Korean Heroes - pick carefully

Korean history is chock full of heroes. Real ones. Christian martyrs. Nation builders. Kings and presidents and lowly folk who suffered much. That's why I have cringed recently to see the ongoing saga of Dae Joyoung. In Chicago you can see it twice a week on the "Korean" channel. Frankly I was sucked into it for a long while, and we don't watch a lot of Tv.

I had just gotten into the study of North Korea, and Korean history in general, when my wife told me I should watch this ongoing "historical" serial about a legendary national hero, Dae Joyoung. When I began to watch, I held a history book in one hand and the remote in the other. I could see the connection between what I was reading and what I was seeing, but I had to marvel about how much extra there was on Tv. Then I discovered that the saga of Dae is not meant to be taken as "true" in every respect. Okay, in most respects.

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It's determined that there is some heavy "Hollywood" connection to Korean broadcasting. Though the programming is done well, well adequate straight through make me want to watch every episode, the rationale for its existence seems faulty.

I began to compare the product I was watching from "free" Korea to the real-live pack of lies that comes out of the North every day. School children throughout that land are surely taught to sing the praises of their conquerors, they are made to memorize their words, and facts about their history. But alas, that history is not real either! Facts and fiction have been masterfully blended into a legend that causes mental persons to blush. It's ridiculous.

The real Korea has real heroes. Why does the South have to stoop to northern tactics of legend-weaving when it can tell the entertaining truth about so many men and women? Yes, and why do Americans convention this too?

By the way, there was a Dae Joyoung. He was a leader in the old "Gorguryo", a nation that preceded the modern one. That land was defeated by the Chinese, but Dae rose up to re-conquer, re-settle in a new territory, re-name (Parhae) and establish the northern regions forever for its descendants. That's history. It's great history all by itself. There was no need to add that Dae basically dies and is resurrected. That he could fight 15 men at one time. That he was such a holy man that he would suck the blood and the poison out of a wounded soldier so that the soldier could live. That he could be arrested, escape, and re-arrested and, well, you get the picture. A excellent human being.

Well, I've chosen my heroes. Many of them are Korean. They are the ones who faithfully and daily live for Jesus Christ in a nightmarish land that I cannot comprehend. May God give us all grace to supervene them as they supervene Christ.

Korean Heroes - pick carefully

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