Castle MB Is Still Up There! - Myung-bak Sansung
Sansung(산성, 山城) in Korean means a mountain fortress wall. A good example is the Great Wall in China. Obviously, the main purpose of sansung is to prevent enemies from invading one’s territory. Many great kings and leaders of old Korean dynasties built sansung throughout history. So this Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, deeply worried about safety, decided to build some sansung himself.
When? On June 10, 2008. Koreans wanted to hold candlelight protests against US beef imports as well as commemorate the revolutionary gathering for democracy of June 10, 1987.
Where? In the main streets of Seoul such as Sejong-ro or the road to the presidential Blue House.
With what? Barricades made up with shipping containers - each about 40 feet in length, about 9 feet in height and 4 tons in weight. And there was more. They didn’t think the containers were good enough. They filled the containers with heavy sand bags and put some lubricating oil on the surface of the container boxes. I’m not sure if they were concerned about catching a fire at all, but they must’ve been paranoid about people’s climbing.
Why? Um, my guess here is that President Lee wanted to show that he and his government didn’t want to listen to Koreans.
In Feb. 2008, Koreans lost the number one historic treasure Sungnyemun, or more commonly known Namdaemun, so was Myungbak Sansung the best they could come up with to replace it? No wonder that Koreans shouted that the barricades are “national treasure No. 666″ or “Castle MB, the new landmark of Seoul”.
The reason that I’m bringing up this issue seven months later is that I feel this anti-people wall, Myung-bak Sansung, is actually evolving. Now it’s only figurative, as we normally understand the expression, and sadly the sansung gets thicker and heavier. It seems the Korean government has stopped listening to ordinary Koreans’ voice with the issues like river refurbishment project, comprehensive real estate tax, suppressing freedom of speech, and many more.
[...] they went into the bunker, they started to strangle Koreans, I mean, ordinary Koreans, such as Minerva who merely expressed his idea and opinions about the country’s economy on the Internet or teachers who wanted their students to have real education, not test-is-everything-type [...]