People sometimes take a jaundiced view of Korea’s estimation of the importance of its cultural heritage. In the case of the Sacred Bell of King Seongdeok, however, it was foreigner, Dr. Otto Kummel, a director at the National Museum of Germany, who suggested that the museum’s description of the bell as ‘the best in Korea’, … [Read More]
Heritage Category: National Treasure (page 2)
Haeinsa celebrates 1,000 years of the Tripitaka Koreana
Haeinsa Temple is hosting its first contemporary art exhibition, involving 34 artists from 10 countries, to commemorate the millennial anniversary of the Tripitaka Koreana, which UNESCO has designated one of the “most important and most complete corpus of Buddhist doctrinal texts in the world.” The exhibition’s title — 通 | 통 | Tong — uses … [Read More]
Historical Korean portraiture on show at two Seoul museums
Interesting feature on two exhibitions of Korean portraiture, including a 1617 portrait of “the first Korean in Europe” http://t.co/lVN629Bx, also http://bit.ly/r9fy9g [Read More]
Rediscovering the Lost Kingdom of Baekje
History, according to the saying, is written by the victors. The unification of the three kingdoms of Korea under Silla in 668 AD solved the problem of constant war in the peninsula, but created a significant problem for modern day historians, in that very little of the culture and heritage of Baekje (BC 18~AD 660) … [Read More]
The Changdeokgung’s Injeong Hall – Welcome to the Rock Show!
When I visited Changdeok Palace in Seoul, my attention was naturally focussed mainly on the buildings themselves. One of these buildings is the Injeong Hall (Injeongjeon), which was used for important celebrations and ceremonies. The unassuming forecourt one walks through to enter the hall was been designed with great care, but for the unsuspecting observer … [Read More]
New Korean heritage listings at UNESCO
The Archives of the Gwangju uprising, plus the Ilseongnok (account of Joseon kings’ daily lives) have just been listed in UNESCO Memory of the World http://bit.ly/lJNKdY # The Ilseongnok is designated as National Treasure No.153 [Read More]
2011 Travel Diary day 2: the Changdeokgung and Biwon
Seoul, Sunday 1 May 2011. In previous years I had been foiled in my attempts to get to see the famous Secret Garden behind the UNESCO-listed Changdeok Palace. Either there were building works going on, or access was only via guided tour and I had missed my slot, or some other obstacle was put in … [Read More]
Tripitaka Koreana is a copy, but an improvement on the original
Interesting article on the Tripitaka Koreana – an early example of Korean improvement on foreign intellectual property. http://bit.ly/fjShBC # [Read More]
2010 Travel Diary #30: Daewonsa – early morning prayers and sutra painting
Friday 7 May. I wake up at 3 o’clock. My body seems to be ready for early morning prayers even though I hadn’t signed up for them. I wanted to hear those moktaks and chants again, so I crawl into my clothes and stumble out to the main temple courtyard to wait for the prayers … [Read More]
2010 Travel Diary #8: The Jongmyo Rituals Part 2
Sunday 2 May 2010. As we file out from the shrine after the first ceremony of the day, we mingle with the butlers who are off to have a quick breather and cigarette before the next ceremony. Already the queues are forming to get into the main shrine for the headline event at 1pm. No … [Read More]
2010 Travel Diary #7: The Jongmyo Rituals, part 1
Sunday 2 May 2010. I found it really quite hard to find accessible information online in respect of the Jongmyo rituals. Often, on the UNESCO site, there is documentation which sets out why the submitting country thinks that this particular intangible cultural property is worthy of inscription on the international list. But no such information … [Read More]
The LKL Korea Trip 2009 pt 6: Haeinsa
Monday 20 July 2009 The trip to Haeinsa is via Daegu. A quick tube journey to the inappropriately named Busan Central Bus Terminal – at the northernmost extremity of the Busan public transport system (Nopodong), and then the express bus to East Daegu station takes nearly two hours. Another tube to the Seobu bus terminal … [Read More]
The LKL Korea Trip 2009 pt 5: Bulguksa and Seokkuram
Sunday 19 July 2009 More World Heritage points today. The Samgyeopsal from last night is still sitting heavily on my stomach and I don’t feel like breakfast. The 9 am KTX from Seoul Station, and the connecting train from East Daegu, went without a hitch, and bang on time. Just before I arrive in Gyeongju … [Read More]
The LKL Korea Trip 2009 pt 2: Suwon and Prince Sado’s tomb
Thursday 16 July Today the plan is to get a few UNESCO world heritage points: the Hwaseong Fortress at Suwon, followed maybe by the nearby folk village. From my base in Insadong, a one-hour tube journey direct from Jonggak station on Line 1 takes me to Suwon, armed with my guide books. A moment of … [Read More]
Making History Part 2 – Diaries of the Royal Secretariat
By Matthew Jackson After the invasion of Kanghwa Island in 1886, a French navy officer remarked that he was surprised to find that even the poorest Koreans he met lived in companionship with books. There was a strong culture of writing as well as reading in Korea, particularly following the adoption of Hangul. It was … [Read More]
Making History: Part 1 – The Sillok
In the first of three articles, Matthew Jackson looks at the ways that the official history of the Joseon dynasty was written. At most Korean events I have been to, there has generally been a Korean studiously taking photographs throughout, for reasons that were not immediately obvious to me. I once asked, and was told … [Read More]