The Sorrow of Monuments of Gratitude 功德碑 悲哀

You could see a lot of monument of gratitude in old town of Korea. The monuments of gratitude had been build for the memory of good officials who had worked for their people.

Not like Europe, there was no feudalism in middle age of korea. In Korea, feudalism had been existed in exceptionally short period. The centralized national system had been built for long time in history. The centralized kingdom had sent the officials to rule the local people. Naturally the officials had an all power to rule the people.

From time to time, the local people had suffered a bad governing from the officials. The monument of gratitude was build to memory a good officials at first. But it became burden to the local community. They should’ve built the monuments of gratitude for all officials, more over bad official who harassed people had forced the local people to build the monument for himself. The good officials had never wanted to build the monument for themselves.

So there would be high possibility that the monuments of gratitude you could see are for the bad officials. It is sad story.

I had taken the photos when it comes to the monuments of gratitude in Gongjoo and Chuncheon during my business trip.

In Gongjoo

There was written “We never forget your service forever”.

It is hard to read in some case.

In Chuncheon

Life is short.
The officials had expected their name to be remembered.
But I don’t know who they were.
Everything in this world is end up forgotten.