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| The International Seoul Youth Hostel stands on the hill of Namsan in central Seoul. The building once served as the headquarters of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. /Courtesy of Richard Pennington |
By Richard Pennington
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Many times I have ridden the cable car to the top and then gone up Seoul Tower for a 360-degree view.
All quite nice. But I had other things on my mind as I rode the subway to Namsan last month. This time I would be going less than halfway up. I was determined to take a close look at a building with a dark past. I emerged from Chungmuro Station's exit 4, walked 600 meters and asked for directions to the International Seoul Youth Hostel. It would not be hard to find.
As I climbed, I passed by a place called Ground of Memory, the site of what had been the official residence of the Japanese resident-general of Joseon. A marble marker stated that the Japan-Korea annexation treaty ― an unequal treaty if ever there was one ― had been signed there in 1910.
A little further up the winding hill was a steel marker pertaining to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, promulgated by the United Nations in 1948. It reminded me that Korean human rights had been trampled rather badly during the Japanese colonial era.
The edifice on which my attention was focused had nothing to do with the Japanese, as they had been chased out of Korea following their disastrous defeat in World War II.
I saw and easily recognized a six-story building erected just as Park Chung-hee began his 18-year (1961-1979) rule. This, as older citizens remember, was the headquarters of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, renamed the Agency for National Security Planning in 1981 and the National Intelligence Service in 1999.
For almost 30 years, it had a sinister reputation. "Going to Namsan," or "being taken to Namsan" equaled trouble and interrogation by men who feared North Korean espionage was all around and were determined to root it out, legally or not. (Another jocular line from those days was that one would be gone "for a little while," meaning indefinitely.)
Beatings happened with regularity, not to mention torture and murder. Most notorious was the so-called room of death or Section 6, where suspected dissidents got heavy-handed treatment. Located down in the basement of KCIA headquarters, this was a 30-square-meter spot where ultraviolence could be perpetrated free of sanction.
While many contemporary survivors recall it with a shudder, there are those who insist these tales are all blown up. One Section 6 investigator spoke before the NIS Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2004 and denied anything like torture or killings took place in the basement of KCIA headquarters.
The building was purchased by the Seoul city government in 1995, underwent a $6 million renovation and was turned into a youth hostel. It has 50 rooms and can accommodate 312 guests per night for as low as $18. There is a rooftop garden, a library, a communal kitchen, a center for cultural exchange, an auditorium and two conference rooms.
I went into the lobby, picked up a brochure and talked to the young man behind the desk. Should I be surprised that he was not aware of its infamy? As far as he knew, it had always been the International Seoul Youth Hostel. He should have known that nosy, inquisitive and history-minded people like me ask unpleasant questions.
Namsan is a spread-out place, so a taxi ride was necessary for me to reach the An Jung-geun Memorial Hall. An, a Korean patriot, was infuriated about the signing of the Eulsa Treaty in 1905 by which Japan would annex his country.
After cutting off the tip of one finger to demonstrate his resolve, An traveled to Harbin, China and assassinated Ito Hirobumi, four-time prime minister of Japan and former resident-general of Korea. Tried and sentenced to death, he was hanged on March 26, 1910.
Actually, I had visited the An Jung-geun Memorial Hall before. But only recently did I learn that it had been built at that spot in 1970 for a reason. As part of the "Japanization" policy following annexation, a large Shinto shrine was erected on Namsan.
Dedicated to Amaterasu (a Shinto goddess) and Emperor Meiji, it was called Joseon Shrine. Students were compelled to attend Shinto ceremonies and genuflect there. With liberation in 1945, this hated facility was quickly destroyed.
During their 35-year reign, the Japanese colonialists had built more than 1,100 Shinto shrines throughout the country, and they were desecrated, torn down, burned and other-wise sent into oblivion. An Jung-geun ― and other Korean independence activists like Yoon Bong-gil, Ryu Gwan-sun, Baek Jeong-gi, Kim Gu and Lee Bong-chang ― would have been pleased.
Richard Pennington (raput76@gmail.com), a native of Texas in the U.S., works as an editor at a law firm in southern Seoul. He has written 21 nonfiction books, including "Travels of an American-Korean, 2008-2013." He is the director of an NGO, the Committee to Bring Jikji Back to Korea.
