When April deepens into spring, Koreans find themselves in a strange division. The crowds at cherry blossom festivals grow larger every year, and beneath the cherry blossoms of Yeouido, Jinhae, and Gyeongju, people eat, drink, and upload the exact same landscape from different angles. Everyone knows it is beautiful. But the sensation that one must briefly forget something to fully enjoy that beauty never disappears. In the Korean memory, the cherry blossom has never been completely free from Japan. The trees planted across Joseon by the hands of the colonial Government-General, the afterimage of a flower-viewing culture transplanted by a logic entirely separate from the spring culture of the Joseon people — these still seep somewhere into the fluttering atmosphere of April. There was once a story that resolved this nagging unease. It was the claim that the origin of Japan’s representative cherry blossom, the Somei Yoshino (Prunus × yedoensis), was actually Jeju Island. The narrative that the flower Japan took as the core symbol of its national identity had actually crossed over from elsewhere carried a thrilling symmetry. A story that the taker paraded what belonged to the taken as its own. But this narrative could not hold up

It was not when I looked at the calendar that I realized a year had passed. It was during a conversation, when someone brought up the events of that night, and I realized I was listening to it as if it were something from a distant past. Yet I still remembered the disposition of the Constitutional Court’s ruling. The respondent, President Yoon Suk-yeol, is hereby removed from office. Perhaps that is why I opened the ruling again—because I wanted to see what had come before that sentence. At first, I had watched it on the news. Waiting for the disposition that would come at the very end, I didn’t properly hear the things that preceded it. “Because the National Assembly was able to quickly pass the resolution demanding the lifting of martial law owing to the resistance of citizens and the passive conduct of soldiers and police, this does not affect the determination of the gravity of the respondent’s violation of the law.” The court used this as grounds for its finding of unconstitutionality. But if you read this sentence slowly, you get the feeling that, apart from the legal judgment, something else is recorded here. That the lifting of

There is a video of BTS’s comeback live. The screen opens with a night view of Gyeongbokgung Palace. The curved roofs of the pavilions and Gwanghwamun. And cut. Massive stage lights. Roars of the crowd. Seven silhouettes. When I first saw this video, I felt something was off. But I couldn’t immediately say exactly where that strangeness came from. The video was beautiful. The editing was fluid. As always, Gyeongbokgung’s night view was stunning. Nevertheless, a feeling remained that something didn’t fit, that something was being forced into place. This essay begins by searching for the identity of that strangeness. Starting with What This Space Is Gwanghwamun is the main gate of Gyeongbokgung, the primary royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty. A name meaning “the king’s virtue illuminates the entire realm.” So, in a sense, declaring a king’s return here might seem symbolically natural. A king returns before the king’s gate. As an image, it is clean. But wait. The history of this space begins with a dynasty, but it does not end with one. During the Japanese colonial period, the Government-General built its headquarters between Gwanghwamun and Geunjeongjeon. They severed the axis leading toward the throne room with a