Stamp Assignment

     This is about the history of Korea. Korea had been colonized by Japan since 1910 to 1945. In the period, Japanese government enforced institutionalize policy that attempts to get rid of Koreans' national consciousness. For example, the Mugunghwa flowers (the rose of Sharon in English), the national flower of Korea, removed from Korean land and the Sakura flowers (the cheery blossoms in English), the national flower of Japan, replaced the Mugunghwa flowers. Korean ancestors planted Mugunghwa flowers in secret dreaming a day of independence of Korea.

      After the independence of Korea in 1945, two separated government established in North part of Korea and South part of Korea because of different ideology. North Korea sought communist principles allying with China and Russia and South Korea sought democratic principles allying with the U.S. The difference of ideology caused the Korean War in 1950. In 1953, the North and the South Korea conclude an armistice and ever since that Korea has been the divided nation.

      While in the Korean war period, a lot of North Korean took refuge in South Korea and a lot of South Korean took refuge in North Korea to seek safer place for them. My grandparents are one of those refugees from North Korea. Even though they came to South Korea when they were little kids, I still saw sometimes they missed their hometown. They tried to cook food the way they used to do in North Korea. Sometimes they talked about their family members left in North Korea.

       When I was working on this assignment, I though about my grandparents. Because of the ideology of the government, the people had to get separated and to hate each other. With this assignment, I wanted to evoke that even though North and South have different flags, the people are the same people who planted Mugunghwa together all over the Korean land hoping independence of Korea.