[A Country Where Memorials Are Becoming the Norm] Guui Station, Gangnam Station, Sewol: Citizens' Lives Increasingly Impoverished, While Government Remains Without a Solution

[경향신문] "I came here to remember the victim, because it did not feel like someone else's affair," one citizen spoke, at Guui Station, Seoul where a nineteen-year-old temporary worker died while trying to fix a screen door alone.

For some time now, memorials have become the norm in South Korea. A nineteen-year-old subcontract worker died while fixing the screen door at Guui Station; a twenty-something woman was killed in a unisex bathroom near Gangnam Station; a string of subcontract workers took their own lives in Ulsan and Geoje; and two years ago, the Sewol sank to the bottom of the ocean. Each time such a tragic event occurred, citizens rushed out to the streets, to squares, and remembered the dead. The frustration at the living conditions that never seem to improve and at the government that doesn't have any solutions has turned such memorials into a daily routine.

A Screen Door, Now a Door of Memories: On May 31, notes and chrysanthemums are posted next to the screen door 9-4 in the platform at Guui Station, line 2 of the Seoul Metro. Citizens continue to visit this site, where a nineteen-year-old temporary worker died on duty. Kim Chang-gil

At the site of the accident at Guui Station, where the young worker, so busy that he didn't even have the time to enjoy a decent meal, died on duty, citizens stopped to post messages remembering the victim on the screen door, and in the evening, they voluntarily engaged in a silent protest. Near Gangnam Station exit 10, located near the site where a woman in her twenties was killed at the hands of a man she did not know, more than a thousand notes with messages remembering the victim were posted. The citizens continued to come to remember the victim for ten days.

South Korea, which went through modernization in a relatively short time, suffered constant tragedies: in 1994, the Seongsu Bridge collapsed; in 1995, the Sampoong Department Store collapsed; in 1999, a fire burned down Sealand; in 2003, there was a fire in the Daegu subway; and in 2014, the Sewol sank. But the way people responded to such disasters changed with the Sewol tragedy. The one leading the memorial changed from the state to the citizens. Shortly after the accident, citizens rushed out to remember the victims and later brought the tragedy into the public forum. The Gangnam Station murder, once known as a "random murder" was redefined as a misogynic crime, because of the memos posted by young women.

The social network services (SNS) have become a catalyst in making memorials a daily routine. After the Gangnam Station murder, a Facebook page called "Gangnam Station Exit 10" (over 5,100 followers) emerged, and after the screen door accident at Guui Station, a Facebook page called "Guui Station Platform Screen Door 9-4" appeared.

Citizens are not simply remembering the victims. Behind the stream of notes lies the calm awareness of the contradictions in our social structure. An office worker we met at the site of the Guui Station accident, Yi So-yeong (30) said, "Our social structure is set up so that we cannot know who will die or how."

Some experts claim that such a phenomenon is the expression of anxiety that the citizens have as they live in a risky polarized society. Yi Gwan-hu, a researcher at Sogang Institute of Political Studies said, "In a society without hope, we are comforted by the sympathy among hopeless people, by the fact that there are people ‘like me’ everywhere."

The constant stream of memorials also brings with it fatigue, because nothing has actually changed even after the issue has been openly discussed by our society.

Lee Taek-kwang, a professor at Kyunghee University said, "Issues of a scale that cannot be solved by mourning and remembering the victims alone should be solved at the social level, but since politics, which should mediate the problem-solving, is not functioning correctly, people end up tired and frustrated. The government and the political parties should become the media in solving social problems."