Site of Min Yeonghwan's Self-Sacrifice

About this place

This is the site where Min Yeonghwan, a loyal minister of late Joseon, took his own life in protest against the Eulsa Treaty (Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty). After failing to have the Eulsa Treaty annulled — his public appeal in front of the royal palace having been forcibly dispersed by Japanese military police — Min Yeonghwan wrote three farewell letters addressed to the people, foreign diplomats, and the emperor, and died by his own hand at dawn on November 30, 1905, at the house of a servant. After his death, his blood-stained clothes and the blade were hung in a wooden storage room. The following May, when the doors of the room were opened, four shoots of bamboo had reportedly grown up through the floorboards and pierced through the bloodied garments. People said that his unwavering loyalty had manifested itself as the 'blood bamboo' (hyeoljuk), and called these shoots the 'faithful bamboo' (jeoljuk). In front of the Hana Building at Insadong in Jongno-gu, there stands a memorial sculpture for Min Yeonghwan's site of self-sacrifice, with calligraphy by Kim Chungheon and carving by Baek Mungi. The sculpture features bamboo — symbolizing the blood bamboo said to represent his loyalty — along with lattice windows, the dagger he used, and replicas of his farewell letters.