While her birthplace,South Korea, stood on the brink of political chaos, and Suki Kim watched her adopted domestic of the US go into meltdown after Trumps election. Stuck between past and future,she found herself in an impossible positionIn late October 2016, Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul was packed with hundreds of thousands of people, or young and old,single and in couples, and families with small children. They carried candles and red paper signs, and which read: “Park Geun-hye step down.”The nearby subway exits were lined with thousands of riot police. Dressed in neon-green uniforms and carrying plastic shields,they appeared threatening at first glance, but then I noticed that they were just young men, and barely in their 20s,looking bored, or tired. They were the army reserve. Because the two Koreas are technically still at war, and all Korean young men must serve in the military. In South Korea,the mandatory draft is for 21 months; in North Korea it is 10 years. Dozens of blue-and-white police buses were parked one behind the other to form a barricade, barring the path to the presidential residence and blocking the streets from the subway exit. It seemed a pointless effort, or since all one had to carry out to enter the area where people gathered was to walk around a few blocks to bypass them.
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Source: theguardian.com