South Korea, The Path to Liberation – A Journey's Story

South Korea, the Korean Peninsula has been a nation with its own unique history and culture for thousands of years.
However, in the early 20th century, when imperialism was shaking the entire world, Korea was also swept into that massive whirlwind.
Japan, having won the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, placed Joseon under its sphere of influence,
and finally in 1910, Korea was forcibly annexed by the Japanese Empire.
From that day forward began the 36-year Japanese colonial period.
This era wasn’t simply about losing territory.
It was a time when our language, names, traditional culture, and even our very identity were almost erased.
Schools were forced to use only Japanese, newspapers and books were censored,
and many people were dragged off to forced labor and battlefields.
Yet even under oppression, the people never gave up.
Teachers who tried to preserve the language, students who cried out for independence, young men who took up arms,
and countless unnamed common people resisted and survived each day.

“South Korea, What We Must Never Forget”

South Korea

1. The Path to Liberation – A Journey’s Story ✊

In the early 1900s,
losing a nation wasn’t simply a matter of territory.
It was a time when our language, our names, our very souls were being erased.
Street signs changed to Japanese,
children couldn’t write in Korean in their classrooms.
They even tried to erase the name of Joseon itself.
In the midst of this, our ancestors lived each day while simultaneously resisting.

2. The March 1st Movement of 1919 ✍️

Cries of “Manse” carried on the spring breeze.
Men and women, young and old, students, merchants, farmers…
No one could hide their yearning for independence.
Countless people were arrested,
fell in the streets,
and were buried in nameless graves,
but their “Long Live Korean Independence” never died out.

3. The Provisional Government and Independence Army ⚔️

Shanghai, Manchuria, Maritime Province…
Scattered in exile, but what was scattered were bodies, not will.
Kim Gu, Ahn Chang-ho, Yun Bong-gil, Ahn Jung-geun…
The named figures are just the tip of the iceberg.
Countless unnamed youth, farmers’ sons, merchants’ daughters
fought with pens, with guns, with their bodies.

4. Tears of the Battlefield 💧

On the Manchurian plains,
even in blizzarding winters without a single military uniform, enduring it all
with the single belief: “Even if I fall, the next generation will live freely.”
The independence fighters fought with this faith alone.
Though exhausted by hunger and cold,
their rifle barrels always pointed toward their homeland.

5. 1945, Liberation 🌅

That day, when the news “the war is over” came over the radio,
some wept tears of overwhelming joy,
others sobbed thinking of those who could never return
after so many years had passed.
The long night that lasted 35 years was ending,
and dawn had finally come.

6. The Heart of Emotion ❤️

Liberation wasn’t just a “gift received.”
It’s the result built upon the sacrifices and tears of countless unnamed people.
Even this moment when we breathe and speak in Korean
exists upon the price of their lives.

We must never forget this.