Seoul: Face of the Past

When coming back from Korea I was thinking how best to organise the blog posts from this trip and I decided that theming them will be clearer and more interesting than chronologically. So I divided the trip into a more historic (this) part and the more modern (next) one.

The only thing that happened chronologically that I’ll say now is that Seoul and myself didn’t get off to the best of starts: for the first time in my life I felt what it’s like to really not understand anything (new place, foreign language, equally foreign writing – now I know what it’s like for people coming to Japan who don’t speak Japanese). I had a small episode of panic and doubt (“Why the hell did I want to come here, waaaah!”), especially after the ticket machine selling tickets from the airport to the city broke down right after giving me my ticket, but just before giving me my change, and I had no confidence, no strength and no time (less than 5 minutes ‘til the train was due and I did buy a ticket for a certain time!) to fight for that.

However! Once I arrived at my hosts’ place, it all got better and from then on not only did I appreciate what a cool place I was, but also little by little I grew to like Seoul, a bit more even. But let’s stick to the theme, shall we?

After consulting the list of places worth seeing, made by a friend of mine, and talking to my hosts, I began sightseeing from the Gyeongbokgung Palace (or rather Gyeongbok Palace, I believe the suffix –gung means “palace”, but I don’t know Korean and I can’t be bothered to check). There are actually five palaces in Seoul, which once were one massive thing, until the Japanese came and decided that whatever they haven’t destroyed they’ll separate, but it is in Gyeongbokgung where the Korean king lived. And as I was told by my hosts – and as I later discovered on my own – seeing one was perfectly enough, so I only visited this one.

There’s a long, long road leading to the palace itself, part of which was taken by an exhibition of Korean War photographs and the other part – by the statue of King Sejong the Great.

King Sejong the Great - great also in terms of the statue's size.

Why is King Sejong great? Well, he’s most known for inventing the Korean script, hangul, so that everyone could read, not just the wise ones (until then, and even for a good time after that, things were written using Chinese kanji), although his achievements include also technological advancements, expanding of the Korean army and successes in foreign affairs.

Gyeongbokgung Palace seen from behing the statue of King Sejong.

Entrance to the palace.

The guard.

On the other side of the street from the statue there is a whole museum dedicated to King Sejong (which you can access through the statue itself as well), but after this brief stop I decided to go straight to the palace. I know all I need to know about king Sejong and the palace was intriguing me a lot more.

I admit: since I had to go to Korean history lectures, I know more about it than your average Joe. But the lectures were good two years ago and I was never interested in Korea enough to want to remember all that after exams. So a lot of our guide’s was trigging my memory, I often nodded thinking “Aha, I remember something about that, that’s what they taught me”, but other than the invention of hangul, which I already mentioned, and mentioning things like “X was destroyed by the Japanese” – I don’t remember anything now. The interesting things I remembered were that kings weren’t painted, because they were thought to be sacred, and the explanation of how the king did his business (the answer: in a pot, the contents of which were regularly inspected by the royal doctor to make sure the king is healthy). There probably was a bit more, but I’ll add that to the pictures, that’ll be more interesting.

I was a lot more fascinated by that which could be seen. I like to say that Korean language is a bastard child between China and Japan – and I think very similarly about Korean culture and art as well (supported by my patchy historical knowledge), but I never had a chance to actually see if that’s really the case. Now I know: it really is the case. Maybe to refresh your memories:

China (China Town in Yokohama)

Japan (Oyama Jinja, Kanazawa, Japan)

And now look at Korea.

Isn’t it really in between? More toned down than Chine, but at the same time more colourful than Japan. On the one hand it’s a unfair that so many thing of Korea this way (because I am not alone in this), it’s lessening its value as a separate entity and brings it down to just this one geo-historical (?) point, while ignoring what sprung up here despite that, but on the other – “Gangnam Style” and North Korea probably have done enough for the peninsula to be able to think of it as a separate entity, right?

Change of guards at the palace's entrance.

Here are steps which only the king had the right to step on. But he never set foot on them. Why? Because he was carried in a palanquin everywhere. Such a waste os stairs...

Building where the throne room is.

The roof statues were supposed to protect the king.

The stones closer to 'us' mark different ranks, so that everyone knew where to stand during big gatherings. The lower the rank, the further away from the king one was. Similarly with the roofs further away: they get gradually lower, because the further away from the king someone was, the lower their rank and the lower the roof above their head (if they were lucky to have a roof).

Throne room.

This, hm, vase was where incence was burned, to indicate that the king was coming and would soon be in the throne room.

This is the pagoda where the king (and his family, appropriately high ranking people or simpli those the king deemed worthy of such an honour) rested. It was originally surrounded by a wall and those on the outside could only see the roof. Without an invitation from the king, nobody could ever see it from the inside.

Chimney in the garden of the queen's quarters. All pictures on it have symbolic meaning (I only remember that the bat symbolised fertility), and the cimney itself is a part of quite a clever heating system which, in a slightly modernised version, is still used in Korea. The palace was heated from the bottom and the floors, by burning fire on the ground level - and since fire equals smoke, which had to escape somewhere, there have to be chimneys as well.

The whole grounds of Gyeongbokgung Palace took a lot more space, there were the king’s quarters, the queen’s, the king’s mother’s, the servants’s, places where people debated, places where sons were born, places where people rested… But from a strictly visual and architectonical point of view it’s all the same: the same colours and patterns, the same shapes. It’s partly due to the fact that the palace was built during one specific period, where this style was fashionable, but I think that’s only one part of it. Let’s not forget that before we got to Seoul, the Japanese got there, and they liked to invade Korea – and destroy whatever they didn’t like – and also the Korean War got there, which brought pretty much the entire city to the ground. So looking at the next pictures, this time of temples, it’ll all be in the same style again: same period in history and same historical events later on (some parts of the palace have managed to survive pretty much intact, so they probably served as a reference later when restoring everything).

I don’t have much to say about the Buddhist temples. Well, at least in Korea there’s no doubt whether we’re in a Buddhist or a Shinto one, because they only have Buddhism here (and Christianity which I found a lot more of than I expected – as far as I could see, there were more Christian churches, or at least they were more visible, than in Japan). But even the big tourist attracting temples weren’t just a tourist attraction – both the Jogyesa temple and the Bongeunsa temple had people coming there simply to pray. Technically this happens in big Japanese temples as well, but they are more easily drowned by the camera-clicking tourists, and also I’m not always sure whether someone’s come there to pray because they are a follower of this religion or because they think throwing in a penny and clapping hands a tradition that may (or may not) help them pass exams. I can’t explain this better, but the Koreans bowing every two steps or those taking off their shoes to bow in a separate room to the mantra chanted by a monk, just seemed to be genuinely religious and praying, not the “I believe only when I need something”. Is that a very harsh judgement on my behalf?

Jogyesa temple.

This is a tradition that came from India: Four Heavenly Kings who protected the Buddha's teachings and each corresponded to one direction of the world. Here: Vaiśravaṇa, King of the North holding a pipa.

I think those lanterns are in preparation for Yeon Deung Hoe, the Lotus Lantern Festival, which will take place at the end of April. But I'm not sure. :P

Lotus at the entrance to Bongeunsa temple. (Here I'd like to apologize for the quality of the pictures, I forgot my camera that day and relied on my mobile.)

Again, Four Heavenly Kings. From the left: Virūḍhaka (King of the South) i Virūpākṣa (King of the West).

Four Heavenly Kings, from the left: Vaiśravaṇa (King of the North) i Dhṛtarāṣṭra (King of the East).

Dharma King Pavilion.

Spring with a bit of both the temple and Gangnam in the background.

Great Statue of Maitreya Buddha, the future Buddha who vows to save sentient beings in the era after the lifetime of Sakyamuni Buddha. It's 23 metres high, so I can probably count it as a Daibutsu (jap. great Buddha), which I sort of collect like Pokemons, right? :P

And a little trivia: after visiting the Bongeunsa temple I sat down for a little bit in a coffee shop. And at some point I was very, but I mean very surprised.

It’s not the best of pictures, but what you can see here is a Buddhist monk. In a branch of a chain of coffee shops. With a tablet. It’s true that the Bongeunsa temple is in Gangnam, which is rich and mostly very modern (and, if you don’t know that yet, that’s the whole point of “Gangnam Style” – it’s about those pretending to be from there, but who can’t really hide it that they’re not), but surely religion should come first, right? Or maybe this is some kind of cool branch of Buddhism which is ok with modern gadgets? If that’s the case, sign me in, please!

And during my second to last place I visited, quite roughly, the Bunchon district where some traditional Korean houses have remained (and are still lived in!) and with a couple of good observation points. Hm, I can’t really say that I was disappointed, more like for a moment I forgot about all that I’ve told you before, that is about the invasion and war damages. I’m used to similar districts in Japan, where there’s hardly anything distracting you from getting immersed in the past, so it took me a little while to find the little group of houses – which also look almost exactly like traditional Japanese houses – and then to remember about this historical fact. And because of that, and also because I was meeting my hosts soon, I didn’t see all of Bukchon, just two observation points out of eight.

View of the Changdeokgung Palace.

Yes, I know, it's not very historic, but I really like this grafitti!

And that really is all about the Seoul of the past. But as traditional home cooking fits here more than the Seoul of the present, which I’ll write about next, I’ll share a present from my hosts here. Their parents invited me for dinner, for which they made one of the dishes I wanted to try: kimchi jjigae, kimchi and pork soup. And tons of sides, as is the case with all Korean food (including kimchi, there’s no Korean food without kimchi, so if you don’t like it – well, going to Korea will make you like it because there’s no way to avoid it). Oh my, was that DELICIOUS! But I am generally a fan of Korean cuisine. I definitely have to learn how to make all this food, this’ll really make my life more pleasant.

Enjoy!