 The World Peace Bell in Hwacheon-gun, Gangwon Province, was cast from empty cartridges from all over the world. / Courtesy of Hwacheon-gun |
By Shim Hyun-chulStaff Reporter
Hwacheong-un, Gangwon Province ― A bell praying for world peace is to resonate in this, the world's last divided country. The World Peace Bell, made from empty cartridge cases from battlefields all over the world, will ring people's hearts on May 26, at the World Peace Bell Park here.
In 2005, for the 60th anniversary of Liberation Day (Aug. 15, 1945), Hwacheon-gun built the World Peace Bell Park as a sister project to the Peace Dam. The park spans 7,450 square meters in a region where remnants of historical conflict remain. In the 1980s, the Chun Doo-hwan regime needed a countermeasure against possible deliberate flooding by North Korea via the Mt. Geumgang Dam, and even collected funds from citizens to build the Peace Dam. But as the northern threat slackened, construction was called off and then on again ― it was finally completed in 2005.
The World Peace Bell takes on a deeper significance, having been cast from metal from empty cartridges used during the Korean War (1950-53) and the conflict zones of some 30 regions including Palestine, Ethiopia and Colombia. Made under the direction of Won Gwang-sik, Korea's Intangible Cultural Treasure No. 11, it is shaped like a Buddhist Bell from the Silla Kingdom (57 B.C.-A.D. 936), measuring 2.5 meters wide and 4.7 meters high, and weighing 37.5 tons.
The bell tower, too, is decorated with empty shells, as well as handprints and messages from Nobel Peace Prize laureates including the Dalai Lama, former-President Kim Dae-jung and former Russian President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. Numerous other bells donated by different countries are also on display, and there is a corner where visitors can partake in ringing them.
Elsewhere, there are postcards featuring Ethiopian and local children's messages of peace, as well as artifacts from war zones that remind visitors of the tragedy of national division and how war should never reoccur.
The World Peace Bell Park's opening ceremony on May 26 will be attended by local citizens and special guests from near and far, including Prime Minister Han Seung-soo and Gorbachev.
shim@koreatimes.co.kr
