“Taiwan visits The Taiwan Exposition of 1935, a grand spectacle put on to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Japanese colonisation. In a series of encounters, she gets confronted with the realities of her nation’s peculiar situation as a prosperous colony in the years just before the outbreak of World War Two.”
…this particular encounter being with South Korea.
Notes: The Korean War ended in 1953, after three years of fighting, with the country still divided in roughly the same place as it was when the war began. After some initial reluctance and subsequent convincing by the Chinese and Soviets, the North Koreans came to the table to be signatories of the Armistice Agreement, along with China and the United States (technically representing United Nations Command). However, South Korea’s leader, Syngman Rhee, was staunchly opposed to signing the Armistice, as he refused to accept having failed to unite the country by force. As a result, South Korea never formally signed the Armistice.
OOC;; This is for @thenightlymartini as thanks for their donation to the fundraising campaign! They wanted something angsty with the Korea bros based on the song Love is Gone, which just kind of made me think of the end of the Korean War. Thank you again for your continued support!
Chuseok is a harvest and family holiday similar to Thanksgiving celebrated by both Koreas, although until recently North Koreans could not celebrate it because, as a traditional holiday, it was regarded as a vestige of a feudal system.
Now we celebrate in many of the same ways as South Koreans, but with some differences.
Honoring ones’ ancestors is an integral part of Chuseok that people on both sides of the border engage in. Charye is the custom of preparing an offering of food as part of an ancestral memorial rite.
In South Korea, the tables can be quite extravagant. The placement of the food also follows special rules, such as fruits and vegetables being placed in the south, meats in the west, soup and rice in the north, and rice cakes and drinks in the east.
In the North, the table is usually a more modest affair. Unlike in the South, fresh fruit and meat are harder to come by, so they are usually prepared in advance and are often dried. For some North Koreans, this is the only time of year these foods will be available to them, so the holiday is highly anticipated. Also unlike the South, the placement of food on the table doesn’t matter as much–we just place foods our ancestors were fond of or that we enjoy ourselves.
I cannot quite remember what foods Gojoseon liked…I hope she would have liked tangerines as I do.
