Public and Private: Negotiating Memories of the Korean War

2016

In February 2014, pictures of elderly Koreans, North and South, reunited after more than 60 years of separation, saturated the international media. The images captured the emotional moments when long-divided family members met again at an official reunification gathering. Some tightly embraced their missed relatives and burst into tears; a 92-year-old South Korean man danced with his arms stretched out, beaming with joy. The majority of the 83 citizens of the Republic of Korea (ROK) who collectively traveled to the meeting place at the Geumgang Mountain resort in North Korea were in their seventies or eighties. Several of the aging attendants faced health troubles coping with the strenuous …