The Nomura Report

Yongmasan in the distance looks no different from how it does today, but the people in the photograph are another story. They are not just unfamiliar; they are shocking. People digging burrows to live in along the banks of the Cheonggyecheon and Jungnangcheon streams, people trying to sleep under flimsily-woven sheets of plastic. This is a photograph from a mere 50 years ago. Who were the people who lived in those places once called anthills and shanty towns? Where had they drifted in from, and where did they go after the settlement was demolished? The people who spent their youth in those places back then must still be living in the same era, the same space as I am. Yet at some point they were forgotten, and now not even a trace of them can be found. I dare to call for self-reflection from Korea’s humanities scholars.

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