Every town has its heroes; many are forgotten through time. Parks or squares are reminders of them in the forms of plaques and statues. Most invite us to find out more about them, or at least pique our curiosity. Not far from where we are moored in Gorinchem stands a statue pointing to the direction of the Kortendijk were Hendrick Hamel was born in 1630.
Hendrick was an accountant and in 1653, while working for the VOC, the Dutch East India Company, the ship he was in, De Sperwer went aground. With seven other survivors he found himself on the Korean Island of Cheju-do. They were detained and imprisoned for thirteen years by the king of a country that was unknown to Europe.
In 1666 Hamel and the seven others manage to escape in a small boat to a trading post close to Nagasaki. Japan. He subsequently wrote a broadly published journal about their adventures and the Korean Society. Without the journal the outside world would probably not have been aware of Korea's existence for many decades. In the Netherlands Hamel is known as the Columbus of Korea.
Nearly three and a half centuries have passed and Gorichum and South Korea have once again made contact. An identical statue of Hendrick Hamel has been placed in Kangjin, the south Korean town were Hamel had been imprisoned.
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