A President's Funeral

So the day I went to the restaurant (see previous post) was FRIDAY, the 29th. It was also the day of the funeral for former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun. Read about his death here. But if you want the gist of it. 

Roh was under investigation for bribery charges during his presidency, which was from 2002-2007. He was questioned by prosecutors and committed suicide a few days later by jumping off a cliff while hiking near his retirement home. It was shocking for the whole nation. 

And it also showed me how insane this nation is. All day, every day, they showed pictures of former President Roh and people mourning his death. People crying, more people crying, even more people crying. And it wouldn't be so weird if it wasn't for how they had treated this guy before. He had such a low approval rating when he was president, and after. People hated him. They protested his rule like crazy. He was even impeached. Then when he died, the pendulum swung the other way. People who thought he was a traitor by possibly accepting bribes, now thought he was a hero and did the honorable thing. READ THIS ANALYSIS BY THE NEW YORK TIMES HERE. 

So later that night, after most of the official festivities were done, my dad decided to take my family to the place where they were held to see if anything else was still going on. And it definitely was. 

There were tons and tons of people EVERYWHERE. Holding candles, crying, murmuring quietly, etc. 

A Korean custom in Korea, to bow to the picture of the deceased.

There were so many people lining up to bow to this one. I guess it was the "official" one? Or the one everyone wanted to bow at. It was INSANE. 

We went around 9:45, 10 p.m., and there were so many people. They blocked off the street in this major intersection in the city so people could sit around. There were people sitting in circles, talking and/or listening to people speaking into a giant speaker system. The speechgivers were talking about the ex-president and how he was awesome and how horrible the current administration is. There were a lot of very left-wing people out there. 

More people sitting. 

Left-wing propaganda, telling people to impeach/hate the current president. 

People sitting around. 

And like any good Korean political gathering, there were plenty of riot police around. There was actually a march and shots were fired into the air. I'm pretty sure they weren't bullets, but man it's pretty scary to have a bunch of Korean people run like a mob towards you. Wish I got that on video...

Eventually the police turned on these giant lights to blind people and/or to tell people to calm down. 

The face of former President Roh. His party's color was yellow. May he rest in peace.