won’t,” I said defiantly.
The modest Gapgot Catholic Martyr’s Shrine honours the memory of Korean Catholics who were beheaded during different periods between 1801 and 1871. There were four major state purges of Catholics during this time. One of the first such executions occurred in 1801, after a Korean Catholic was discovered sending a letter to Peking, seeking Chinese soldiers be sent to assure freedom to practise Catholicism in Korea. The purges were frightening periods, equivalent perhaps to the reign of terror that befell the aristocracy during the French Revolution.
There were two main execution sites in Seoul along the Han River’s north shore: Jeoldusan, in front of today’s Yanghwajin Foreign Cemetery, and about eight kilometres upriver, at Saenamteo (sae means sand and grass, nam is south, teo is place) at Yongsan. The severed heads of executed Catholics were displayed on poles for all to see, including in Seoul and in Gapgot, then a ferry terminal for passenger travelling between Incheon and Seoul.
On a plaque near the statue of Mary it was written that a Korean Catholic duo of a father and son had gathered the remains of some of those who had been executed and buried them in proper graves. Paul Park, the father, did so in 1839, while his son Soonjib (Peter) Park, continued the practice during the 1866 extermination. Soonjib Park collected the remains of the French bishop Siméon-François Berneux, who in 1856 had been appointed head of the Korean Catholic Church. Berneux was tortured and beheaded on March 7, 1866, at Saenamteo.
In the 1840s, a handful of French Catholic priests from the Paris Foreign Missions Society began to stealthily arrive in Korea to minister to Catholics. The priests were left relatively undisturbed until the Daewongun, who assumed power in 1864, and who believed Catholicism to be a direct threat to his rule and to Confucianism, orchestrated the great purge of 1866. Six French priests met their deaths that year by execution.
The Anglican bishop Trollope wrote in early 1900 that of the three main foreign missions in Korea — American Presbyterians, English Anglicans, and French Roman Catholics — the last were the most aggressive in moving through the peninsula and preaching. The Korean court had restricted travel to within fifty kilometres of treaty ports without a special passport. Presbyterians mainly stuck to Seoul or took passport-conducted jaunts outside the city, said Trollope. But the French went anywhere, and made a virtue of their defiance. This adventurous spirit — risking life to preach — made the French priests a target of the Daewongun.
Soonjib Park witnessed 150 executions during his lifetime. He died in 1911, at the age of eighty-two, and was buried in his hometown of Incheon. In 1961, his body was transferred to the Catholic holy shrine at Jeoldusan in Seoul. In 2011, it was moved to where Heju and I now stood.
From the hill, we looked east out over Yeomha Channel and the long-abandoned Gapgot Bridge, its single lane still linking the island to the Gimpo mainland. The water in the channel appeared grey-brown and the far shore was a mix of pastoral greens and muddy browns that reached up the low mountain ridge. There was not a soul in sight, and the only sound came from the birds singing in the trees.
We saw a small cabin sitting on the edge of a patch of sparse woods and walked over to investigate. A plaque on the wall stated that a Catholic priest now resided there. We wandered around the building and noticed a skipping rope lying on the front porch. It was good to know that even a man of the cloth could have fun exercising.
When we returned to the parking lot, a group of ten young Korean marines in green fatigues had arrived and were standing motionless in marching formation. On the islands northwest of the peninsula and in proximity to North Korea, ROK marines have a discernible presence. We approached the young leader. His name, Samoon Song, was stitched onto the front of his uniform, and he sported four bars on his shoulder. From Samoon’s implacable expression, I concluded that he did not suffer fools gladly.
“Excuse me, could you tell us how many soldiers are stationed on Ganghwa?”we put to Samoon.
He turned and stared at us icily. “About twenty thousand.”
We decided to press our luck. “Would a North submarine be able to navigate the channel?”
“No, it’s too shallow,” he reluctantly muttered.
“Which areas of Ganghwa are guarded by soldiers?”
At this, Samoon looked chagrined. “Ganghwa’s entire north coast and the west coast of Gimpo have barbed wire,” he allowed. “There’s no access to the coasts for citizens there.”
Heju sensed Samoon was itching to march his troops off, and she tugged at my arm and whispered “Let’s go.”
We got the message. I may be a doughnut short of a dozen at times, but I was not permanently obtuse. I thanked the leader and he abruptly marched his platoon across the lot.
We drove along the island on a road that ran beside the channel, and stopped on the shoulder about halfway down the island. The map indicated that a dondae (sentry post) was located somewhere along the channel in this general area. Beside the road, on the inland side, spread a wide shallow pond sectioned by narrow raised earthen walking paths about a foot or two above the waterline. An elderly farmer was standing on one of these paths, so we strolled out and introduced ourselves.
He gave us a big smile, showing us his front teeth, which were generously lined with so much silver that if he melted them down he could probably take early retirement. “I’ve been farming here for fifty years,” he told us. He explained that every spring he dammed the pond to form paddies. His water source was a local stream that flowed from somewhere inland to the channel. In the paddies he planted rice in May, and harvested it in late September or early October. He recalled how, before the first bridge was erected (Gapgot Bridge, built to connect Ganghwa to the mainland in 1969), the only mode of transportation to the mainland was via an oarsman, who rowed people back and forth in a large skiff.
We crossed back over the road and approached two men who had parked their van near our Scoupe and were preparing fishing rods.
“Fishing in the channel?” we asked, assuming that this was the only logical choice.
“No, over there,” one replied, pointing to the pond.
“Oh. In the dammed water?” I remarked.
“No, it’s the Han River,” he declared assuredly.
But the Han, of course, flowed nowhere near here. “The farmer told us that the pond is formed from a little dammed stream,” I said politely.
“No, no, no, no, no, it’s the Han River!” he boldly insisted.
I could not in good conscience let such an egregious error slide. “But the farmer said for sure it was a local stream,” I tried innocuously, because I did not want to appear overly didactic.
“You sure?” he asked breezily.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said, not giving it a second thought.
“Why did you think it was the Han?” I queried curiously.
“I was just guessing,” he said blithely. With that I present the quintessential Korean male: so absolutely confident in his abilities, so supremely sure of himself, so convincingly self-possessed that the mere thought he could be wrong, ever, about anything, would never enter his consciousness.
After Heju and I had a quick look at the dondae, we returned to the car and drove
