Tragedy and Resilience: The Many Faces of Jeju Island

In our last several posts, we’ve shared some of Jeju’s beautiful and often startling geography. The island can indeed be a restful place to spend a vacation, whether strolling on a sandy beach or climbing a rocky cliff. Jeju is such a busy tourist destination that the flight path between Seoul and Jeju City is the busiest in the world, with as many as 250 flights per day connecting the two cities. However, tourism is only one element of Jeju and does not begin to describe the scope of the region’s troubled history and resilient people.

It would be unfair to Jeju’s people to pretend that the island is all about tourism and beauty. Indeed, the people of Jeju have been deeply impacted by numerous sociopolitical events at the hands of other world powers, many even over the past century. Though we did not set out specifically to tour sites related to Jeju’s darker history, nearly every destination we visited quickly revealed its connection to a troubled past.

Hamdeok Beach and Seoubong Peak

One of the starkest contrasts between Jeju’s present and past confronted us at Hamdeok Beach. Of all the beaches we saw on the island, Hamdeok arguably was the most beautiful. Visitors lounged on the white sand beach while children played at the edge of the blue surf on a perfect, sunny morning. Black volcanic basalt is clearly visible under the crystal water.

We had no clear plan for our day other than to drive along the island’s north coast to visit different beaches and small villages. We soon discovered that from Hamdeok, we could hike Seoubong tuff cone, the green hill visible on the eastern end of the beach. Since we clearly never met a hill we didn’t want to climb, we decided to hike over Seoubong and into the next village.

On the way up the Hamdeok side of Seoubong, we enjoyed sunny views over the beach and the sea. However, as we crested the peak and began our descent onto the other side of the hill, we encountered numerous narrow trails zigzagging all over the heavily forested northeastern slope.

In keeping with trails that got darker and darker, Seoubong began to tell a much deeper story of this area’s past. Nearly twenty caves were built here near the end of World War II in Japanese-occupied Jeju.

The Japanese used the islanders’ forced labor to build this encampment, planning to use the caves as staging grounds for suicide attacks against the Allied Forces. The war ended before they were put to use, and with the end of the conflict Jeju was liberated from Japanese occupation. Relief was short-lived however, as we learned in the neighboring village of Bukchon.

Bukchon-ri

A quiet fishing village, Bukchon today presents a cheerful first impression. Low, black rock walls create boundaries for small gardens, just as they have for hundreds of years on this island, their lines sometimes criss-crossing the landscape in every direction. This is a picturesque place to walk and explore, with little outward evidence of heavy tourism.

Dig a little deeper, though, and Bukchon’s history is representative of Jeju’s painful “4.3 Massacre,” often just called the “4.3 Incident,” referring to events surrounding April 3, 1948. Conflicts on the island reached a boiling point after years of sociopolitical tension, largely rooted in Korea’s division at the 38th parallel.

Following WWII, the Allied Powers arbitrarily divided the Korean Peninsula at the 38th parallel, the Soviet Union taking a strong hand in the North, and the United States in the South. Korea was supposed to be reunified after the United Nations (U.N.) called for a free election that would have selected leaders for the whole peninsula, but the Soviet Union would not agree to the terms set by the U.N. Thus, the U.N. (under heavy U.S. leadership), decided to hold elections only in the southern region. The consequences of this decision were catastrophic, ultimately creating the division of the peninsula into South and North, with the 2.5 mile-wide DMZ in between.

In 1948, groups of Jeju islanders joined many around Korea in protesting the elections in the South, calling for a unified Korean government. Many protesters were killed, and thousands were arrested. The U.S.-backed South Korean leadership labeled the protesters as “communist rebels” and set out to quash the movement, allowing police and military forces to brutally suppress any opposition to the government.

On April 3, 1948, groups of peasant protesters attacked multiple police stations around Jeju in retaliation, killing police officers in the process. The government’s response was brutal, with thousands of military troops sent to the island to indescriminately torture and kill villagers, all of whom were now labeled as rebels. During this period, which ended only with the start of the Korean War in 1950, it is estimated that as many as 30,000 Jeju residents, around 10% of the island’s population, were executed by government forces, and up to 70% of its villages were completely destroyed.

In Bukchon-ri, on January 17, 1949, more than 300 men, women, and children were rounded up and executed on the lawn of the village’s elementary school, as well as on several surrounding farms. Multiple memorial sites around the village are erected to their memory, most notably in the small field that still lies in front of the elementary school.

United States troops stationed at Jeju recorded accounts of these atrocities but did not intervene to stop them. Multiple petitions and protests each year are held to demand that the U.S. government apologize for its role in the Jeju massacres. The South Korean government and police force have now both apologized for their role, although this occurred only in the past few years. Only in this century has the South Korean government allowed Jeju islanders to speak openly about the atrocities committed there in the mid-20th century.

Many Westerners have read American author Lisa See’s 2019 novel The Island of Sea Women, featuring the culture of Jeju Island and particularly the haenyeo diving women. Bukchon-ri is the primary setting for much of that novel. Korean novelist Hyun Gi-yeong helped to break the Korean cultural silence around the 4.3 incident with his 2008 novella Aunt Suni.

Resilience

Between 1910 and 1953, Jeju Islanders survived decades of Japanese occupation, World War II, the 4.3 Massacre and the destruction of most of its infrastructure, U.S. military intrusion, and the Korean War. If you visit our Jeju Island Flickr photo set and scroll through, you will see how many of the sites we visited also included a memorial component related to a troubling incident in the 20th century.

In that context, it is even more remarkable that Jeju’s people carry on and have continued to change with the times in order to keep their families fed and their culture alive. The agricultural and fishing industries have been harmed by pollution but are surviving to the best of the people’s ability.

Tourism is a double-edged sword: both an economic lifeline for the island and a heavy contributor to pollution. Jeju is a pilot project for South Korea’s efforts to lower its emissions by 37% by 2030. The goal is to convert 100% of Jeju’s vehicles to electric and 100% of its energy generation to renewable sources over the next decade. Wind farms and electric vehicle recharging stations are evident on every part of the island, although from outward appearances there is a long way to go to reach 100% compliance.

Jeju’s 21st-century designation as an “island of peace” in part is supported by the 4.3 Peace Foundation, Museum and Memorial, and Trauma Center. Many years after the fact, the government is providing support for survivors and descendants impacted by the 4.3 Incident to tell their stories and to receive assistance for coping with post-trauma.

Unfortunately, the island’s culture and community was tested again in the 21st century as deep conflicts arose over the Korean government building the Jeju Naval Base at Gangjeong Village on Jeju’s south coast. Islanders were deeply divided as to whether the base would add to their economic and military security or harm their community and fragile ecology. Despite the Gangjeong coast’s designations as an Absolute Conservation Area (ACA) and a UNESCO Biosphere Conservation Area, construction proceeded.

Building activities were halted by local and international protests and lawsuits many times between 2011 and the base’s ultimate completion in 2016. While some Jeju residents supported the project, others are still protesting, particularly the regular use of the base by the U.S. Navy. As we have discussed in other posts, the relationship between the South Korean people and the U.S. military remains complicated.

The people of Jeju have shown that they are survivors. Their history suggests that they are able to advocate for themselves and their community despite overwhelming adversaries. Deep wounds don’t heal quickly, however, and only time will tell if Jeju’s modern peace-building efforts will extend to assuaging some of its more recent conflicts.

Thank you for taking this journey with us around Jeju Island. If you missed a post, you can learn more about the island’s northeast coast and haenyeo, the scenic south coast, and the rocky west coast in our previous posts.

You can also view our whole Jeju Island Flickr photo set here.