The Joseon Dynasty ruled Korea for over five centuries before being swept aside by uncontrollable forces. The electric lights in Changdeokgung's main hall Injeongjeon and the 1914 Daimler parked nearby in the royal garage mark about the furthest the House of Yi brought itself and Korea into the 20th century before imperial Japan made sure both ceased to exist.
For decades, South Korea's authoritarian leaders -- obsessed with economic growth, security and legitimacy -- let the palatial remnants of Joseon gather dust. They saw nothing incongruous with having Buddhist steles and the Japanese Government-General headquarters sitting on the grounds of the main palace; all of those things from Korea's past belonged together.
It didn't matter that Joseon kings had set up a deeply Confucian state and banished temples and monks from their new capital in Seoul. Also overlooked was how Japan built its colonial headquarters right in front of Gyeongbokgung's throne hall, relocating the palace's imposing main gate Gwanghawmun so all could see the majesty of their five-story iron-domed structure. To make an even bigger impression, when viewed from above, it looked as if Japan's new emperor Hirohito himself had stamped Korea with a big seal marked “日” (il) to show the peninsula was now a part of Ilbon, the Land of the Rising Sun.
To be fair to the string of generals-turned-presidents that ruled South Korea from 1961 to 1993, the country could not afford to waste a perfectly good building or fund major reconstruction for historical sites. Besides, some argued, all aspects of Korea's past should be preserved, including symbols of subjugation.
But today there is a strong consensus that confirming Korea's unique national character is desirable, affordable and a sound investment. For over a decade public and private organizations have been working together on major projects to restore Korea's heritage and dignity. In the late 90s, the Kim Young-sam administration demolished the old Government-General Building and Hyundai Motor bankrolled a large part of the Cultural Heritage Administration's work to restore Emperor Sunjong's 1919 Cadillac and Empress Sunjeong's Daimler.
National and local governments are out to make historic sites as authentic as possible, bringing them back to life through reenactments of court ceremonies and concerts by performers in period-perfect Hanbok. The best example of Joseon's reversal of fortune is seen on the grounds of its main palace.
Gyeongbokgung has been destroyed numerous times since King Taejo, the dynasty's founder, oversaw its construction in 1395. Still, the royal Yi clan kept rebuilding until 1895 when Japanese assassins -- sent by agents of their government -- infiltrated the palace and hacked Korea's Queen Myeongsung to death. Japan formally annexed Korea in 1910, and many palace structures were torn down or cannibalized by craftsman to build up the edifices of the more modest Changdeokgung where the royal family now stayed about 700 meters to the east.
Even after liberation in 1945, Gyeongbukgung continued to be carved up. In a microcosm of the rift between North and South, the grounds of the palace were split and militarized. In 1968, North Korean commandos fought their way to Cheong Wa Dae, the South Korean president's residence behind the palace. After this assassination attempt, the northern grounds were sealed off and made into a small army base, Choi Byoung-Sun, the palace's general director, explained.
In the late 70s, Korea's takeoff was strong enough to finance construction of the ostentatious pagoda-adorned National Museum (now the National Folk Museum of Korea) and a parking lot on the eastern side of the grounds.
The late President Park Chung Hee brought Gwanghwamun back to the front of the palace in 1968 but centered it against the façade of the old colonial capitol for maximum concealment. This placement, Choi, pointed out, left the gate facing Namsan and the former site of the Japanese imperial shrine. Completed in 1925, Chosen-Jingu was the first Shinto shrine in a Japanese colony to honor Emperor Meiji and was intended to create a sense of shared heritage, according to Koji Suga, a religious studies professor at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo.
Gyeongbokgung's location and orientation had been set by the ancient Chinese art of feng shui (pung su in Korean). The theories, observed Kang Minsoo, mirrored the way acupuncture views “the body as a vessel through which gi (vital energy) flows, animating the corporeal mass.” In 1998 as a graduate student of history, he wrote, “Applied to the natural environment, gi moves through the living organism of the earth by means of wind, water, and mountain ranges. When it flows in a harmonious and regular manner, the weather is mild and good for farming … When it is blocked or dissipated by an alteration in the landscape, a structure erected in the wrong place for example, the weather turns nasty” and disasters occur constantly.
The Government-General's headquarters in 1995 where it sat between Geunjeongmun (foreground) and Gwanghwamun.
Citing ancient theories, geomancers aligned Gyeongbokgung on an axis running between the peaks of Bukhansan and Gwanaksan for ultimate energy absorption. This flow of gi was taken so seriously, Kang reported, that rumors spread during and after colonization that Japanese imperial forces had driven iron stakes into points along Korea's mountain chains and even under the Government-General Building, like a sadistic acupuncture doctor sticking needles in points calculated to do the most harm.
A Gyeongbokgung spokesperson found no record of spikes pulled from the grounds, but she did say placement of the colonial headquarters over the stream which once flowed in front of the palace and the slicing up of the grounds with disparate roads at inauspicious angles were clear assaults on the palace's life force.
With a growing acceptance of the need to put things right -- albeit for national prestige as much as good pung su -- in early 2007 the public backed destruction of the 1968 incarnation of Gwanghwamun, so that virtually the same structure, sans concrete, could be rebuilt a few meters away and rotated 5.6 degrees clockwise to face Gwanaksan once more.
Yun Han Jeoung, project manager for the palace's renovation, has had no problem finding craftsmen to build authentic Joseon structures: “Even during the Japanese occupation, there were always enough temples or other traditional buildings going up around the country to keep the centuries-old techniques alive.” He said the 19-year, 170 billion-won plan to restore 129 of the original 330 structures, including Gwanghwamun, will be at least 80 percent complete by the 2009 deadline. Any of those 129 left unfinished will be incorporated into the next phase set to begin in 2010.
This October, the last section of the restored grounds will open to the public. The symbolically rich Geoncheongung was a private residence built for the king and queen's relaxation. Ironically, it is in the section once occupied by the ROK Army and contains the spot where the Japanese trapped and killed Queen Myeongsung.
“If you go to (Gyeongbokgung) expecting to see a series of sprawling, multistoried mansions and lofty fortifications in the European manner, you may be puzzled,” wrote Kang. “In a hilly country like Korea, where flat land is precious, the most conspicuous way of exhibiting power was to occupy a great tract of open space and turn it into a place of secrets. So in imagining the grandiosity of the palace in its heyday, you must keep the horizontal plane rather than the vertical in mind. The palace … was a true labyrinth of dizzying complexity, one through which hundreds of slaves, servants, courtesans, entertainers, soldiers, eunuchs, scholars, generals, ministers, and royalty scurried in service or in pursuit of power.”
The descendants of those subjugated by this secret world have resuscitated the national spirit and are once again rebuilding Gyeongbokgung -- this time by free will, on their terms, with the doors thrown open for the world to see and enjoy.
By David Kendall and Ro Ji-woong,
Korea.net staff writers
---------------------------------
Kang Minsoo's full essay “Gyungbokgung Palace: History, Controversy, Geomancy” can be found at http:www.gkn-la.net/history_resources/gyunbok_palace_mskang.htm. The story is also part of his book “Of Tales and Enigmas.” He is currently a professor of history at the University of Missouri - St. Louis.
