Staying Next to the Presidential Suite in Baekdamsa, Part 2

Don't think there was any official templestay in Baekdamsa way back when I visited the place in this quieter spot in Seoraksan, Gangwondo in 2004 but I was lucky enough to be allowed to stay there. Found that my room was just next to the room once occupied by former President Chun Doo-hwan when he went into a self-imposed exile of less than three years in the late 1980s.

President who? He's the one who imposed martial law and gave the green light for the Gwangju massacre when at least 207 people were killed and 987 hurt while protesting against his unconstitutional disbanding of the National Assembly. He escaped a death sentence imposed in 1996 when President Kim Young-sam pardoned him.

Cynics would say the exile was more like a convenient retreat to escape the publicity and media while his supporters would applaud the move to this remote spot in Gangwon-do as a sincere act to repent for what he had done. Two years of eating vegetarian food, waking up before dawn to do 108 prostrations, chopping firewood and doing other menial chores alongside his wife - was that his escape route or a fitting punishment for a disgraced President?

source:
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=45,6738,0,0,1,0
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Chun_Doo-hwan
http://www.baekdamsa.org/contents/sub5_2.php?mode=view&page=1&uid=3082&secret=&key=subject&search=
http://www.answers.com/topic/chun-doo-hwan-1