Culture Essay > Culter Essay > Looking at the Blue House

At the foot of Inwang Mountain April 15 2022

Sunshine's Culture Essay Written in Poetry

Looking at the Blue House

I usually walk along Inwang Mountain Dulle-gil after an election.

But it’s been chilly these days, so I haven’t climbed the mountain until now.

This election was exceptionally noisy and dirty. I was looking forward to its end, but it’s still noisy as if we are still in the middle of an election campaign.

George H.W. Bush wrote to incoming President, Clinton “Your success now is our country’s success” Obama wrote to Trump “We are just temporary occupants of this office” I hope we end conflicts like that, too.

Inwang Mountain Dulle-gil is called ‘Jarak-gil’ or the foot trail. The hilltop is a little further from the foot. When the day is clear, I sit on a bench, reading and making memos. And the blue tiles of the Blue House are visible through 2 thick pine trees of many sky-high pine trees.

I faintly remember visiting the Blue House at a very young age. Also, my mother’s poem of peace was recited by leaders of Korea and Japan in the green garden in front of foreign reporters in there. The President lives and works in the Blue House. I always see their faces through media – whether I know them personally or not – they feel very familiar.

Everyone in the post of President faces criticism. They take all their strength and suffer from anguish that is beyond an ordinary person. They are full of good intentions of correcting the wrongs in the country and leading the country to a better path. But there are many moments when things don’t go their way. Looking at the Royal Palace, I feel sympathy rather than envy. And I pray.

5 years feels like a flash in time, but it is a long time to pass through. And the incoming and outgoing leaders meet every 5 years. Looking at blue tiles, I picture the journey that is about to start.

Also I feel complex feelings as the President is leaving the Blue House.

When I came back to Korea after several years, housing prices in Gangnam had skyrocketed and prices in Seochon where we had lived very long were down. My mother, trembling in a cold 300 years old house, was left behind, couldn,t leave due to all the loving memories. I thought she was a fool.

But after a lot of thought and consideration, I conclude that mother was right. I had thought that prices in Gangnam would stop rising, but it’s been 20 years and they are still rising.

I wrote about my ‘Motherland’ in the U.S.many times, and I came back to find that the place I was missing was right here. This area was disregarded even though it was the center of Seoul. And now Seochon is known as the hippest place in Korea.

One of the reasons might be – even though we do have Inwang Mountain behind it – the Presidential residence. But the President was talking of moving his residence to Gwanghwamun, and now to Yongsan due to traffic. The residents around here would need time to adjust to the thought that the Presidential residence is moving to not even Gwanghwamun nearby, but even further to Yongsan.

There is a saying that politics influence 90% of our lives.

But here, it feels like politics influence 100%. I stand looking down at the blue tiles. As a resident of Seochon, where land prices have barely risen, but a proud host to Presidential residence – we feel sorry about the move – but now, with traffic jams and cars camping due to candlelight protests, business is slow – and at night, you can’t go back home without your ID – now police cars are surrounding the transition team office near my house, and citizens with placards are flocking –if things like this continue, I don’t care where they go, as long as they do it soon.

looking down the Blue House, remembering the garden

full of the fragrance of apricot blossoms when I was young