The Gwangju and South Jeolla Region Has This Many Traces of the War of Aggression Too?

This is a story from my childhood. Along the road next to Mangun-ri, near my mother’s family home, there stood a row of strange sheds. They were sheds with rounded roofs made of cement or concrete. Inside the sheds were stored things like cultivators and farming supplies. My mother knew well what these sheds were originally used for. During the Japanese colonial period, there had been a Japanese military air base here, and the cement sheds had been airplane hangars. Back when I was young, I thought that everything originating from the colonial period was a “vestige of Japanese imperialism” and that tearing it all down was the only thing to do. The fate of the old Jungangcheong, the Central Government Building (the former Japanese Government-General of Korea building), reflected the general mood of that era. But in Mangun-ri, the buildings from the colonial period were being put to good, practical use. I suddenly grew afraid. If people found out about the existence of these sheds, wouldn’t they try to tear them down in the name of “clearing away the vestiges of Japanese imperialism”? Fortunately, amid everyone’s indifference, no such thing happened.

As we entered the 2000s, the world changed a great deal. Now an era has come that has the magnanimity to embrace and study even the vestiges of Japanese imperialism. I’m glad that this book, too, briefly introduces the Mangun-ri airfield. I hope that more research will be done about this period.

20250513