Splash

I cannot compete with all the nature photos I saw in @friendlymoose's photo contest/ When I saw @onealpha enter a photo I knew I was washed up. I don't even have a camera. All of my pictures are snap shots from my cellphone. But I have one thing that keeps my pictures alive. I have style.

Water is just stagnant unless it is dancing. There is nothing more natural to me than a boy doing a Michael Jackson dance in a water fountain that says, "Do not enter!"

His grandma yelled at him from across the plaza,

"Are you crazy? Get out of there!!"

I looked at him and said nothing. He is only going to be eleven years old once. I just took a picture and asked him to do a moon walk. He thought he was dancing in a cold water jacuzzi and loved every minute of it.

Independence Memorial Hall

The background of the photo is the Independence memorial hall in Cheonan, South Korea. That was 2018. We are expected to visit again this year. It really has been a long time.

The water in the fountain here represents the spirit of Independence always flowing. Since 1905 an independence movement began in Korea. There was even an Independence Korean government set up in Manchuria for years so that when the time for Independence came they would be ready. The most important thing for independence is not some world power country saying you are independent. The most important thing for independence is the spirit of Independence.

The Tree

Even while under occupation there were citizens who worked hard to continue to print the Korean alphabet and write literature even though it was illegal. Independence is not a matter of power but a matter of style and responsibility.

This is the poem "Tree" still in the original journal written by Yoon Donngju in 1937. You can find this poem and the whole journal "Unpoetic Poetry I Tried to Write" in the Yoon Dongju Memorial Hall at Yonsei University. At the time he He was a student

나무가 춤을 주면
바람이 불고,

나무가 잠잠하면
바람도 자요

In English the poem can be translated:

“When the trees dance,
the wind blows,
and when the trees are calm,
the wind sleeps.”

A New Perspective

The poem tells us that one event in nature often affects another part of nature. It has been known that the wind blows the trees but he brought us to a completely new perspective. When the trees dance the wind blows. And when the trees stop dancing the wind sleeps.

Yoon Dongju faced severe winds of persecution for his use of the Korean language. Perhaps this poem is saying the persecution would be sleep if only he could be calm. He was only a teenager when he was arrested and put in prison. He would continue the dance even in prison, but one day he was calm. Then the winds of oppression slept. He was no more.

The nation did not expect Independence so suddenly but they were ready with a spirit of Independence. Now my boy is a couple years older and a lot wiser. I don't think he would run in the fountain in September again or maybe he would to celebrate Independence.

We will visit here again next week and I will see what he does. Sometimes my son just dives in just for old times' sake.

History Does Repeat Itself