Editor’s note: monthly ticket is a CNN travel series that spotlights some of the most fascinating topics in the world of travel. In October, we shift our focus to exotic locales, focusing on everything from (allegedly) haunted spaces to ruins.
Busan, South Korea
CNN
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At first glance, Ami-dong looks like an ordinary village in Busan, South Korea, with colorful houses and narrow alleys set against a backdrop of looming mountains.
But upon closer inspection, visitors may notice unusual building materials embedded in the house’s foundation, walls, and steep staircases. It is a tombstone with Japanese characters engraved on it.
Ami-dong, also known as Tombstone Culture Village, was built during the Korean War that broke out in 1950 after North Korea invaded South Korea.
The conflict displaced large numbers of people across the Korean peninsula, including more than 640,000 North Koreans who crossed the 38th parallel that separates the two countries. According to Some estimates.
Within South Korea, many people fled Seoul and the front lines and evacuated to the southern part of the country.
Many of these refugees headed for Busan, on South Korea’s southeast coast. It was one of only two cities not occupied by North Korea during the war, the other being Daegu, 88 kilometers (55 miles) away..
Busan became the temporary capital during the war, and United Nations forces established a perimeter around the city. Busan’s reputation for relative safety and rare resistance to North Korean forces has made it a “huge refugee city and the last bastion of national power,” he said. City official website.
However, the new arrivals faced the problem of finding a place to live. Lack of space and resources meant that Busan could only accommodate the influx of people.
Some found answers at Amidon, a crematorium and cemetery located at the foot of Busan’s rolling mountains., The building was constructed during the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Japan’s use of sex slaves in brothels during the colonial period and during the war was one of the main historical factors that underpinned the relationship between the two countries. A bitter relationship to this day.
During the colonial period, Busan’s livable flatlands and downtown area near the port were developed as Japanese territory, the report said. article It is listed in the official tourist guide of the city government. Meanwhile, poorer workers settled further inland, near the mountains. There was once the Emido Cemetery, where the remains of Japanese war dead were kept.
The tombstone was inscribed with the deceased’s name, date of birth, and date of death in kanji, hiragana, katakana, and other forms of Japanese. 2008 paper By Kim Jeong-ha of Korea Maritime University.
However, the cemetery area abandoned According to the city’s tourist guide, after the Japanese occupation ended and when refugees flooded in after the outbreak of the Korean War, those graves were dismantled and used to build dense clusters of huts, eventually It is said that a small “village” was built within it. A vast metropolis.
Professor Gong Yoon-kyeong of Busan University’s Department of Urban Engineering said, “Even in an emergency situation where there was no land, there was a cemetery there, and people seemed to feel they had to live there.”
Former refugees interviewed for Kim’s 2008 paper (many of whom were elderly at the time reminiscing about their childhood memories in Ami-dong) demolished the walls of the cemetery and removed tombstones for use in construction. He said he often removed the remains and disposed of the ashes in the process. Kim said the area became a center of community and survival as refugees sought to support their families by selling goods and services in Busan’s markets.
“For the Japanese, Ami-dong was the border between life and death, for immigrants it was the border between rural and urban areas, and for refugees it was the border between home and foreign land,” he wrote in his paper.
An armistice signed on July 27, 1953 halted conflict between the North and South, but did not officially end the war. There was no peace treaty. Afterwards, many of Busan’s refugees left to settle elsewhere, but for the rest, Busan became a center of economic recovery.
Busan, once a thriving seaside vacation destination, looks very different today. In Amidon, many houses have been restored over the years, and some have been given a fresh coat of teal and light green paint.
However, traces of the past remain.
As you walk through the village, you’ll find tombstones embedded in doorways, under stairs, and in the corners of stone walls. Outside some houses, they are used to support gas cylinders and flower pots. Some have clear inscriptions, while others have weathered over time and become illegible.
As well as being a symbol of colonization, war and immigration, the village’s complex history also emerges in the imagination. For years, residents have reported sightings of what they believe to be the ghosts of Japanese dead, Kim wrote, with figures wearing kimonos appearing and disappearing.
He added that this folklore reflects the common belief that the souls of the dead are tied to the preservation of disfigured remains and ashes in villages.
The Busan government strives to preserve this piece of history, and Ami-dong is now a tourist attraction adjacent to the famous Gamcheon Culture Village, accessible by bus or private car.
The information desk at the entrance to Emido Cave provides a brief introduction and a map of the locations of the most famous tombstones. Some walls feature paintings of gravestones paying homage to the village’s roots, but given the number of residents still living in the area, we ask visitors to pay their respects quietly. There are also some signs.
As I left the village, I saw a sign on the main road that read, “We plan to collect the gravestones scattered all over the place and erect a monument in the future.”
