② A Petition Drum Sounded in Germany: Hyeonchungsa's English Page in 2005

Time passed, and it was 2005. At the time, my company had given me a special mission — "pioneer new markets in Europe" — and I was on a long-term business trip to Düsseldorf, Germany, where our European branch was located.

In those days, a long-term business trip usually meant one to three months. I made a hotel in Düsseldorf my base, and my schedule was a series of stepping stones: one week I would go to the European branch and help with local work, and the next week I would fly to yet another unfamiliar European market to find new buyers. It was, quite literally, the life of a pioneer, with no time even to catch my breath.

A Korean Hotel in Düsseldorf, Slow Internet, and Immortal Admiral Yi Sun-sin

In that fierce and lonely life abroad, I had one small joy: watching, over the internet, the KBS historical drama Immortal Admiral Yi Sun-sin, which aired every weekend in Korea.

Immortal Admiral Yi Sun-sin

I had already been studying Admiral Yi Sun-sin, the commander who saved Joseon at sea during the Imjin War, quite seriously on my own, so my affection for the drama was special. But the internet abroad in 2005 was truly a "patience tester."

On Sundays I would sit in my room at a Korean-run hotel in Düsseldorf and wait for hours in front of the monitor as the drama downloaded, stitch by slow stitch. When at last, after a tedious fight with buffering, I faced the Admiral on the screen, the weariness of life far from home would melt away like snow.

Then one Sunday morning, as I opened my eyes as usual, a thought came to me.

"When this long trip is over and I return to Korea, I must visit Hyeonchungsa in Asan."

Hyeonchungsa is the shrine dedicated to Admiral Yi. With a fluttering heart, I visited its official website to get some information in advance. While looking around, I suddenly wondered how they introduced the Admiral to foreigners, and I clicked on the English introduction page.

And I truly could not believe my eyes.

"Is This Really Hyeonchungsa's English Page?" — A Petition Drum Sounded in Germany

The English introduction in front of me was simply dreadful. The text introducing the greatest naval commander in world history, the sage-hero Korea is proud of, was written in vocabulary at barely a middle-school level.

That was not all. Along with basic spelling typos, the website openly displayed ungrammatical sentences whose parts did not even fit together, and many sentences full of grammatical errors. That the official website of a national institution honoring Korea's greatest hero was plastered with such poor English was something I simply could not overlook.

I was far away in a foreign land, pioneering new markets, and my fighting spirit was already at its peak. Feeling a rage that seemed to send my blood rushing backward at this absurd reality, I began, then and there, to write a razor-sharp email to the site's administrator. I pounded the keys of my laptop as if to break them. It was a kind of "sinmungo from Germany" — the sinmungo being the drum that, in Joseon times, ordinary subjects could beat to bring a grievance before the king.

"How can you leave the introduction of the greatest general in our nation's history in such poor English — and on none other than Hyeonchungsa's official website? If this problem is not corrected immediately, I will have no choice but to submit this shameful reality as a petition to Cheong Wa Dae, the presidential office, and raise the issue formally. Correct it at once."

I was somewhat angry, but I pressed every letter full of my affection for the Admiral and my pride as a citizen, and then I hit the send button.

"Sir, Please Give Us Just One Week" — An International Call from Hyeonchungsa

The next morning, a Monday, a reply came from the person in charge of the website. But the reply, full of excuses meant only to avoid blame, left me even more dumbfounded.

"Because the budget cost was high, we outsourced the work to a rather cheap company, and that is how it turned out. Please try to understand our situation."

I was speechless. They had covered up a task honoring the Admiral's spirit with the excuse of "low cost," and they wanted me to understand? I immediately fired off a second bombshell email.

"Do not ask me for understanding — correct it now. If you do not tell me exactly by when you will fix it, I will make this public to the press and on the internet."

Perhaps my strong warning, with no retreat left behind me, worked. Before long, an international number from Korea appeared clearly on my phone screen. Through the receiver came a voice full of urgency and apology.

"Sir... we were truly wrong. We will correct it perfectly within a week. Please, just don't make it public."

A week later, when I visited the Hyeonchungsa website again, there at last was a smooth, presentable English introduction that would not embarrass us before foreigners. My small petition drum, sounded far away in Düsseldorf, Germany, was settled that way.

Shameful Descendants of Great Ancestors

It was an incident resolved in a week, but even now, twenty years later, it remains a bitter trace in my mind.

That incident made me painfully realize how our country actually manages and treats a great hero like Admiral Yi. It was a practice of working not with deep historical research or sincere affection for the Admiral, but merely for show, as an administrative formality — a cover-up that fooled no one. At the time, it was hard to believe that this had happened at none other than holy Hyeonchungsa, the place that honors the Admiral.

When, in 2020, I held my daughter's hand and faced the humble birthplace plaque in Inhyeon-dong, it was perhaps only natural that this memory from Düsseldorf in 2005 overlapped in my mind. Compared with the Admiral's greatness, why is the vessel in which we hold him still so shameful, then and now?

Once, on my first visit to Egypt, I let out an involuntary "Wow!" at the vastness of the pyramids. But soon people begging crowded around me, and a thought came to me.

"Two thousand years ago, their ancestors built those enormous pyramids, and two thousand years later, their descendants live by begging around those pyramids."

Whenever I think of the petition drum I sounded in Düsseldorf to correct the Hyeonchungsa website, I look back and ask myself whether we are truly descendants who need not be ashamed before our great ancestors.

👉 Next post: ③ The Song of the Sword and the Nanjung Ilgi: Two Doors into Admiral Yi's Inner Life

— Momcheolhak