After an evening in Itaewon, we woke up slowly on Sunday morning; slow but insensibly cheered by the appearance of the sun. I used to find it strange that people from places like the UK talked so very much about the weather. These days I do it myself. I still think it I a bit odd, but the weather, and particularly the lack of sun, is such a big part of life here in Korea (especially in Daegu). It also mean that a little sunshine is enough to make any day better, even if it’s still fairly chilly.
We set off to do some more exploring. We caught the bus to the city centre area, getting off at the Sejeong Performing Arts Centre. This central area of Seoul is more open than most of the built-up areas because there are open, ‘square’-style areas. There are also magnificent (and sometimes bizarre) statues to the leading figures of the country, alongside luxury hotels and financial centre buildings. It really does feel like a modern city centre capable of competing with any other city centre in the world. From here, we caught a cab to Namsangol Traditional Korean Village.
The concept of a traditional or folk village bothers some people because they feel like it’s all fake and just created to get money out of tourists. Apart from the fact that most of the folk villages in Korea are free and set up to educate Koreans as well as foreigners, I quite like the attempt to represent the everyday lives of people who lived in a very different time. I suppose the attempt to represent social history accurately appeals to me. It’s probably also particularly important in a country that has modernised so quickly it would be very easy for the old ways to be lost forever within a generation or two.
Namsangol Traditional Village is not in fact a recreation of a village that existed or a ‘typical’, hypothetical village that could have existed. Instead, five residences (including houses and outhouses and sometimes servants quarters) were all relocated and restored here so that different social strata are represented and also that the homes represented are those of real historical figures. It is a different approach. I haven’t seen enough of the other approach to be able to compare. For now, it was just great to be able to get a closer look at life during the Joseon period through the lens of these five households.
The first house was that of Sunjeong Hyo Empress Yun’s parents. This is the home where the future Empress lived until she was 13, when she was designated the wife of the crown prince. It’s always a jolt to be reminded of how young marriages happened in the past, and even in the not so distant past : this was in 1906. The house was beautiful. Each room was set up with beautiful old furniture, brightly coloured bedding and polished metal. I particularly loved the wood – the doors, the cupboards, the tables. I’ve always loved old wood but wood is particularly important in Korean homes because it is reasonably plentiful on the peninsula.
The second house was a residence built for the 27th king of Joseon by his father in law so that he could use it when he came to pay respects to his ancestors (as is part of the Korean tradition). The father in law built it when his daughter was designated a second wife of this king. Around the back of the house, as well as what looked like an outdoor oven, what looked like a Teepee made of straw. When we looked closer, there were three of the traditional brown, shiny storage pots (what I tend to refer to as kimchi pots) buried up to their necks inside the hut. Of course, there were no information boards to explain why. We’ll have to keep wondering.
The other three houses were those of the husband of a princess, a military commander and a regents chief carpenter. In each, we saw bedrooms with beautiful wooden dressers with bedrolls stacked on top of them, clothing hanging on bars from the walls and stunning old lamps. The floors of Korean houses are raised so that there is space for the heating fires under the floors. These kitchens, however were deeper, to provide access to the fires of what looked a lot like aga-style stoves (except less fancy). Large black pots and kettles in unfamiliar shapes sat on stove plates. Garlic and dried plants hung on the walls. Piles of wood waited to add to the heat. Unexpectedly (at least for me), what looked like half-calabashes hung on the walls. In a bedroom, we saw rolled up straw mats next to a high table with ‘ancestor chair’ and the small tables used by those sitting on the floor on cushions all hung on the wall for storage. Definitely an original way to store tables you don’t know what to do with.
In several of the houses, there was a real person dressed in traditional clothing working on some aspect of traditional art and willing, for a small fee, to show everyone else their traditional writing, traditional music and traditional clothing. We didn’t stop to try any of these out but we did enjoy the addition of live models to the quiet old houses. In the central area, we walked past families playing traditional games, several of which I’d seen at the Daegu museum and several of which also reminded me forcibly of some of the traditional games back home. There was even a game where children run along with a bent piece of wire (which is a specially made tool) and a metal ring, trying to keep the ring going. Watching them, I couldn’t help but picture African children in tatty clothes with a stick and an old tyre running along dusty roads. I suppose some things really are universal.
We wandered the park area for a while and also saw the Seoul time capsule. The time capsule, containing 600 items representing current life in Seoul, was buried in 1994 to mark the 600th anniversary of Seoul as the capital of Korea. It is rather ambitiously designed to be opened in 400 years time on the 1000th anniversary of the same. Unfortunately, it’s not particularly impressive to look at and the idea that Seoul will still be Seoul and still be capital in another 400 years seems a little optimistic to me, but perhaps that has to do with my South African view of how long things last. The rest of the part was prettier and we particularly enjoyed the combination of pine trees and water features. We also found a little gazebo-type place made of wood that reminded me so, so strongly of church pews in far-flung farm churches in the Eastern Cape in South Africa. I stopped to take some pictures and run my fingers along the smooth wood surface. Strange associations from two Eastern Cape girls 10 000 miles from home.
By this stage, we were a little cold and definitely hunger so we found a Chinese restaurant – my friend has a very useful knack for finding Chinese restaurants. After a late lunch of shrimp-fried rice, fried meat dumplings and the most delicious pork and vegetable spring rolls, my second trip to Seoul was almost over and after we chatted for a bit more before I headed off to the station.
The final little bit of my trip took an unexpected turn. The economy tickets for the next KTX to Daegu were sold out. I debated waiting for a later train but I was fairly tired and not in the mood for sitting around so I took a chance and checked the price of a first class ticket. It was definitely more expensive but not completely unreasonable and I figured I could chalk it up to experiencing something new, so I bought one. The KTX train is a fairly luxurious train experience. It feels a lot – from the design of the stations to the seats – like a modern plane, except with more leg-room. There are even ‘cabin attendants’ who could very easily work on planes. Given this, I should probably not have been surprised that the first class is very much like a the first class on a plane. The seats are huge, with ridiculous amounts of space to stretch out and relax. There are only three seats in each row – one on the left and two on the right. Next to me was a huge window with blinds and curtains to block out whatever I didn’t wish to see. Of course, it was evening so there wasn’t much to see anyway, especially with the lights within the train reflecting on the windows. The amount of space was excessive and I wouldn’t have paid the extra if it hadn’t been for getting home earlier, but it was nice to enjoy a little luxury for a bit.