Long has the world been bombed with South Korean cultural products: They attack our ears with K-pop, a sort of cacophony which has all the elements to be called music where the final product is by far and large nothing close, and our eyes with their dramas, both as standalone movies and never-ending series. They target our children primarily with their colourful and cute façade, for they very well know that it’s a lot harder to assimilate folk like I yet, sadly, they manage with some elder ones too which include, again sadly, my wife: thankfully she doesn’t listen to music, hence K-pop, yet she watches their dramas, at times with Russian dubbing as she doesn’t like following subtitles, creating a strange scene: a Georgian woman watches Korean series in Russian because it’s not available in English.
How much assimilated is she? Well, I’m ashamed to share it with the wide world but for you to understand my misery better, my dear reader, I have to do it: She, for months, planned a trip to Korea and dragged me along against my will, not only for me to photograph her happiness and astonishment in place but also for me to carry her suitcase, continue serving as her personal bodyguard and, maybe most importantly, for me to adore and admire Korean culture and lifestyle much enough – even if not as much and deeply as her.
Against my will I said. Aye, I hadn’t the slightest interest in visiting Korea. I don’t like tiny eyed people, seeing them makes me anxious – and you know what? Hearing their strange language makes me feel the same. I’m 181cm tall and 92kg heavy – am big even in our European standards and being surrounded by such midgets makes me feel as if I need to lose 20 than only 10 kilos to look more normal. You need to be overweight like me to understand how mad of a feeling this is…
Why did I do it, then? Why did I agree, in the end, to join her in this trip? Well, her threats that she’ll divorce me unless I’ll go along surely helped but there was another reason, a purely personal one born out of my goodwill towards my fellow humans: capturing scenes from Korea and sharing it with the world, so that you’ll know the truth and be able to protect yourself and the coming generations from this sinister plan of Koreanizing the world.
So here we are, with this Korea Observations series. The first photo, the one you see above, reveals a dark side of Korean history which will be revealed for the first time by me. Are you ready?
If you look at Korean chronicles, you’ll see that once there was a Korean Kingdom founded by Yi Seong-gye in 1392, following a coup d’état in 1388, and Joseon dynasty ruled for centuries until 1897 when the kingdom became an empire no one, including Koreans themselves, know how. I’m not to discuss the stories in this five centuries but ask another question: Why are the four years omitted from the annals? What actually happened then, why do Koreans want us to forget about such short period of time?
The answer is striking: A kingdom was founded directly after the coup in 1388. It ticked all the boxes of statehood: had its army, minted its own coin, had established a fully functional bureaucracy, its taxmen collected taxes not by force like that of Joseons but the folk were merry and happy seeing them, even temples were erected and religious freedom was enjoyed to the fullest possible extent…
Joseons weren’t happy seeing Koreans enjoying their lives. They attacked the summer palace the night of Buddha’s birthday and killed each and every member of the royal family except one: yeah, a little baby survived the attack thanks to his wet-nurse, who wasn’t feeling well that night and had brought the child to her own home down in the city, thanks to which the baby, however much the assaulters searched for him in every hole of the palace, came to live. This wet-nurse told him about his identity in her last breath and ever since, for over six centuries, this little baby’s descendants look to gather enough power to reclaim the throne. Few know of this history and I’m the first to reveal it, yet find the right people and ask the right questions, and you’ll be provided this extremely well hidden and ugly truth.
What is the sign of this lineage? Yeah, correct guess: king of spades, the strongest of the playing cards. For those of you that don’t know Korean, I may translate what’s written on the card: 2023 will be our year, he who has fallen shall return from the shadows.
