I Was on Geumnam-ro

I remember the protest demanding President Park Geun-hye’s resignation at Gwanghwamun Square on November 12, 2016. It was a cold day. So cold, in fact, that the mainstream media predicted the protest would fizzle out. And yet, more than a million people turned out that day. A massive crowd pushed forward all the way to the vicinity of the Blue House. Conscripted auxiliary police and the buses that had carried them blocked the protesters’ path. But there was no violent clash. The protesters even tended to an auxiliary police officer who had fainted from the bitter cold. In the subway cars passing near Gwanghwamun Square, the air was filled with citizens’ speeches and debates about democracy. On this day alone, political talk on the subway was not incoherent. This is what I witnessed, 36 years after the Gwangju Uprising.

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