If Korea’s Yangban and Freedom Fighters had grasped the power of music in the early 20C, how different would modern Korea have become. Actually, the same is true today.
On April 14th, Wagwak performed at Kahoidong for Loose Union, a new independent record label in Seoul. Loose Union will release a video made with Aweh TV in late Spring.
David Kilburn
16th April 2012
Traditional Rituals at Samgaksan
. . . overshadowed by illegal construction work
Many of Korea’s mountains are regarded as sacred sites and home to traditional mountain gods that play an important role in Shamanisn, the country’s “native” religion that still plays an important role in the traditions, rituals, and beliefs of modern Korea.
Korea is home to some of the world’s most beautiful and accessible mountain scenery. On many mountains it is still customary to hold rituals acknowledging nd honouring the “spirits” they embody. One such is Sangaksan, an extraordinary mountain at Seoul’s northern edge where rituals are help in the third lunar month.
This year, the rituals were overshadowed by an illegal construction site. Two enormous apartment blocks are under construction close by the altar to the gods. These were sanctioned by the administration of the previous mayor of Seoul, Oh See Hoon, but work has been halted by the current mayor Park Won-Soon. Generally, illegal construction work is regarded as a fait accompli and only a small fine is levied before the work is given a permit to continue (Many of the hanoks of Gahoe-dong were destroyed in this manner). How this particular story unfolds remains to be seen, since the current Mayor has also called a halt to the indiscriminate redevelopment of the city.
David Kilburn
12 April 2012
A Mud Walled Hanok near Taegeuksa
It is most unusual to see surviving mud-walled hanok today. Yet in a small farming village near Taegeuk-sa Temple we encountered one now being used as an outbuilding for a more modern farmhouse nearby. Note the blue corrugated roof, a relic from the Park Chung-Hee era when these replaced the traditional thatched roofs on most rural buildings when tiles could not be afforded.
David Kilburn
8 April 2012
An interesting article in the Dong-a Ilbo (More expats living in traditional hanok homes in Seoul) on April 2nd reports that “foreigners” are increasingly interested in living in hanoks and either buying them outright or renting them, sometimes sharing among friends. All the transactions noted by the newspaper appear to be in Bukchon, where the last – but declining – groups of hanoks are still to be found. The prices reported are at least ten times those that prevailed just over a decade ago, delivering a handsome profit to the speculators who now own the many of those on the market,
“Gahoe-dong and Samcheong-dong, the two neighborhoods in central Seoul where hanoks are concentrated, have grown into a major venue for foreign tourists and a popular residential area among expats in Seoul. Some have moved into hanoks there while others are staying at hanok guesthouses to experience the traditional Korean lifestyle. This is because of the unique dwelling environment that hanoks offer, especially the inclusion of family and nature under a single roof.”
“According to Seoul`s Jongno district Sunday, a combined 318 expats lived in Gahoe-dong and Samcheong-dong as of March, with 20-30 percent living in hanoks. French and American workers were the most numerous, having bought hanoks ranging in price from 40 million (35,335 U.S. dollars) to 50 million won (44,169 dollars) per 3.3 square meters.”
“According to the hanok culture department of the Seoul Metropolitan Government, seven non-nationals owned hanoks in the two neighborhoods.”
“A real estate agency in Gahoe-dong said, “A French man in his 50s sold a hanok for 900 million won (795,053 dollars) to move to a bigger hanok worth more than 2 billion won (1.77 million dollars). In other cases, three to four foreigners rent one hanok to share rooms.”
Now that Koreans have voted to live in Stalinist apartment blocks and shed nearly all pretense at trying to preserve those hanoks that remain in Seoul, the last chance for hanoks to survive may prove to be the small but growing expatriate population.
David Kilburn
8th April 2012
Photographs from the DPRK usually deal with the leadership or the sterile landscape of Pyongyang. However, an English photographer friend, Jeremy Hunter (http://www.jeremyhunter.com/), recently returned with some interesting pictures from Kaesong. These raise an interesting thought – maybe the hanoks of North have survived better than those in the South.
David Kilburn
March 1st 2012
Nokha is an anagram of Hanok
The first event of 2012 at Kahoidong will be the inaugural performance of Nokha, an innovative music concert created especially for the hanok by the Korean composer Jee Soo Shin (신지수). This will take place on April 21st at 7:00 pm. You can read more about it at the Nokha website, http://www.nokha.org.
All this came about when I attended a meeting of the Korean Artists Association in London last November. At this meeting, Ms. Shin made a presentation about her work during which she talked about her interest in the interaction of music, architecture, and people. Later, I asked her if she would be interested in composing some music especially for a hanok. And so the plans for Nokha were born!
David Kilburn
22 January 2012
During 2011, the most frequently visited pages in www.kahoidong.com were
As a group, the most popular pages were those about the Bukchon Plan.
Meanwhile, on Youtube, the ten most popular videos were:
David Kilburn
3rd January 2012
Top 10 countries for 2011 Visitors to kahoidong.com
There were 7,676 visitors to kahoidong.com during 2011, from 102 different countries. While Korea, not surprisingly, was home to most visitors – 57.7%, but that share was down from 75% some five years ago. There are no directly comparable statistics for Hanok Eyes yet. However, as the next chart shows, relatively more of the blog’s readers come from outside Korea quite likely because Hanok Eyes is only published in English.
Visitors to Hanok Eyes, 6 months to Jan 3rd 2012
David Kilburn
January 3rd 2012
Frequency of the word "hanok" in Google Books
An incidental service from Google’s project to digitize the world’s books is that the accumulated data allows you to see how frequently particular words hav appeared in print over the past 500 years in the 5 million books that have been digitized so far.
The word “hanok” does not occur before the 1950′s and then heads for a steep upward trajectory. Though the ascent is impressive, at the highest point the word only had a frequency of 0.00000024%!
However, the word “hanok” does not always refer to a traditional Korean house, but that is more of a problem for “Hanok” which is often a proper noun and occurs in people’s names (for example, it is an alternative spelling of “Enoch”). Despite this caveat it does seem that interest in one of East Asia’s original approaches to designing homes is on the rise.
David Kilburn
November 27th 2011
Andong Hahoe Village, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site last year, and since then has seen numerous visitors. The village, however, is struggling to maintain its traditional way of life with the rise in tourists
This article by Do Je-hae in the October 18th issue of the Korea Times raises the possibility of a new threat to the survival of traditional hanos from the pressures and stress that mass tourism can create.
Pondering future of traditional ‘hanok’ villages
Can preservation and successful tourism co-exist in famous traditional villages?
This was the main topic of discussion among architecture scholars and experts at a recent policy forum organized by the Architecture and Urban Research Institute (AURI).
Since being named UNESCO World Heritage Sites last year, two villages known for traditional-style Korean houses, or “hanok,” have been swamped with tourists.
Hahoe and Yandong villages, both located in the southern part of the country, are searching for ways to cope with their new status as a major tourism export while maintaining their traditional way of life.
“More people are taking an interest in hanok villages and the benefits of living in traditional houses,” said Sohn Sae-gwan, president of AURI at a forum held Tuesday at Seoul Museum of History in central Seoul. According to the latest government survey, around 40 percent of the respondents said that they were interested in living in hanok.
October is the season of school field trips and tour buses bring in huge tourist crowds, hampering the lives of residents.
“But there have not been sufficient policy measures to deal with the influx of tourists to traditional hanok villages,” Sohn said.
For such villages, tourism is not an option since they need new growth engines besides agriculture. Many residents are aged or leaving to find livelihoods elsewhere.
“The dilemma is that besides being tourist sites, these places are actually inhabited by people who wish to continue their traditional way of life and preserve their environment,” said professor Kim Bong-yeol of Korean National University of the Arts.
The two folk villages where noble clans of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910) lived were added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List in recognition of their Confucian cultural characteristics.
One of the most well-known clan villages in Korea, the Andong Hahoe Village has been inhabited by members of the Ryu clan of Pungsan for hundreds of years. Nestled along the bends of the Nakdong River, the village is currently home to 120 families and features many cultural assets, including important houses and other national treasures. Yangdong is a clan village that has been home to the Gyeongju Son family for more than five centuries.
The World Heritage Committee, in inscribing them on the list, described the villages as reflecting “the distinctive aristocratic Confucian culture” of the times. “The landscapes of mountains, trees and water around the village, framed in views from pavilions and retreats, were celebrated for their beauty by 17th and 18th century poets,” it said.
There are about 170 such villages that receive government funds for preservation across the country.
“I spoke with South Jeolla Governor Park June-young on the phone after a column I contributed to the Gwangju Ilbo and he urged the central government to pay more policy attention to the preservation of hanok villages,” Yoo Byung-kwon, a director-general at the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said.
“While there has been no visible outcome yet, the government has initiated research projects on hanok. We are also planning to nurture more experts in the area.” Yoo added.
AURI was established by the government last year to conduct a more systematic research on the preservation and future of hanok. The institute will hold a follow-up forum on Nov. 24, centering on the industrial aspect of hanok.
The problems cited in the article are one of the major hazards of mass tourism especially for old/ancient sites everywhere. “UNESCO World Heritage” status can be both a blessing and a curse! The footfalls of a typical tourist season can surpass those of 500 years or more ordinary life and create enormous stress on old structures and also their communities. I recall once visiting an old mountain village in Provence where every single house had turned its front rooms into a souvenir shop or coffee bar. It takes a lot of planning and infrastructure management to handle all this (where, for instance, are the extra thousands visitors going to go to the toilet, for instance). All this has been discussed in journals and conferences for many years and it is surprising (or perhaps not) that Korea did not heed the early warnings.
David Kilburn
20th October 2011