Jon Dunbar is a copy editor at The Korea Times, as well as editor of the Foreign Community page and curator of the Korea Times Archive. If you have suggestions for possible articles, or wish to contribute articles yourself, contact jdunbar@koreatimes.co.kr.
Yongsan Park Gallery gives glimpse of closing garrison
Members of the U.S. military and Korean politicians unveil the sign for the new Yongsan Park Gallery, held at the old USO building of Camp Kim. / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar
By Jon Dunbar
By Jon Dunbar
The Yongsan Relocation Plan marches along, with various U.S. military facilities in Seoul being returned to Korea over time.
Last Friday, a building at Camp Kim, located across the street west of U.S. Army Garrison (USAG) Yongsan and north of Samgakji Station on lines 4 and 6, reopened as Yongsan Park Gallery. Most of those present were U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) brass, Korean civil servants and the press.
“We are all truly living in historic times in Korea, as we continue to build on an already strong alliance between the Republic of Korea and the United States,” said deputy USAG Yongsan commander Steven Ryan. “This exhibit is another one of these signs of the cooperation and partnership with the opening of the first building to the public aboard Camp Kim.”
After speeches and an unveiling, the attendees crowded inside the old building, now turned into an exhibition hall showing historic maps of Yongsan Garrison, as well as a new space for the community radio project Yongsan FM.
The building previously housed the United Service Organizations (USO), a nonprofit offering entertainment to U.S. military personnel. It was also well known as the meeting point for tours to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and other tour programs.
“The USO was not a military organization, but a citizen's group, and they brought over a lot of American entertainers, and helped Korean entertainers to be exposed overseas, in Vietnam and the U.S., so it has a deep significance,” said historian Daniel Oh, head of Yongsan Legacy, a nonprofit working to preserve the cultural significance of the quickly fading USFK facility. “I think it was appropriate to use that building before they can hand over Yongsan Garrison altogether, and that's going to take some time still.”
Currently, the building remains in USFK hands, leased to the city government for now. An automotive facility located south of the building remains in use, with plans to close it next summer, at which point the whole facility is likely to be returned to Korea.
The reopened facility offers an exhibition space intended to introduce the Korean people to the land returning from the USFK, after over a century of foreign occupation by the militaries of the U.S. and Japan, and even China before that.
“Right now in the public eye, in the minds of Koreans, Yongsan Garrison is all tied together with the Japanese past, American past, even Chinese past,” Oh said.
He said there are plans to expand the exhibition space in the future.
“The city and land ministry will maximize use of this building to introduce the significance of Yongsan Garrison, and how it relates to Korean society and modern Korea,” he said.
Camp Kim was originally an army warehouse built during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation, but it found continuous use through the 1950-53 Korean War and after. As the longtime site of the Korean Service Corps (KSC), it had a great deal of Korean personnel, and was thus seen as more Korean than American, hence the name “Camp Kim.”
Many in attendance at the ceremony then boarded a bus for a bus tour of USAG Yongsan's cultural and historic sites. The bus tour project was started last month by the USFK and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
Ryan thanked Seoul Metropolitan Government and Yongsan Legacy.
He closed his comments with a Korean phrase often used by the U.S. to express the Korea-U.S. alliance. “Kamsahamnida, and katchi kapshida!”