David Harvey has called "urban entrepreneurialism" by remaking the city's image "appear as an innovative, exciting, creative, and safe place to live or to visit, to play and consume in."5 The mission to make Seoul a competitive global city employed the discourse of national history. 6 The urban redevelopment

106 Korean nationalism and postcolonial exhibitions

project in turn became a restoration of national heritage associated ~ith the stream site. The Cheonggye stream project was fundamentally aimed at reconstructing a sense of collective identity. By evoking a nostalgic idea of the glorious history lost in the buried stream, it lumps tog~ther cultural ~nd historical elements and invents tradition for the site, the city and the nat10n. There is nothing new about mobilizing tradition in the political culture of modern Korea. However, assumptions behind the selection of the past, the revision of social memory and the repackaging of local knowledge pose compelling questions. Why did the past, in the name of heritage, beco~e revived at this particular moment in Korean history? How was the lookmg backward to the glorious dynastic era anticipated to overcome the forward- looking of the modernization paradigm in the recent past? How did .the construction of a "new" time need the "timeless" past? In the following, through an analysis of various materials and my field observations, I look closely at how the spatial and visual organization of the stream operates a~ a technique of interpellation to rework a collective identity in post-industnal Korea.

Bridging the past: The historical meaning of the stream

The Cheonggye stream is located at the center of Seoul, the capital of Korea for the last six hundred years since the foundation of the Choson dynasty. The stream not only functioned as a natural resource for the city but also played an important social role in structuring the social hierarchy. The stream divided society physically and socially into two segments: the area north of the stream was occupied by the ruling nobility and that of the south by the rest of the urban population. The stream area was a.symbolic meeting point between the two realms. 7 A painting from the e1g~teenth century Choson, as replicated in the ceramic-tile wall painting, depicts .the king on the bridge overseeing the dredging work carried out to alleviate flooding. The nobility are observers watching from above as common~rs work in the stream. Such a modality of seeing represents the rulers' exercise of power as well as their benevolent control over the stream. The ruling regime sought to manage problems of frequent floodi?g a~d wat~r pollution by mobilizing people around the country. and m d01.ng so it communicated its authority to his subjects who occupied the terram across the river.8

During the Japanese colonial period, the Cheonggye stream continue~ to function as a marker of social and political boundaries, though the hier- archy of social space was reversed: the north of the stream inhabited by th.e colonized and the south by the colonizer. This spatial division was symboli- cally revised in 1926 when the colonial government built the Government General building at the site of the former royal palace located north of ~he stream. The new mark of authority was followed by initiatives to redesign the city. fn the 1930s, a plan was proposed to redevelop the stream area by

.... Flowing back to the future 107

covering it up and constructing a street. The plan, not at the time imple- mented, was taken over by the postcolonial Korean government as it paved the stream with cement (1958-1979) and built an overpass above it (1967- 1971). The urban project to construct a new Seoul, led by the appointed mayor of Seoul, Kim Hyon-ok (1966-1971), nicknamed "bulldozer," cleared up shanty houses built along the river banks and covered the river with an elevated highway. It turned the area into a symbol of the "modern- ization of fatherland." On top of this, a thirty-one storey building, the highest structure at the time, was built in 1970 to mark the entrance to the express highway (Figure 6.2).

The new skyscraper and the highway, both named Samii after the anti- Japanese protests of 1919, became identifying landmarks of the post- colonial city, even though both structures were funded by loans from Japan. We thus have in these urban structures around the buried stream an instance of modernization and the irony of decolonization. In addition, in 1967, a monumental complex, called the Seun Complex, was built. This 1-kilometer-long complex consists of four buildings running along the north-south axis perpendicular to the stream, connecting the northern and the southern areas of the stream. This set of residential and commercial buildings interlinked by pedestrian decks was one of the earlier examples of mega urban redevelopment projects. Intended to concentrate capital and to facilitate the development of its adjacent areas, the Seun Complex was crowded with small shops and textile companies, a site of labor productivity yet at the same time a birth place of the labor movement in the 1970s.9

The spectacles of the express highway, the high-rise building and the mega-complex represented the ideas of national productivity, progress and industrialization. These signs of development were promoted as the product of collective national subjects called " producers" (ilgun) who worked hard for the national goal of modernization under the guidance of the centralized system. Throughout the era of rapid growth the state disci- plined people to value hard work and frugality as a morality as well as a loyalty to the nation. By the 1990s, however, the state program of modern- ization lost its prestige and the labor-intensive and export-oriented economy was seen as obsolete. It demanded a shift in the culture of govern- ance in Korea. In 1995, President Kim Young Sam (1993-1998) proclaimed a need to increase the national capacity for global competitiveness through advances in information and communication technologies. After the IMF financial crisis of 1997, the processes of liberalization and globalization were accelerated. In particular, during the Kim Dae Jung presidency (1998- 2003), social life was re-engineered to meet global standards based on the neoliberal market economy. 10

As the country adopted globalization as a central tenet, the previous ideology of "modernization of fatherland" was blamed for having caused environmental pollution and authoritarianism. In this context, Mayor Lee, the ambitious promoter of neoliberal globalization, was quick to publicize

Figure 6.2 Samii building built in 1970.

(Source: R e print ed from Seoul, Tw entieth century: A Ph otographicaf Iii.sto ry of th e Last 100 Y ears, Seoul: Seoul Deve lopm e nt Institut e, 2(Xl0.)

Flowing back to the future 109

the need to change the urban symbolism of the city. He campaigned for a new reconstruction of the Cheonggye stream, while turning the existing stream area with its express highway into a symbol of backwardness and stagnation , that is, the past that needed to be overcome. In his autobiog- raphy, Cheonggye Cheon Flows to the Future , published in 2005 to coincide with the opening of the stream, Lee presents his perception of the previous era and his belief in the need to create a new one.

In my twenties, I endured the developmentalism symbolized by the paved Cheonggye Stream. Believing, "I can make it," I achieved a miracle of success. For years, however, I remained a producer (ilgun) in the shadow of development. However, now that I have become myself, a man of nature , I have discovered the possibility of getting rid of the shadow [of the earlier developmen talism]. 11

The narrative stresses the mayor's transformation , from the shadow of a mechanical "producer for development" to the light of "a man of nature ," and the achievement is attributed to his self-made entrepreneurism. The story of the "self-made man" returning to nature highlights the mayor's success, yet it also suggests that it can be achieved by anyone, framing the official discourse of the stream project.

At the core of the message is an identification of the "common people" with the spirit of entrepreneurism in harmony with nature. The idea of " nature," however, connotes traditional order and hierarchy. The official discourse of the stream put a special emphasis on the " natural " life of commoners in the area: "Women gathered there to wash clothes and chil- dren used the spaces along the stream as their playground." It stresses that the stream embodies the "natural" way of life, where working, living and playing intersect, reminding citizens that in the past the stream was not only a source of water and a site of drainage but also a place where people were engaged in a variety of entertainment activities such as flying kites , walking on the bridges, performing martial arts and lighting lotus lanterns. 12

The evocation of a nostalgic memory of the stream as a site of people 's daily lives reflects the conscious efforts behind the restoration project to create a distance from the earlier discourse of modernization which called up citizens as self-sacrificing subjects working productively for national development. If Koreans were called up as state-administered industrial subjects who sacrificed themselves for national development in the 1970s, they are expected to more innovative and entrepreneurial to be competitive in today ' s rising tide of neoliberalization , while consuming spectacles in a post-industrial society. What is indicated is a change in the discourse of modernization, a move from the narrative of production to that of consumption as the basis for measuring development and the well-being of the nation , although the shift from productivity and frugality to consump- tion and entertainment has been neither smooth nor unproblematic. 13

110 Korean nationalism and postcolonial exhibitions

The past-ness of the bridge: History reconstructed

The Cheonggye restoration project was officially promoted as a product of "entrepreneur rationalism" and a "logical solution" in contemporary Korea. However, the extensive investment in cultural symbolism and ritual suggests that the project was fundamentally aimed at constructing a sense of the shared past. 14 In October 2003, a team of archeologists involved in the excavation of the Cheonggye riverbed unearthed artifacts of daily life from the Chason era and ultimately found the stone bridge called the Kwangtong bridge (also known as Kwanggyo). The Kwangtong bridge was said to have been built in 1410, at the busiest and most populated intersection of old Seoul. To the surprise of many when it was discovered , the bridge was intact despite having been buried deep underground for so many years. The public were fascinated: "Who could have dreamt that this bridge, a witness to 600 years of the Chason dynasty drama, was alive and lurking under- ground, as if having kept the faith that it would one day be brought back to the li ght?" 15 The discovery gave life to the stream and brought back the past needed for the national imagination.

The discovery of the bridge sparked heated debates among the city government, professionals and citizen 's groups, over where and in what way the Kwangtong bridge ought to be restored. The city's plan was to store the bridge in a "safe" place, such as a history museum, and to build a replica some 170 meters upstream from the original site because of the concern that restoration at the original location would interfere with the traffic flow in the area. This idea, however, met with fierce opposition, especially from the Citizens' Committee for the Restoration, which claimed that the bridge should be completely restored at its original site. The committee called the mayor a "developm entalist" and criticized him for breaking his promise to restore history in favor of expeditiousness and practicality. 16 For them nothing seemed to be more important than historical authenticity: "When the bridge is evicted from its legitimate dwelling , what witness will there be to narrate the history of Seoul and to testify to our identity as a people?" 17

The tension between the metropolitan government (the stream project administrators) and civic organizations became so serious that on February 26, 2004, the committee filed a legal suit against the mayor for violating the cultural heritage protection act. A compromise was finally reached. The K wangtong bridge was assembled with some remnants of the original pieces and placed close to the original site.

Whether or not the interest groups agreed with each other over the matter of how to restore it, the city's inhabitants largely seemed to have been excited by the discovery of the 600-year-old bridge re-emerging into the light after its long sojourn in the underground world. Their fascination with the object led to an identification with the past and an understanding of themselves as subjects of a shared hi tory and national destiny. The bridge animated with life was seen as a subject with agency of its own, one that is capable of surviving: "The bridge was alive and breathing beneath

/o/1111 '//I '/1111 I '" tlt1 /1111111 111

the concrete structures. " IH ' lhl' 11 ·.,1111.1111111 11111111 I w,1., '>lll'll'" f11I 111 appea ling to the popular discou1 st· of l111d 1• 111 1• I Ill· p.1't .111d till' p1 t''>l'll t. :di associated with the idea of continu 1t y a11d rn111111111111 y

Once history was secured throu g h thl' 11.111.iliw ol l'o11tinuity, thi; spa 'l.' was then cleared for a new redev ·lop111l'1ll p1 OJl'l I, ·rnsi ng conflicts and contradictions embedded in the daily lik ol I hl' plai; ', and the stream was canonized as a site for everyone and thd1 1nlt' l :tl'I ions. The remembrance of the stream's nostalgic past, adapted to ri t w1 th th · pi ·sent na tiona I imagina- tion, was a technique of governing thi; population of the present. The Cheonggye stream, a seemingly autonomous place for entertainment and tourism, acts as a teaching device for shaping a collective subjectivity.

Exhibiting the stream

Until the completion of the monumental artwork called Spring in 2006, the entrance to the stream was marked off by three large panels of photo- graphic images which documented the life of the Cheonggye stream. The first panel shows today's urban population enjoying the stream. This image sets up a scene so that passersby and visitors might identify with the citizens of the city and users of the stream (Figure 6.3). The vivid, colorful scene of

Figure 6.3 One of the large photographic panel images documenting the life of the hconggye stream.

(Source: l'hoio hy 11uthor.)

112 Korean nationalism and postcolonial exhibitions

people playing with water is in complete contrast to the black-and-white photograph in the second panel. Taken in the 1980s, the photograph shows the heavy traffic and cars stuck on the expressway; no human can be seen. The contrast between the first and the second panels provides an angle for viewers to situate their present situation in relation to the recent past. The third image consists of a series of photographs of the stream taken from colonial time and the early decolonization era. In this last panel, the stream is shown suffering from flooding, pollution and neglect.

Set at the main entrance to the stream, these three panels register the contrast between the past and the present; people and automobile; flowing water and stagnant traffic; leisure and work; creative urban experience and the numbing routine of a daily commute. These images illustrate a historical survey of the city and offer a meta-framework whereby visitors may invest meanings into the stream in the narrative of national progress. Visitors are invited to a moment of identification not only with the stream but also with the nation that has supposedly moved from one stage of development to the next. Visitors are the people in the image and by extension the subjects of the nation. In this process, the representation determines the reality of the stream. It seeks to secure a coherent totality of national progress in a seam- less narrative of continuity that serves to conceal conflict and displacements embedded in the process of the restoration. In the following, I analyze how each different zone of the stream works to integrate different times, re-narrate histories and reconcile contentious memories of the city and the nation. The Cheonggye stream is not merely a story of the neoliberal campaign for the construction of an environmentally sustainable "global city"; it is also a spatial apparatus that aims at the re-invention of a shared vision of the nation's past, present and future.

The west end zone: Restoring the past

The heart of the Cheonggye stream is located at its west end in the financial districts lined with modernist corporate skyscrapers. Such designation registers the idea that the city features the development of its financial service industries. The Cheonggye stream , however, expresses itself in a rather unique way. It makes its image visually different from the faceless modernist fa<;ade. In September 2006 at the open space called the Cheonggye plaza designed to hold various kinds of public festivities, a 20-meter-high object named Spring was erected in the shape of a marsh snail colored in bright blue and red (Figure 6.4).

The monument was designed by Claes Oldenburg, an internationally known pop artist whose public installations are found in many major metro- politan centers of the world. Oldenburg's sculptures are known for being amusing, simple, light and banal in theme and spectacular in scale. He uses daily objects such as binoculars, a clothes peg, a lipstick, shuttlecocks, a baseball bat, hammers, trowels , a torch , a necktie, a bike and a saw, enlarges

Flowing back to the future 113

Figure6.4 Spring, installation work by Claes Oldenburg, standing at the Cheonggye plaza.

(Source: Photo by author.)

them to an enormous size, sometimes as big as a building, and colors them in cheerfully bright tones.

Oldenburg's works are clearly neither very complex nor serious, but this is what the Seoul government was looking for. The municipality seems to agree with his concept that "cities are so boring and if you find an extraordi- nary object it should make living more fun." 19 For the city, the newly founded extraordinary object is the stream itself. Like the stream, Spring lends a cheerful atmosphere to its surroundings with a message of harmony between nature, people and the city. The playfulness, softness and banality of Spring seems appropriate for the intended image of the new stream and the city as a whole, which has been trying to make connection with common people through everydayness and creative pleasure - a strategy which is very different from the one adopted by serious national monuments such as those found in the Independence Hall of Korea (see Chapter 5). Despite harsh criticism and protest from local art communities for importing, without proper public consultation, a foreign art work which cost US$3.7 million, Spring has become a new urban landmark, replacing the 1970s icons of national development, such a the Samii building. Located at the junction between the major north-so uth boulevard and the east-west

114 Korean nationalism and postcolonial exhibitions

stream way, Spring brings the stream into a new era, crystallizing the idea of the new Seoul and establishing "a world-class cultural space."

20

The new monument and the plaza orient visitors to the new age. The access to the waterway is yet another spatial strategy carefully designed to create the effect of entering a world below the city. A long darkened narrow ramp serves as a threshold to the world of the waterway. This sp~tial arrangement is intended to generate a sense of the space beneath the city - an experience that suspends the routine reality of the corporate urbanscape above ground. The tunnel-like corridor leads to the sunken plaza surrounded by waterfalls, plants, ponds and the river, all orc~estrated t_o simulate an experience of escaping from the city above. The n01se of traffic is momentarily superseded by the immediate sounds of wat~r: The p~s~age from the higher ground to the sunken area also shifts the po_s1_t10n of v1s1to~s from observers, watching from the bridges above, to part1c1pants, expen- encing for themselves, collectively, the sound, the smell and the ~ouch of water (Figure 6.5). The four-meter-high waterfall and t~e surround mg walls mark the beginning point of a journey to nature and history. They also act as a container that encloses the sunken plaza, seeking to nurture what a guide map describes as "community, harmony, p~ace and unification."

21

People, nature and history are indeed made to meet m the stream.

Figure 6.5 People crowded in the sunken plaza of the Cheonggye stream.

(Source : Photo hy author .)

Flowing back to the future 115

The major artifact of the west end of the stream is the Kwangtong bridge, considered to be the largest bridge of the Choson era. The authenticity of the stone bridge is emphasized in the display of engravings depicted in its piers and the captions in front of it (Figure 6.6). The old bridge does indeed provide a special focus as a symbol of connections and communications between people beyond their actual social differences. For instance, a tourist map introduced the bridge as "a place for folk pastimes, where people enjoyed tari papgi (bridge-stepping) and kite-flying during the first full moon of the year." 22 A special exhibition in the Cheonggye Museum, titled "Memories of Cheonggye Cheon," also replicated a scene in which the townspeople including men and women, old and young, and the high and the low are gathered together on the bridge, enjoying the game called "walking over the bridge" all night long.23 The bridge promotes the idea of timeless tradition in which the past continues to live in the present.

In the programmatic design of the Cheonggye stream, history was natu- ralized. The flow of the past goes nowhere other than to the present which contains it. The Choson dynasty symbolizes the eternal Korea and remains the spiritual guidance for the development of the city. In this scenario, visitors are framed as subjects of the Choson era and asked to re-enact the activities of their fellows from the past.

Figure 6.6 The reconstructed Kwangtong bridge. (Source : Photo hy author.)

116 Korean nationalism and postcolonial exhibitions

While visitors are encouraged to seriously contemplate linking the present with the past, the stream is nevertheless a site for pleasure. Visitors engage in watching the waterfalls, taking pictures, throwing coins for luck, or walking at leisure along the waterway. Yet most of their activities are programmed even before their trips , through information provided by both official and popular sources.24 The seemingly playful and festive waterfront is indeed carefully calculated and regulated. The "natural" stream is a space of order inscribed with particular rules. One is allowed to wade but not to play in the water. Some activities, such as eating, drinking, singing and smoking, favored by most Koreans, are also restricted in this public area. Street performers are required to have permission in advance and unregis- tered events and vendors are prohibited. Once in the waterway , visitors are no longer "free," seeing subjects. They are assembled together in the sunken river watching themselves being seen and at the same time partici- pating "freely" in the consumption of nature and history.

In this carefully orchestrated site surrounded by monumental icons of financial and corporate buildings, visitors can imagine themselves both as global citizens and subjects of the past. Walking horizontally a long the regulated waterway, they witness national progress in and through the imageries of the dynastic past. The reified history and the restored nature are made to work together as a totality as Seoul plunges into the post- industrial age.

The middle zone: Displacing the recent past

While the west end is committed to the restoration of the " authentic" past and its alignment with the present, the middle zone seeks to assimilate the recent past of industrialization. This zone is where the entrance ramp to the expressway overpass was located . The area is still packed with 1970s build- ings and markets selling a variety of wholesale and retail goods which, in the eyes of the stream restoration committee, appear unspectacular. However, this area, which used to hold hundreds of manufacturing workshops and stores, embodies the earlier symbol of Korean modernization. Together with the Samii building and the Samii expressway, they signify earlier state modernization. Tensions arise on how to integrate these earlier symbols of industrial development into the spectacle of the present. The restored stream, in any case, runs through this section of the city and efforts had to be made to incorporate this zone into the narrative of the present (Figure 6.7).

The restoration accompanied the gentrification of the urban fabric of the stream area. First, to retrieve the stream, the mayor decided to get rid of the overpass. On July 1, 2003, just before the commencement of the restoration construction, the metropolitan government organized a public event called a citizens' walk on the expressway. At the event, the mayor and some 12,000 citizens marched across the expressway . This march in itself was a spectacle

Flowing back to the future 117

Figure 6. 7 The Cheonggye area still packed with 1970s buildings and markets selling a vanety of wholesale and retail goods.

(Source: Photo by author.)

of public support and also a gesture both of farewell to the condemned bridge and of welcome to the future. The second symbol of the past is the Samii building, a dark glass tower, once an overwhelming structure, but left now only to measure the new higher towers and surroundings that have mushroomed around it. Its 1960s modernist form is in full contrast to the iconography of the new art installation, Spring, which is cheerful, soft, and funky. With the postmodern Spring at the foreground, the modernist building seems an outdated representative of the international era. The third symbol is the Seun complex with some 2,060 stores. This shopping center is scheduled to be torn down to give way to a new monumental commercial and business complex. Some parts of the earlier industrial zone survive the gentrification process as designated tourist attractions; others have been beautified with several creatively designed bridges, pedestrian sidewalks and an outdoor plaza with a strong pattern of grids (as if to show a desire to impose a new order onto an old place).

This middle zone, while representing the earlier form of development, contains deep traces of conflicts. For instance, the P'yonghwa Market (Peace Market), located near the Seun complex, is the site inscribed with the memory of a 22-year-old young worker named Chun T'ae-il, who was

118 Korean nationalism and postcolonial exhibitions

born into a poor family and became a worker at a sweatshop in the market. At the P'yonghwa market, home to several hundred small textile manufac- turing workshops in the 1970s, Chun experienced the hard life of a manual laborer, which turned him into an activist seeking to improve the subhuman working conditions. Chun died when he set himself on fire to protest at the failure of the petition for a Labor Standards Law. His act and his slogan that "workers too are human beings" became a source of courage for workers and democratic movement activists in their fight against the oppressive and exploitative labor conditions of the 1970s and 80s. Today, a statue of Chun stands on the Boduldari bridge in front of the P 'yo nghwa market, one of the bridges built for the new Cheonggye stream (Figure 6.8). 25

In the opening ceremony on September 30, 2005, two days before the inception of the new stream, while labor activists reminded p;ople. t~at Chun's struggle was not over but continues in the present, off1c.ials stressed that the statue is a universal symbol of love, life and peacemaking. The gesture of peace and reconciliation sugges~ed closure wi~h ~espect to the inhumanities of the exploitative modernization and a begmnmg of the new economy symbolized in the restoration of the stream. It, however, concealed the violence accompanied by gentrification, a major part of the stream restoration.

Figure 6.8 A statue of Chun T'ae-il standing on the B6duldari bridge in front of the P'y6nghwa market.

(Source : Photo by author.)

Flowing back to the future 119

The statue offers little information about Chun and the labor struggles of the 1970s. As found in a popular tourist book which suggests to visitors to "use a low camera angle to create a picture of it in a solemn mood," the statue is considered an object of beauty. 27 The statue acts as an anesthetic for the bitter memories of the past, reminding visitors of nothing except the fortunate present. Set within the programmatic design of the new Cheonggye stream, the statue represents the culture of forgetfulness through which Chun's protest was assimilated into the narrative of the new era. Today it seems Jess to signify Chun's struggle than a bygone era which will never return. The memory of Chun and labor movements almost disap- pears into the nearby fashion plaza, which forcibly introduces the surrounding mega-shopping towers. The message is that the city has given way to a new urban economy as represented by the new stream; a symbol of what Major Lee called "a world-class cultural space."

The east end: Clearing the past

If the middle zone carries traces of earlier and current struggles, the zone at the eastern part of the stream is being transformed into a utopian high-end residential area. In this zone one can find the two remaining pillars of the Samii expressway overpass displayed in the middle of the stream as fallen icons of the previous developmental era (Figure 6.9). In contrast to the Kwangtong bridge from the Choson era, carefully restored in every detail to exhibit its authenticity, the decapitated structure of the highway was left in its rustic form. If the Kwangtong bridge can be touched and walked upon , the highway pillars are displayed as dead remnants which can only be observed from a distance. These ruins are exhibited as a symbol of a past which is never allowed to return, but only to be absorbed into nearby aesthetic installations. Like the statue of Chun, the display of the destroyed pillars without commentary of its own history embodies the past traumatic experience of the postwar development and at the same time displaces the new form of violence accompanied by the promises for a better life.

The east end today is undergoing major urban gentrification. The surrounding areas, which used to be occupied by buildings from the 1970s and houses for the poor, are being cleared to make space for the construc- tion of new commercial and residential buildings to be occupied by affluent residents. On one of the construction sites, big billboards were set up to attract potential buyers of the properties (Figure 6.10). The major selling point is the image of a new town located close to the " natural" environment of the new stream. The gentrification employs the rationale that to achieve international competitiveness and support new high-tech and financial industries, the old manufacturing and other less competitive sectors and the working-class residential neighborhood ought to be relocated. In spite of fierce resistance especially from sidewalk vendors, the city government successfully cleared the area by force . The critical voices of th e evictees

120 Korean nationalism and postcolonial exhibitions

Figure 6.9 Two remaining pillars of th e Samii expressway overpass displayed in the middl e of the Cheonggye stream.

(Source: Photo by author.)

were almost lost in the celebration of the new stream and the promise of a better life in future. The east end, planned to be an upscale residential area, is thus coordinated to complement the west end, which has been designated a "world class business centre." Joined by the stream, the "working" west end and the " living" east end form a totality that envisions a new face of the city and the nation .

The stream ends with the final artifact, the Cheonggye Museum ; its tube- like transparent architecture symbolizing the flowing water of the stream. Crafted by the most up-to-date museological devices, the museum projects new Seoul in the seam less narrative of the life of the stream flowing from the Choson era up to the present.28 The celebration of becoming a globa l city ironically demands an identification with the Choson era. In this sense the construction of a new generation of post-industrial Koreans remains embedded in the idea of the Korean ethnic community who are supposed to have no difficulty in sharing the common heritage and culture of the perceived glorious past of the country.

Flowing back to the future 121

Figure 6.10 Billboards set up to attract potential buye rs of the properties . (So urce: Photo by author.)

The stream, the plaza, and the new governmentality

The spectacle of the Cheonggye stream performs powerfully as a new form of the management of populations. Central to its attempt to restructure the urban space to stimulate the new entrepreneurialism are the discourses of healthy body, quality life, natural environment and heritage. This new set of well-being yet regulatory discourses is carefully orchestrated in the visual and spatial settings of the restored stream. Everyone is allowed full access to the stream site for free. People can freely walk, rest or simply enjoy the waterway. Yet, as in a conventional museum, their conduct is guided by a narrative organized to convey the message that "we " are a collective body of the nation who all share the same history. The mural named Wall of Hope, composed of small tiles painted by "20,000 Koreans from all regions of Korea including those from the North and from abroad," 29 displays a pledge of allegiance of Koreans to the meaningfulness of nationalism. Through this national surrogate for collective faith and hope , the stream claims the restoration of "we" as collective national subjects. Here, the people are the m eans (rather than the object) of national governmentality. Today's form of governmentality is undertaken via th e individua ls whos e hope for a quality life, as guided in the Cheongye strea m, is de pe nd e nt on

122 Korean nationalism and postcolonial exhibitions

their willingness to be governed as a Korean. What is suggested by the collage of Koreans, including diasporic Koreans, is not only that nation - alism is strengthened by globalization, but also, more disturbingly , that the belief in ethnic nationalism remains hegemonic. In spite of challenges from civic elements, the notion of the Korean nation as an ethnic unity organi- cally evolved from the distanced past plays a powerful role as a primary source of the collective identity formation among Koreans.

By promoting it as the restoration of nature and history which would bring back dynamics to the nation , the government turned the Cheonggyc stream into a site of national pedagogy and reminds people of the natural and timeless essence of the nation. As this chapter has examined, the new stream actively invokes the nostalgic pre-colonial past of Choson. In this return to the "authentic" history , the present is imagined as an immediate identification with the distanced past which in turn supersedes the recent pasts, colonial and earlier postcolonial eras. The discourse of "back to a future" (as clearly defined in the Cheonggye Museum) via the new stream provides a conceptual tool with which to equalize differences and neutralize conflicts amid the growing polarization and fragmentation in contemporary Korea.

David Harvey has pointed out that "the neoliberal state needs nation - alism of a certain sort to survive" and "nationalist sentiment ... rife in South Korea ... can be seen as an antidote to the dissolution of former bonds of social solidarity under the impact of neoliberalism." 30 In the case of Korea, what is peculiar is a strong appeal for the sentiment of Korean nationalism based on the idea of a common blood community, which was formed in response to Japanese colonial racism and assimilation and later developed as the postcolonial national identity. By conjuring up the historical sense of nationalism , the government sought to rationalize the contentious processes of urban redevelopment, especially, the gentrification of the neighborhood which is in fact meant for the territorialization of the neoliberal urban economy. The Cheonggye stream restoration project was indeed instru- mental in visualizing the narrative of progress which makes the change of the govern mentality appear as something necessary and even natural.

The success of the Cheonggye stream depends on spectacle, "the idea of subjection of social life to the rule of appearances." 31 The Cheonggye stream is the place where people get together in search of leisure, an healthier envi- ronment and cultural heritage. The presence of the crowds witnessing the national heritage makes visible a body of the nation. The reappearance of the stream and the people in the contained environment marked by history and culture contribute to the polity of public space in Korea today. Like other public plazas, the Cheonggye stream serves as a political space which helps constitute a form of ethnic nationalism in global Korea; this time, through its particular articulation of spectacles which often involves the public. Not surprisingly, soo n after the governme nt unveiled its agreement with Washington to lift almost all restrictions on US beef imports, in May

Flowing back to the future 123

2008, tens of thousands of Koreans, including young school students, with lighted candles, started rallies at the Cheonggye plaza. They protested that the beef import deal the government had signed with the US failed to protect Koreans from the danger of mad cow disease. For th<.: <.:mbattl ·d president who was a promoter of the public plaza, it must have be<.:n partic ularly heartbreaking to see the people's rallies holding up large signs displaying slogans such as "No government can win over people" and "Down with Lee Myung Bak."

144 Notes

projected the limitless project of global modernity but it also reasserted the unity of the post-Kwangju nation evolving toward the technological utopian future.

35 The two museums have tried to popularize their programs by inventing new events to attract the general public. However , they have been undergoing a significant decrease in the number of visitors. By the end of the1990s, the spec- tacle of the 1980s was outdated. The museums devised new strategies to appeal to changing patterns of popular cultural consumption. The NMCA developed education programs such as art classes for children and the general public, and other popular events including music, dance and cinema. It also organized the "Traveling Art Museum " to meet the public outside. In an effort to reach the audience, the IHK also accommodated popular events. During the 2002 FIFA World Cup Games, it set up four huge TV screens on the Plaza of the Nation for the people who gathered to cheer for the Korean soccer team.

36 Quoted from Kim Young Sam, Korea 's Reform and Globalization, Seoul: Korean Overseas fnformation Service, 1996, 1. Original from the president's address on January 6, 1995.

37 Gi-Wook Shin, " Between Nationalism and Globalization, " Ethnic Nalionalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006, 211-14.

38 "President Kim's Address on 50th Anniversary of National Liberation," Korea Observer 24, 3 (Autumn 1995), 483 .

39 For a discussion of nationalism and the demolition , see Hyung II Pai (ed.), " Nationalism and Rewriting th e Wrongs of the Past," Constructing Korean Origin: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Hisloriography, and Racial Myth in Korean State-Formation Theories. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000, 237-87. For a document collection, sec Kim Yong-sam , K6nmul un saraj6do y6ksa n(m namn(mda [A building disappears , but history remains], Seoul: Umjikinun ch'aek, 1995 and Pak Min-ch '61 (ed.), Konch 'uk (m opda? (There is no building?], Seoul: Kanhyang Media , 1995.

40 The IHK emphasizes that the display of the remain s is to " to teach historical lessons of national humiliation. " Interestingly, the same purpose was named ten years ago when the Chun government publicized a plan to renovate the former Government General building into the National Museum of Korea.

6 Flowing back to the future

1 On the same day, the metropolitan government of Seoul hosted the 2005 World Mayors ' Forum by inviting about seven hundred mayors, policy makers, urban planners and scholars from around the world to appreciate the stream turned into an oasis in the city, an example of "sustainability and revitalization ."

2 The foreign press also portrayed it positively. The Discovery Channel, the global documentary broadcaster, televised a program in fifty countries about the resto- ration project under the title of " Man-made Marvels, Seoul Searching."

3 The stream project stirred up contentious debates over the question of whom the restoration is actually for. The strongest opposition and resistance came from the immediately affected poor residents, merchants and especially "illegal" side- walk vendors in the area, who were to be evicted to clear space for new business and affluent residents. A group of citizens, environmentalists, archeologists and historians also disagreed with the city government over what and how to restore. They criticized the project for its capitalist-driven urban redevelopment and eviction. See Cho Myungrae, "Cheonggyeeheon pokwon gwa bojon un hamkke halsu issulgga" (Can the Cheonggye stream restoration and development come together?] , Tangdae pip 'yo11g 26 (2004). 88 I 04; I long S6ng-t'ae, " heonggyecheon hokwon sao p kwa Cheonggycchcon p'agoe" jThe Cheonggy

Notes 145

stream restoration project and the Cheonggye stream destruction] , Ky6ngje wa sahoe 63 (2004), 39-64; and Chong S6ng-w6n , "Ch6ntong, kundae , t'al kundae ui ky6hap" [A combination of tradition , modernity , and postmodernity] , Tongyang sahoe sasang 9 (2004), 81-108. Yet , according the poll conducted in November 2005, over 90 percent of citizens expressed positive responses to the new stream endowed with cultural and entertainment sites. See Kim Un-su, "Simin uisik chosa lul t 'o nghae bon Cheonggyechon pokwon sa6p s6nggwa wa hyanghu kwaje" (The outcome and the next task of the Cheonggyechon restoration project seen through the citizens' survey], Soul y6ngu pokosi"t, 54 (April 2006), 1-11.

4 Lee Myung Bak, "Cheonggyecheon un tongbuga bijinis wa kumyung ui ch'os6k" (The Cheonggye stream as a foundation for the business and financial hub in northeast Asia] , Chach 'i hengj6ng (November 2006), 16-18.

5 David Harvey, "From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transfor- mation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism," in Spaces of Capital: Toward a Critical Geography, New York: Routledge , 2001, 345-68.

6 For a discussion of the relationship between neoliberalism, state and nation , see David Harvey , "The Neoliberal State," in A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 64-86.

7 The area was inhabited by commoners , merchants, and migrants from rural areas who used the river to support their daily life. For a history of the Cheonggye stream, see Cho Kwang-kw6n, Cheonggyecheon es6 yoksa wa ch6ngch 'i LL"tl ponda (Looking at history and politics at the Cheonggye stream], Seoul: Y6s6ng sinmunsa, 2005.

8 For a study of the Cheonggye stream dredging work during the Choson dynasty, see Yu Sung-hui , "Choson hugi Cheonggyecheon ui silt'ae wa chunch'on jak6p ui sihaeng" (The condition of Cheonggye stream and the dredging work in the late Chos6n period] , Tosi y6ksa munhwa, 3 (February 2005), 127-57.

9 See Hyungmin Pai , "Modernism, Development, and the Transformation of Seoul: A Study of the Development of Sae'oon Sang'ga and Yoido," in Kim Won Bae, Mike Douglass, Sang-chuel Choe and Kong Chong Ho (eds), Culture and the City in East Asia, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997, 104-24.

10 For a study of the neoliberal welfare state in Korea , see Jesook Song, South Koreans in the Debt Crisis: The Creation of a Neoliberal Welfare Society, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.

11 Lee Myung Bak , Cheonggyecheon {m milae lo hUlunda [Cheonggyecheon flows to the future], Seoul: Random House Korea, 2005, 292.

12 Cheonggyecheon, the Seoul Metropolitan Government official homepage at http://www.cheonggyecheon.or.kr.

13 When the Korean economy was based on the labor-intensive and export- oriented organization of production strictly regulated by the state, the domestic market was not the focus of national economic policy. In the early 1980s, however, the state came under increasing international pressure to open its markets to foreign competitors. In addition, Korean companies found that the domestic market for their products had increased greatly. Despite a genuine excitement about the new domestic affluence, the move from production and frugality to consumption and entertainment was marked by a wave of national domestic violence. As Laura Nelson has elaborated, the explosion of consumer culture was also complicated by the public critique of kwasobi, excessive consumption, of the late 1980s and early 1990s, in relation to issues of national identity and gender. Sec Laura Nelson, Measured Excess: Status, Gender, and Consumer Na1ionalis111 in S011lh Korea, New York : Columbia University Press, 2000 and "So uth Korean Consumer Nationalism: Women , Children, Credit and Other Perils ," in Sheldon (laron and Patricia L. Maclachlan (eds), The

146 Notes

Ambivalent Consumer: Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West, Ithaca , NY: Cornell University Press, 2006, 188-207.

14 Song Chi-un and Kim Chu-hwan, "Cheonggyecheon pokwon saop e nat 'a nan sangjing chongch'aek punsok" [An analysis of the symbolic policy in the Cheonggye stream restoration project], Han 'guk heangjong hakbo 39, 1 (2005), 262.

15 Hong Su-hyon, "The Choenggyecheon: Lost Years and Buried Memories of the Choson Dynasty ," Joongang Daily (October 22, 2003).

16 Song Chi-un, "Cheonggyecheon pokwon saop ui kaldung kwalli cholyak punsok " [An analysis of the conflict management and strategy in the Cheonggye stream restoration project] , Han'guk sahoe haengjong yongu 15, 4, (Feb. 2005), 155- 77.

17 Na Son-hwa, " Kwanggyo wa Sup'yongyo" [Kwanggyo and Sup'yongyo] , Hangyeore (July 23, 2003).

18 Ibid. 19 " In profile: Oldenburg," Art Review (June l 996), 10-14. 20 Yeh Chin-su, "Spirit of Korea Flows down Cheonggyecheon," Munhwa llbo (23

April 2005). 21 Seoul Metropolitan Government, Tourist Map of Cheonggye Cheon, Seoul,

Korea: Seoul Metropolitan Government , 2006. 22 Ibid. 23 The exhibition was held between July 25 and September 10 in 2006 at the

Cheonggye Museum. 24 Most visitors are informed of what to see and how to experience the river site

through information and knowledge circulated in tourist maps, the internet, popular magazines, TV, newspapers and other media. For example, a series of official guidelines and maps of the stream provides a visual summary of the stream with the highlights of attractions. Also , a popular tourist book offers detailed instruction on locations, camera angles and poses with which to achieve the best pictures. See Pak Song-ch'an , Cheonggyecheon eso molhaji? (What to do at the Cheonggye stream], Seoul: Kil bot, 2006.

25 The statue was made by Lim Ok-sang after a citizens' fundraising campaign which was supported by ten thousand volunteers. The pedestrian sidewalks around the statue were paved with copper plates inscribed with commemorative words from donors.

26 Kim Kyong-rak, "Chun T 'ae-il, Cheonggyecheon e puhwal hada " [Chun T'ae-il, reborn in the Cheonggye stream], Pressian (September 30, 2005).

27 Pak Song-ch 'a n, Cheonggyecheon eso molhaji?, 131. 28 ln the museum, the movement from the past to the present and into the future is

reflected not only in the exhibition space and the narrative of the contents but also in the medium of representation. The Choson era is depicted by drawings and old inscriptions whereas the present and the future are projected with the high-tech moving virtual imageries.

29 http://www.cheonggyecheon.or.kr 30 David Harvey, "The Neoliberal State," in A Brief History of Neoliberalism, 85. 31 See Retort, Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of Art, London:

Verso , 2005, 20.

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