Raising of ferry reignites memory of national tragedy
As I’m writing, news of the illfated MV Sewol Ferry that sank three years ago is still fresh in the media, as it was raised from the waters of Jindo County, Jeolla Province on Thursday. The raising of the ferry has reignited the horrors of the tragedy in the hearts of Koreans so many years later, but it was carried out at the demand of the grieving families of those who perished in the tragedy.
The location is at least five hours by land from where I live so I saw the tragedy unfolding on national television. The first time I saw it on TV, three years ago, was when I was on my outing with my mother-in-law, and I still remember the thought I had then. I was so confident that the rescuers would get everyone out to safety. We continued to see the early part of the tragedy on TV at the souvenir shop we visited and I also saw the first reactions of the locals.
Disbelief, just pure disbelief and surreal shock -- these reactions engulfed the whole nation then. The ferry was en route to Jeju Island, where my family and I were only a week before that were there to take in the beauty of the island in the new spring air. Although we flew there, the tragedy struck in me on a certain hard level as just a week before that I saw many schoolchildren in uniforms just like the ones in Sewol. You see, Jeju is a very popular destination for school trips just as much as Mount Kinabalu is for schoolers in Sabah.
As the third anniversary of the tragedy approaches, the raising of the ferry of death is just harrowing and heart-wrenching for too many friends of families of the lost souls. It’s a tragedy that is not spared from its own political mess so with the recent impeachment and prosecution of the now ex-president Park Geun Hye it brings many Koreans to continue to question, “What really happened?” Whilst many theories fly, I am not going to attempt to provide the answer but I will, though, attempt to make out what we can and have learned from this terrible, inconsolable tragedy.
I’m sure everyone can agree that this past five years have been a streak of tragedy even for our own country. I shall not bring up every misfortune that happened while I was in Korea but own airline catastrophe of the missing flight MH370 still has no closure and it is heart breaking to say the least. Then, the Sewol Ferry accident, which happened just a little more than five weeks after MH370 plane went missing, is even too much of a shuddering thought for the world to comprehend at all. The rest of us who have no direct connection with the victims may have no rights to say we can truly empathize but we can say we are still left scatter-brained with confusion and insecurity with the harrowing thought of “It could’ve been me” or “It could’ve been my child.” No doubt this tragedy, which had led to the suicide of the school vice-principal who accompanied and lost the almost 300 pupils in the tragedy, will continue to haunt Korea for generations to come.
When I started writing about South Korea, I never wanted to just glorify this first world country as this perfect modern nation filled with good looking Kpop and Kdrama look alikes. All countries of the world have their own great as well as less than praiseworthy points. Comparing South Korea with Malaysia can be fun sometimes but although we were once equal countries in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it still seems unfair to compare two very different nations. Low points like the sunken ferry reminds us that Korea is not a perfect country and that is something we have to accept.
Internationally, most knowledge of the nation is learnt from drama, music and variety shows since the Korean wave started almost two decades ago. For the Korean entertainment fans, the mundane life here can be quite an eye opener. Not all Koreans look like Lee Min-ho, Song Hye-kyo or members of Kpop bands. Koreans are just like you and me, who try to earn a living, achieve ambitions, have a family and look for better things in life for their own and for their families. They walk the streets and eat to fill their hunger and sleep at night to recharge and repeat the process every day, just like most of us in the rat race.
In fact everywhere in the world, humans share a commonality and just like how Saint Teresa of Calcutta (previously known as Mother Teresa) put it, God has created us all to love and be loved. I lived a short one year in Arizona, USA and interacted with church youths for a while and although I came to believe that American teenagers are so different from the Asian ones, this philosophy for survival still holds very true in all cultures. This thought helps me to simplify things about people wherever I go in many parts of the world.
My challenge is to highlight interesting and fun side of Korea that my fellow Sabahans can learn from but at the same time maintain a realistic and a balanced approach. I look forward to sharing more about this land which should benefit Sabahans in various ways.