Helena Meyer-Knapp

The relationship between South Korea and the United States is framed both by stories of the Korean War in the early 1950s and by current manifestations of intra-Korean tensions, most evident in the harsh and dangerous confrontation between North and South in the. US and Koreans work side by side in the DMZ.  

Symmetrical oppositions are not particularly clear between Korea and the United States. On the one hand, in the Korean narrative, the US military is omni-present , their biggest base dominating downtown Seoul  since 1945.

However World War II is virtually invisible in the museum narrative. It is relegated to a wall in a corner of the cafeteria, so the US role in Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonization is not directly acknowledged.

 Furthermore, US soldiers like these men and women starting a tour of the War Memorial Museum, are almost never seen in uniform off base. They far less evident in and around the streets of Seoul than Koreans doing mandatory military service.

On the other hand, the US is confident in its claim that it goes to war to maintain freedom around the world, and that during the war in Korea, that was the agenda. And yet, in Korean museums UN imagery about the Korean war predominates and  it is hard to locate recognition that US has contributed to South Korean (the ROK) security over the last 65 years.

 More seriously when, in March 2010 this torpedo ( displayed in the War Memorial Museum) sank the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan, progressive, wealthy young people generally rejected the international assessment that the torpedo was North Korean, preferring to believe that it was a US initiated publicity stunt. China and Russia also rejected the findings.