An activist for Korean independence, a hero who did what a million Chinese troops could not and a terrorist against Japanese imperialism -– thus is Yun Bong-gil (1908-1932) evaluated in three East Asian countries.

Yun threw a bomb at the Japanese dignitaries attending a ceremony commemorating the victory of the Japanese army in Hongkou Park, in Shanghai on April 29, 1932. He was a member of the Korean Patriotic Troops, a special task force of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.

The bombing that resulted in the deaths of many central figures in Japan, including the commander-in-chief of the Japanese army, struck a blow against the Japanese invasion of the Asian continent and intensified the anti-Japanese movement among Koreans.

However, this incident set him up for his death. Yun was arrested at the scene and executed by a firing squad on Dec. 19, 1932, in Kanazawa, Japan. He was a young Korean man, only 24. Tragically, his body was buried without any sign under a road next to a cemetery. Most Koreans were deeply upset by Japan’s inhumane treatment of Yun since it effectively induced people step on his grave. 

“What do men live by? I live to achieve my ideal,” he said. His ideal was Independence of Korea, that is, he put national survival above his personal safety. Yun was not afraid of death.

In 1919, after the independence demonstrations of the March First Movement, Yun opposed the Japanese colonial educational policy and dropped out of school. He embarked on Korean studies including Confucian classics in the village school Ochi Seosuk run by Sung Ju-rock, a descendant of Sung Sam-mun, the greatest scholar of the Joseon Kingdom. By this time, Yun was already a literary man of some standing, having won the grand prize in a poetry competition in which he participated with other students of Confucian classics. Yun’s teacher recognized his ability and gave him the pen name Maeheon which means the spirit of overcoming hardships like plum flowers blossoming in cold winter.

On the one hand, Yun learned modern ideas of the West by finding new theologies that are not found in the Confucian classics. In his hometown of Yesan, South Chungcheong Province, Yun was a practical reformer who taught uneducated peasants at night classes and wrote textbooks, aiming to free the peasants from ignorance and poverty.

 The enlightenment movement was Yun’s way of leading the people suffering under colonial masters. The three volumes of “The Peasant’s Reading” written by Yun, designated as Treasure No. 568, clearly organized the details, including the teaching of Hangeul, manners, aphorisms as well as his thoughts on ethnic revival through a peasant movement. Unfortunately, the books were damaged and only the front part of each volume remains.

What led Yun, who was an enlightenment activist in his hometown, to become an independence fighter in China was the Japanese policy of oppression. He became a target of surveillance after hosting a play called “The Hare and the Fox,” a stage adaptation of Aesop’s fable, at a night school in February 1929. Realizing that he could not do anything before Korean independence, he went to Shanghai, China where the Provisional Government of Republic of Korea sat.

As an educator, activist and fighter, Yun thought deeply and acted decisively. Thirty-five years of colonial rule was long enough to weaken many Koreans’ will for independence. While some people conformed to Japanese colonial rule and gave up resisting its injustices, Yun made a different choice.

Yun left his hometown in order to support the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai. Eventually, through his sacrifice, he revived the people’s will for independence and made known to the world the legitimacy of resisting Japanese colonial rule.

We can find Yun standing in the middle of a perilous international situation in Hongkou Park. We can empathize with his courage and fear where he is buried in Kanazawa cemetery.

However, if you want to know Yun as a young scholar and a passionate activist, visit Chunguisa, a memorial hall located in his birthplace where he spent most of his life, in Yesan, South Chungcheong Province.

The young scholar’s space may remind visitors of what men live by.

By Park Jeong-eon (histopia78@gmail.com)

Park Jeong-eon is a senior researcher at Chungnam Institute of History and Culture. -- Ed.