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(Hwaseong = Yonhap News) Reporter Haemin Choi = The area of Maehyang-ri, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, which has been used as a US military bombing training site for over half a century, has been reborn as a sound-themed wellness tourist destination.
The Peace Memorial Hall, opened in a large-scale peace ecological park created on site to sublimate the scars of war into a symbol of peace, provides an opportunity for healing to visitors by utilizing the sounds of nature that remain after the noise of the bombing has cleared.
Hwaseong City plans to develop the Maehyang-ri Peace Memorial Hall, which was recently certified as a ‘wellness tourist destination’ by Gyeonggi Province and the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization, into a base for local wellness tourism.
◇ The sound of bombing continued for over half a century
It is estimated that in 1951, when the Korean War was in full swing, the ear-piercing sound of bombing began to sound in a quiet seaside village called 'Maehyang-ri' (梅香里) because it was filled with the scent of plum blossoms.
As the U.S. military used 694,000 m2 of land in the Maehyang-ri area as a land-based shooting range, air force planes began dropping practice bombs and firing machine guns at the site.
Afterwards, in 1968, in accordance with the ROK-US Mutual Defense Treaty and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in Korea, the 958,000㎡ ‘KOON-NI Shooting Range’ was established and an official land-based shooting range took shape.
It is said that the name 'KOON-NI' was established after the US military mispronounced 'Goon', the name of a seaside village in Maehyang-ri, in English.
By 1980, with the addition of 22.81 million ㎡ of marine shooting ranges around Nongseom Island, a 23.768 million ㎡ US military shooting range was operated in Maehyang-ri.
The residents of Maehyang-ri suffered from the sound of hundreds of shells raining down every day and night.
The pain of residents grew like a snowball due to the stress of noise tearing their eardrums and the occasional accidental explosion.
Eventually, after the democratic uprising in June 1987, residents formed a countermeasures committee and began demanding the government and the U.S. military to 'abolish the Maehyang-ri shooting range.'
Meanwhile, in May 2000, when 11 residents were injured in an accidental explosion, the situation in Maehyang-ri became known nationwide, and the issue of maintaining the Maehyang-ri shooting range also became a topic of full-fledged public debate.
Thanks to the efforts of residents who fought for over 10 years, Maehyang-ri Shooting Range was finally officially closed on August 12, 2005.
◇ Maehyang-ri, where the gunfire stopped, as a symbol of peace
Maehyang-ri, which had been bombarded with shells for 54 years, was transformed from a scar of war into a symbol of peace after the shooting range was closed.
Hwaseong City created a 330,000㎡ Peace Ecological Park around the shooting range site to remember the painful history of Maehyang-ri.
In the middle of the park, the Maehyang-ri Peace Memorial Hall was built with a specialized exhibition space and opened in April last year.
The memorial hall was jointly designed by world-renowned architect Mario Botta and Korea's HnSa Architectural Office with the vision of 'Road of Peace, Sea of Hope', and was built with one underground floor and two above-ground floors, with a total floor area of 4,000 m2.
Inside, there is a permanent exhibition room, a special exhibition room, a children's experience room, and an observatory.
Six former U.S. military shooting range buildings have also been preserved, and four of them are used as exhibition rooms. The viewing route was also designed to pass through the U.S. military presence building and end at the main building.
The purpose is to allow people to appreciate the works after looking around the traces of history left in Maehyang-ri.
The interior of the memorial hall was designed to allow warm light to permeate throughout the space. This is meant to comfort and heal the hearts of residents who have suffered from the sound of bombing for a long time.
A 45m high observatory was built next to the main building, which Botta named 'Central of Remembrance'.
Currently, an exhibition with the theme of ‘The Way We Speak’ is underway in the special exhibition room.
On display are works that reinterpret ‘communication’ from an artistic perspective, focusing on residents suffering from noise from shooting ranges.
◇ Maehyang-ri Peace Memorial Hall became a base for ‘wellness tourism’
Maehyang-ri Peace Memorial Hall, which opened with the theme of peace, planned a wellness tourism program to provide citizens with a space for rest and healing, along with an exhibition covering the painful history of the region.
There are two types of walks, ‘Sound Walking’ and ‘Healing Yoga + Singing Bowl’, themed around the sounds of nature left behind after the sound of the bombing has cleared.
First, the sound walk is conducted in a way that about 10 participants wear audio devices, take a walk through the memorial hall and ecological park, record the sounds of nature, and then express the emotions they feel from the sounds through colors or drawings.
Nowadays, Maehyang-ri is sparsely populated, so the sounds of nature dominate. When you wear an audio device and listen to sound, you can feel even the smallest sounds, such as the sound of touching grass blades or the sound of wind rustling through leaves.
The memorial hall decided to supplement the composition of the tourism program and tourist experience elements by the end of the year through consulting with experts from the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization, which was obtained through certification as a wellness tourist destination.
In addition, the sound walking program, which was conducted 5 times last year and 8 times this year, is scheduled to be expanded to 20 times next year.
'Healing Yoga + Singing Bowl' is a program to relax your mind and body through yoga and heal your mind with a singing bowl.
It is a meditation method that listens to the vibrations and sounds generated by tapping a bowl made of crystal or brass. When you listen to the sound reflected off the walls, trees, or blades of grass depending on the weather or humidity, you will fall in love with the charm of a different sound each time.
Jeongha Yoon, a curator at the Maehyang-ri Peace Memorial Hall in Hwaseong City, said, "We were thinking about how to deliver healing tourism using local history to citizens who visited a space opened with the theme of peace, and we came up with two programs. The goal of the program is to make visitors feel peace in their bodies and minds through sound."
