In the first half of the 20th century, most of the Korean intellectuals who had been under the colonial rule of the Japanese imperialists fought resolutely against the Japanese imperialist vicious national obliteration policy to assimilate the Korean nation.
Buddhist poet Han Ryong Un was one of them.
Han insisted on action. He insisted that Korea’s independence was possible not by a petition but by the death-defying actions of the nation.
At the time of the March First Uprising, Han was one of the 33 representatives of the nation. When he was arrested by the enemy, Han refused a lawyer, private food and bail. When most of the representatives showed signs of vacillation, scared by the enemy’s threats, he denounced them by shouting whether they are fighters for the country and the nation or not. The Japanese tried to bribe him with the offer of a piece of state land. But Han refused this, too.