Reburial of a south korean activist
For 57 years, Lee Jong-wook had been buried on a small plot of family land in Busan, at the southeastern tip of South Korea. In life, he had been deemed a dangerous renegade, a Korean independence activist who posed a security threat to the peninsula’s Japanese occupiers and was imprisoned. But this year, he was recognized for his patriotism, and his body was moved from the family plot to the national cemetery, with full honors.
With the approach of his reburial, Michelle Ye Hee Lee set out to learn about him — and, along the way, discovered how his life and hers bookend a century of a uniquely Korean existence.
Excerpts from the story by Michelle Ye Hee Lee.
Commissioned and published by The Washington Post.
November 2023
Photographed in Busan and Daejeon, South Korea
A monk sets food and alcohol for the blessing prayers ceremony in honor of Lee Jong-wook in Busan.
Yoon Tae-yun holds prayer beads during the blessing prayers at the Lee family burial site in Busan.
Buddhist monks perform blessing prayers in honor of Lee Jong-wook as the Lee family gathers at his original burial plot, in Busan.
The Lee family prepares for the blessing prayers ceremony in honor of Lee Jong-wook in Busan.
An excavator digs up the family memorial site in Busan.
Washington Post correspondent Michelle Ye Hee Lee holds old family photos in Seoul.
A worker collects the bones of Lee Jong-wook at the family memorial site in Busan.
A toppled memorial stone.
Lee Si-woo carries the remains of his father, Lee Jong-wook, from the crematorium to the temple in Busan.
Yoon Tae-yun helps Lee Si-woo up the stairs at a temple in Busan.
Lee Si-woo and Yoon Tae-yun pray at the temple in Busan where Lee Jong-wook's remains were taken to rest the night before the reinterring ceremony.
A Buddhist monk prays during the reinterring ceremony at Daejeon National Cemetery.
Honor guards carry urns at the reinterring ceremony at Daejeon National Cemetery.
An honor guard carries urns past Michelle Ye Hee Lee and her family at the reinterring ceremony at Daejeon National Cemetery.
The Lee family gathers around Lee Jong-wook’s burial site at Daejeon National Cemetery.
Lee family members look on as workers bury the urn holding Lee Jong-wook’s remains at Daejeon National Cemetery.
Family members offer alcohol in honor of Lee Jong-wook during the reburial.
A portrait of Lee Jong-wook sits in front of his burial site at Daejeon National Cemetery in South Korea.
Daejeon National Cemetery.