No mu-hyun Memorial

Last Tuesday, while Dr. Peterson was gone, we went up to No mu-hyun's memorial up in small village near Gimhae. We were planning on going on Monday the 23rd, which was the 2 year anniversary of his death, but it was raining and we wanted to hike while we were at the memorial. For those of you who aren't keeping up with South Korean news/politics, No mu-hyun (노무현) was the 16th president of Korea who committed suicide on May 23, 2009 (the current president is #17). He is known as the "moron president" (바보 대통령) - this was originally an insult created by his opponents because he came from a small village and passed the bar exam without any university training. But since he was elected this has become a term of endearment. After his term as president ended, he returned to the countryside to live out the rest of his life - which was unusual compared to other past presidents who all stayed in nice, guarded apartments in Seoul. Not wanting him to have to struggle financially, one of No mu-hyun's family members gave him a large sum of money which he accepted. Word got out about a "bribe" to which No mu-hyun replied he'd accepted no such thing, only to back track and confirm that he did accept money. On May 23, 2009 No mu-hyun went back to his hometown in Gimhae to visit. With his body guards in tow he decided to take a walk up the small mountain nearby, a hike he made often, even during his presidency. He managed to get out of sight of the guards on the way up and took the opportunity to jump off the top of the mountain. His suicide attempt left him severely injured but alive when paramedics got to him at the base of the mountain. Within hours, however, he died while at the hospital.

Walking up the same path that No mu-hyun had hiked almost two years ago exactly, it was easy to see how the body guards could have lost sight of him. The path is steep and makes winding turns - those that were walking just ahead of us were out of sight almost the entire time, even though the distance between us wasn't that much. I was surprised that when we reached the top there were no hand rails or fence of any kind separating visitors from plummeting off the mountain. Scary!