The memorial I walked past a hundred times

My first encounter with a protest in Seoul left me expecting chaos. Back home, protests usually involved shouting matches, riot shields, and streets quickly emptying. Upon turning a corner near Gwanghwamun on a Saturday afternoon, I found myself facing a vast crowd that filled the square end to end. Initially, my instinct was to leave, but I decided to stay and observe.

Rows of police stood beside the crowd, acting more like an escort than against the protesters. Striking was the presence of families with children near the front. I remember questioning the source of my fear. Months later, while walking behind the central library on my campus, I stumbled upon a path known as Democratization Road.

Halfway along this path stands a modest bust I had passed a dozen times without realizing its significance. The bust commemorates Park Jong-cheol, a student who was tortured to death by police in 1987. That night, I consumed every piece of information I could find about him, utterly unable to stop contemplating how this seemingly ordinary stretch of pavement marked a turning point for the nation. Weeks after Park's death, another student, Lee Han-yeol, was struck.