Jaqueline Perez Gamboa

Yonsei GSIS Newsletter, Chief Editor

When we think about history, we tend to think in dates: 1945, 1950, 1987. We think of wars, political movements, protests, and events important enough to earn a place in textbooks. But after living in Korea for some time, history begins to appear in much more ordinary places.

Anyone who has spent time in Seoul has probably experienced this. You get out from any subway station surrounded by glass buildings, cafés, buses, and people rushing somewhere, walk for a few minutes, and suddenly find yourself standing in front of a palace gate that has watched the city change for centuries.

At first, the contrast is striking, after a while, however, it becomes part of everyday life. For instance, the first time you visit Gyeongbokgung, you might take dozens of photographs, and, months later, you can pass it from a bus without looking up. The same happens with the Taegeukgi hanging along the streets, the statues in public squares, traditional gates surrounded by traffic, and even the names announced at subway stations every morning.

When we first arrive in another country, curiosity comes naturally. We want to know why things are the way they are, we search for the meaning of a word, read the plaque beside a monument, or wonder about the story behind a tradition. But the longer we stay, the less unfamiliar those things become. At some point, we stop looking up. Maybe familiarity makes a place feel like home, but it can also make us forget how much there is still to discover.

For GSIS students, Korea gradually becomes connected to our own memories: the neighborhood where we lived, the restaurant we loved, the festival we attended, the subway station we used every morning. But those places existed long before we arrived, carrying stories much larger than the ones we created there.

That was, in many ways, the idea behind Moments in Korean History. This column was never meant to be a chronology of Korea’s past or a collection of dates to remember. It was an invitation to stay curious about the place we were living in, to look at something familiar and ask what came before it.

So, for this final column, I do not have one particular moment in Korean history to share. Instead, I have one final suggestion: the next time you walk through Seoul, notice the monument you have passed without reading, the old building standing between newer ones, or the palace gate visible beyond the traffic, and ask: What happened here before I arrived? The answer may lead you to an important historical event, a person whose story you did not know, or simply make a familiar place look slightly different.

Perhaps that is the best way to end this column; not with one final date or event, but with the curiosity to keep asking questions, with the hope that you will continue discovering Korea through its history.

Keep looking. Keep asking. Keep discovering.

Thank you for walking through a few of those moments with me.