From the Tidal Floating Pier to the Hurrahs on Guam-dong Hill: Gunsan's History of Exploitation and Resistance

The West Coast has a large tidal range, so at low tide it is hard for large ships to dock at the pier. To load rice collected from the Honam Plain onto ships regardless of the water level, imperial Japan installed floating piers in Gunsan's inner harbor. These iron structures rise when the tide comes in and settle when it goes out.

Walk along the inner harbor waterfront toward Jinpo Marine Park and the Honam Customs Museum and you come upon traces of old piers stretching far out to sea. This very sea was where General Choe Mu-seon defeated more than 500 Japanese ships with cannons in the Jinpo Great Victory at the end of Goryeo. After the port opened, it became the front line of customs collection and rice shipments. The spot shows that irony of history in one place.

How the rice shipped out of the inner harbor was tallied and controlled within the city is shown by the Former Joseon Food Corporation Gunsan Branch Office at 43 Guyeong 2-gil. Under the wartime food system after the Second Sino-Japanese War, this L-shaped reinforced concrete building monopolized the forced collection and rationing of rice. It is now open as a free exhibition hall, 10:00–17:00 (closed on Mondays).

For a wider view of the city's whole structure of exploitation and daily life, walk to the Gunsan History Hall of the Japanese Colonial Period at the foot of Wolmyeongsan Mountain (237 Daemyeong-gil). It lays out in order colonial Gunsan's urban planning, its history of exploitation and the records of ordinary people who had to survive within it.

The reason Gunsan's modern history does not end as a record of exploitation alone is on Guam-dong Hill, which looks down on the Geumgang River. This is the site of the first independence demonstration south of the Hangang River, on March 5, 1919. In Guam-dong, teachers who had studied at Severance Union Medical College, students of Yeongmyeong School, clerks of Jesus Hospital and citizens gathered for market day started it.

The March 1st Movement 100th Anniversary Memorial Hall, built on this historic ground, has a red-brick memorial hall modeled on the exterior of the Yeongmyeong School building of the time, a memorial space and a hands-on education room. After seeing the dark history of the inner harbor, climb Guam-dong Hill and look down on the Geumgang River, and the weight of the pain and the pride one city has lived through finally comes into balance.

To follow the historical flow, it works well to combine the Honam Customs Museum and Jinpo Marine Park at the inner harbor in the morning, followed by the Former Joseon Food Corporation Gunsan Branch Office within walking distance.

In the afternoon, stop by the Gunsan History Hall of the Japanese Colonial Period on Wolmyeongsan Mountain and end the day at the March 1st Movement 100th Anniversary Memorial Hall on Guam-dong Hill. That completes a narrative route from the port opening (1899) through occupation to the resistance of spring 1919.