hankyoreh

"The snow is like a present from heaven."

Shin Jeong-eun, 28, has been waging a demonstration from her perch high atop a 12-meter pine tree on Mt. Gyeyang in Incheon. On the afternoon of December 18, all the trees nearby were covered with snow. Chunks of the white stuff fell onto her makeshift treehouse as the sun began to warm the tree’s highest branches. Despite the cold, Shin smiled broadly.

On December 20, 57 days after she first climbed the tree, she will descend. Shin has been protesting against a project to construct a golf course on Mt. Gyeyang. Her fight has been successful - the project has been cancelled.

After citizens, Shin included, began to protest against Lotte Engineering & Construction’s plan to build a 27-hole golf course on land skirting the mountain, Incheon cancelled the plan on December 13. The land is owned by Lotte Group chairman Shin Kyuk-ho.

Shin Jeong-eun initially planned to continue the demonstration until December 21, hoping that the mountain would be developed into a park for citizens, but she changed her schedule due to bad health.

Shin is not the first one who has demonstrated from the branches of a tree. In December 1997, a U.S. woman named Julia Butterfly Hill took up residence in a 55-meter California Coast Redwood tree on the brink of being logged. Her 738-day vigil finally saved the tree.

Shin gave citizens credit for her successful demonstration, saying that civic support was what saved nature and prevented the golf course construction project.

"There will be no construction projects on Mt. Gyeyang," she said. "The citizens won’t accept such projects."

The activist, who joined the civic organization Green Incheon in January after leaving the company where she worked for seven years after graduating from college, climbed the tree alone on October 26. Her purpose was to awaken the people to the fact that the scenic place should not be damaged by a construction project. She built a tent in the tree. For the first few days, the weather was not so bad.

A week later, however, the situation was different. When thunder roared and lightning flashed around her through the night, she could not sleep at all.

On the 14th day of the demonstration, she wrote, "After the sun sets, the power of the wind becomes stronger. It sweeps in from the distant forest in the dark just like surging waves. The hut and I shake as one body, and I have an illusion that I am floating on the sea."

Shin has a humble wish. On the Internet site of her organization, she wrote, "When I was very young, I liked the smell of attics very much. One time, I didn’t want to get out of the attic, because I hoped the smell might soak into my body if I stayed there a long time. I don’t know how long it will take, but I want the smell of the pine tree to soak into my body and remain even after I climb down the tree."

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