Understanding 'Human Acts' by Han Kang: A Personal Reflection

I will open this piece of writing by answering the questions I posed to myself 'Did you like the book?' Absolutely, I love this book. 'Why?' There will be, perhaps, long words to explain why this book is such a page-turner for me. Dividing my ideas into three parts, I found these sharp sentences that hit hard and wouldn't leave me even after I finished reading this book. Here is the exploration on how I think of the specific sentence had stirred such strong emotions within me.

'... South Korean citizens recognized a dictator when they saw one.'

When I first read this line, I couldn't help but screamed inside, while thinking about my own nation. This book is one of the literatures that addresses the issue of Gwangju Uprising, happened in May 1980. It began when university students held demonstration against martial law. The unarmed students and citizens then met with the brutality by the soldiers resulting a great massacre as the dark past of the nation. A familiar story until what I read next made the difference. South Korea officially memorialized the Gwangju Uprising victims in 1997. 

This surely makes me look back on my own nation, how similar the stories of military brutality against the people are. However, this is the difference, as far as I know Indonesia has not officially memorialize or even stated any apology for its major massacres. The collective memory even remains heavily distorted. This saddens me how not much of the citizens learn, or even want to learn, about the dark past of this country. Isn't it frightening, a nation whose people do not learn from the past, will not recognize the harm that might befall them again? Especially when we know the recent events, demonstrations which should be the right of citizens of a democratic country, are instead blocked, repressed and even met with violence by the authorities. Isn't it frightening? I keep thinking about the line, and how I hope the people of this country will recognize a dictator when they saw one, too.

'Is it true that human beings are fundamentally cruel? Is the experience of cruelty the only thing we share as a species? Is the dignity that we cling to nothing but self-delusion, masking from ourselves this single truth: that each one of us is capable of being reduced to an insect, a ravening beast, a lump of meat? To be degraded, damaged, slaughtered —is this the essential fate of humankind, one that history has confirmed as inevitable?'

I wonder to what extent of brilliance could you write something like this. Line after line leads to a big question to think deeply, what is humanity? It is hard to understand that there are certain people give order to surpress civilians with as much as violence as possibble, and those who committed in doing such cruelty, will be rewarded. Have you ever thought about it? It happened not only in South Korea or Indonesia, but almost everywhere on this earth. Are we fundamentally cruel? What makes it possible for a human being to beat, torture, shoot, kill and burn another human being? Is it hatred or greed that justifies such actions? 

With the total of six chapters and one epilogue, Han Kang brilliantly wrote the interconnected stories of each character, exploring humanity, death and trauma.    

'It's sunny over there Mum, and there's a lot of flowers, too. Why are we walking in the dark, let's go over there, where the flowers are blooming.'

For me, chapter 6 was the most heart wrenching part of all. A mom who experienced losing a child. Dong-ho, the main character of this story got killed by the soldiers when he was searching for his friend and when he happened joining local community to take care of victims' corpses. Even after years passed, the bereaved, espescially a mother, would still bear the unimaginable grief. And the final line of the chapter was beautifully said by little Dong-ho, to my interpretation, soothed his mother's wound who had long struggles for justice while carrying the weight of her sorrow all this time.