Dinner with Yu Gwan-Sun

17 Year-old Independence Fighter and National Hero

Dear Curious Minds,

It’s Friday which means it’s story time. For many years, I had the same answer to this icebreaker, ‘If you could invite a guest to your dinner party, dead or alive, who would it be?’ It was always Yu Gwan-sun. Somebody very deserving of a warm bath, a great Korean meal, and also someone I can ask deep questions about whether we are on the right path. I am thinking about her a lot today, as I’m about to take a speaker slot at a protest at Aotea Square later today. So here is my imagination of what our conversation might be like if I could invite her for dinner. Thank you for being here, I appreciate you.

---

Only the faint hum of the kitchen appliances filled the room. I was setting the table when I felt a shift in the air, as though the room was breathing again. Turning around, I saw her.

Yu Gwan-sun stood before me. Her form was both solid and ethereal. Her hanbok was as pristine as if she’d just come from a family celebration rather than a prison cell. Her presence was commanding yet fragile, a contradiction that made my heart ache.

This was the girl who, at just sixteen, had stood at the forefront of Korea’s March 1st Movement in 1919, a nationwide protest against Japanese colonial rule. She had organised rallies in her hometown, waving the Taegukgi (Korean flag) and shouting for independence alongside her family and neighbours. The protests were met with brutal force, and when the Japanese authorities discovered her role in leading them, she was arrested and imprisoned.

The accounts of her imprisonment haunted history books. She had endured unspeakable torture at the Seodaemun Prison, where the guards sought to break her spirit as much as her body. Despite their efforts, she continued to defy them, rallying fellow prisoners and smuggling messages of hope and resistance beyond the prison walls. Her courage made her a beacon, but it came at the ultimate cost. At seventeen, her frail body gave out under the relentless abuse, and she died in prison, never to see the liberation she had fought so fiercely for.

“You’re…” I began, but my voice faltered. She nodded, her expression solemn but kind.

“You wanted to meet me,” she said. Her voice was steady, yet it carried the weight of years of anguish and determination. “So here I am.”

Binggrae ✕ D Minus One Independence Movement Campaign ‘First Wearing Liberation’ portrait of Yu Gwan-sun. [Source: Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, Binggrae]. Most remaining photos of Yu Gwan-Sun is her mugshot in prison after horrendous torturing, and this campaign honoured what she would have looked like in life withough such suffering.

I blanked and suddenly so unsure of myself. But eventually, I managed to gesture to the table. “I thought maybe you’d be hungry. I didn’t know what you’d like, so I prepared a little bit of everything. Kimchi jjigae, japchae, bulgogi…” My voice trailed off as her eyes softened.

“It smells wonderful,” she said. “But it is more than the food I am here for, isn’t it?”

She took a seat at the table. Her movements were deliberate like she was savouring sitting in peace. Something she had been denied in life. I poured hot tea, the steam curling between us like a bridge spanning a century.

“You were so young,” (gosh, why is my voice trembling so horribly?!). “I can’t imagine the strength it took to lead those protests, to endure what they did to you.”

She tilted her head, studying me. “And yet you can. Do you not live in a time where strength is still required? Where fear must be overcome?”

Her words struck me. Ironically, a lot of us have been terrified of what is about to become of us this year. I nodded slowly. “Yes, but it’s different now. The battles are quieter, a little further away, with less blood on our doorstep. It’s not a war of independence but a struggle against systems, against apathy, against forgetting.”

“Forgetting,” she repeated, her eyes darkening. “That is the greatest loss of all. Tell me, do they remember us? Do they remember why we fought?”

I hesitated, unsure how to explain the selective memory of history. “Many do,” I said carefully. “Your name is taught in schools. You’re a symbol of resistance, of courage. But some….see the past as a burden, something to move on from. The world moves so fast now.”

She nodded slowly, her gaze distant. “Time does not change the heart of the struggle,” she said. “It is always about dignity, about refusing to be less than human. Tell me, are your people still marching? Do they still rise?”

I thought of recent protests, voices raised against injustice, and people refusing to stay silent in the face of the unacceptable. “Yes,” I said. “We still march. But we also argue among ourselves. We’re divided in ways you couldn’t imagine.”

She smiled faintly, a sad smile. “Division is not new. Even in my time, some thought we should wait and feared that resistance would only bring more suffering. And they were right, in a way. But waiting never brings freedom. Only action does.”

We fell silent, the weight of her words settling over us. She reached for the tea, sipping it slowly. “Tell me about your family,” she said, her voice softer now. “Do they live in peace?”

I thought of my parents, siblings, husband and the life I’d built in a world she had helped make possible. “Yes,” I said. “Because of you and so many like you. We live in peace. But it’s fragile. There are still forces that threaten it.”

“Peace is always fragile,” she said. “But it is worth fighting for.”

I wanted to tell her so much: about Korea’s journey from colonisation to independence, its rise as a global power, and the scars that still lingered. But she seemed to sense it all, her eyes reflecting an understanding far beyond her years.

“If you could go back,” I asked, my voice trembling again, “if you could change anything, would you?”

She looked at me, her gaze steady. “I would choose to live,” she said without any hesitation. “Not for myself, but for my parents, for my brother. They deserved more time, more joy. But I would not change the fight.”

Her words hung in the air, a challenge and a comfort. As she stood to leave, she paused, looking at me with a question in her eyes.

“What will you do with your freedom?” she asked.

And then she was gone, leaving me alone with the echo of her question and the unspoken promise it carried.

---

Watch: More about Yu Gwan-Sun