Oslo, Norway—In celebration of Korea’s National Liberation Day, UPF organized a "Peace Road" walk to a Korean-built peace pagoda.
National Liberation Day, celebrated annually in both South and North Korea on August 15, commemorates the end of the 40-year Japanese occupation.
To express solidarity with this celebration, UPF-Norway organized a "Peace Road" event on August 15, 2021, with wishes for peace, reconciliation and reunification in Korea.
After a kickoff program, with a speech from the UPF leader explaining the meaning behind the event, we began our family-friendly walk, which included three generations. The walk took place in the hills north of Oslo with around 30 participants.
A central point in our walk was the stop at a Korean-built peace pagoda. In 2014, South Korea’s Hwacheon county, close to the North Korean border, donated two such peace pagodas to Scandinavia. Both are located on Norwegian soil. One is placed close to the border with Sweden. The other is located in Oslo in facilities administered by a Swedish conference center.
We chose to make this pagoda in Oslo the center of our peace walk. Everybody gathered here and sang the Korean song of unification (Tongil), followed by a cheer for the peaceful reunification of Korea. Our hope was to express moral and spiritual support for a positive development on the Korean Peninsula.
We continued our walk, which ended with an enjoyable picnic at the Holmenkollen ski jumping hill.
In September, we plan to send a similar peace greeting from the other pagoda at the border with Sweden, as long as the corona situation and other circumstances allow it.