May 5, 2014
Asia
Children’s Day Becomes Day of Grief
- Yellow ribbons memorialize the victims of the ferry disaster in front of Seoul City Hall.
- Jonathan Cheng/The Wall Street Journal
Each year on May 5, South Korea marks Children’s Day, a public holiday set aside “in hopes that all children will grow with brave hearts and wisdom.”
But this year, the nation’s observances come with a grim dose of grief, falling less than three weeks after the sinking of the passenger ferry Sewol, which left hundreds of 16- and 17-year-old high school students dead — with more corpses being recovered every day.
In front of Seoul’s City Hall on a cloudless Monday, thousands of citizens streamed through a mass memorial set up for the victims of the ferry sinking.
- A woman ties a yellow ribbon in memory of the Sewol ferry victims.
- Jonathan Cheng/The Wall Street Journal
Approaching in groups of about 40, the mourners — a collection of families in shorts and hiking gear, monks in long robes and older men in black suits and white gloves — were each handed a long-stemmed white chrysanthemum, bowing twice and observing a moment of silence before placing their flowers on the altar.
Nearby in Seoul Plaza, trees and poles in a “yellow ribbon garden” were festooned with the ribbons that have become a symbol of mourning since the disaster. Bulletin boards were covered with messages, while on the grass, dozens of yellow folded paper boats paid tribute to the ferry victims.
- Lee Tae-jin came to visit the Sewol memorial on Monday morning with his two sons.
- Jonathan Cheng/The Wall Street Journal
“My heart isn’t at rest. I feel such deep grief,” said Lee Tae-jin, 46, who came to visit the memorial on Monday morning with his two sons. “I can’t imagine how painful it would be for the parents, especially on a day like today,” he said, as one of his young sons ran around in the garden.
He said that while the television has broadcast little but ferry coverage in recent weeks, his son was still too young to grasp the extent of the disaster. “He knows that there’s been an accident, but not all those other things,” Mr. Lee said.
The mourning came on a day when sunny skies across the country allowed divers at the site of the ferry sinking to recover a further 11 bodies, bringing the total death count to 259. Twenty days after the sinking, 43 passengers remain missing.
Divers continue to swim through the upper decks of the ship, where the passenger cabins are concentrated, government spokesman Ko Myung-seok said at the daily morning briefing.
On Sunday, President Park Geun-hye visited the mission’s base camp on Jindo island, on the southwestern tip of the Korean peninsula. Ms. Park said that she would punish government and ferry operator officials responsible for the disaster and the botched rescue mission.
While Ms. Park’s official message for Children’s Day, posted Monday morning on her Facebook page, didn’t mention the Sewol disaster, many of the thousands who commented on her posting did mention it.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, in a statement Friday, was more direct. “This Children’s Day, the Republic of Korea is especially on our mind,” Mr. Kerry said in the statement. “As a father and grandfather myself, I cannot begin to imagine the pain so many in the Republic of Korea are enduring.”
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