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| An aerial photo of Namsangol Hanok Village in downtown Seoul, which reopens online on April 5 and to visitors on April 8 / Courtesy of the Seoul Metropolitan Government |
Seoul City resumes operating Namsangol Hanok Village this week
By Ko Dong-hwan
Namsangol Hanok Village, a heritage spot preserving traditional Korean architecture built with wood and ceramic roof tiles, is reopening to visitors online on April 5 and offline on April 8 at its location on the foot of Mount Nam in downtown Seoul.
The village's YouTube channel offers glimpses behind its walls with guides giving helpful background information on the different types of hanok there. Seoul Metropolitan Government, which manages the village, suggests checking out those videos prior to visiting the village to have a better time when actually visiting the site.
To get the tour vibe going further from a one-person perspective in a cyber version, the village is also available on ZEPETO, a portal for various metaverses. Users can create their own avatars and look around at what the village's metaverse has to offer. The city government said the Namsangol metaverse will later introduce various games and events linked to the village's actual programs for visitors.
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| Inside a hanok for high-ranking royal palace officials of the Joseon Dynasty / Courtesy of the Seoul Metropolitan Government |
One of the few heritage sites in Seoul that has been well preserved, Namsangol Hanok Village offers a variety of houses preserving the spaces inhabited by people of different social classes during the 1392-1910 Joseon Dynasty. Designated as folklore cultural treasures of the city, the houses include ones built and lived in by a head carpenter, a military general, the father-in-law of Emperor Sunjong (reigned 1907-10) and the uncle of King Sunjong's empress.
"Those houses show us how Hanyang's high-ranking royal palace officials lived in their private spaces," the city government said, referring to Seoul by its former Joseon Dynasty name.
But Namsangol isn't just a "taxidermy" of hanok with traditional furniture and everyday objects, according to the city government: it aims to be a place where visitors can relive the era.
Those interested in living Joseon era history can simply join the variety of many on-site visitors' programs. Festivals are held on Korean traditional holidays like the Lunar New Year, the advent of spring ("ipchun" in Korean), the first full moon day of the lunar new year ("Jeongweol Daeboreum"), winter solstice ("dongji") and Chuseok, in which traditional folklore plays and other customs are demonstrated.
Other programs introduce some modern flavors to create one-of-a-kind cultural experiences. Visitors can weather the summer heat by chilling inside a hanok, check out a "house museum" for an exhibition event and enjoy various music performances staged around the village. The city government this year has come up with the "Namsangol art lab" program, in which rising local artists will jointly showcase various ideas that incorporate traditions and hanok architecture.
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| A "jultagi" performer walks across a rope during a Chuseok event at Namsangol Hanok Village. Courtesy of the Seoul Metropolitan Government |
With Korea's public health authorities gradually easing social distancing measures, the city government has also reopened a hanbok rental service for Namsangol visitors and a self-photoshoot studio for families with toddlers reaching their first birthdays.
A new addition this year is a program of do-it-yourself (DIY) experimental plays. They include an art kit for users to paint Namsangol in watercolor, kits for making hand mirrors and bookmarks out of hanji (traditional handmade paper made with the inner bark of mulberry), making magnets and folklore paints using mother-of-pearl and cooking red pepper paste, candy and traditional teas.
The DIY programs also include building a miniature hanok scaled at one-30th the size of a real one, learning about a Korean bow and how to make it and making soap with different colors using natural ingredient-based powders. These programs started in 2020 and became popular for local schools, according to the city government.
The DIY programs are also available online, with the kits being available for purchase through Naver, the country's biggest online search engine.
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| Children throw rings made with woven rice stalks during a traditional Korean folklore game inside Namsangol Hanok Village. Courtesy of the Seoul Metropolitan Government |
Created by dark history
The site of Namsangol, before becoming a tourist and cultural heritage hotspot, was a place bearing dark traces left by the 1910-45 Japanese occupation of Korea. Mount Nam, from which the village gets its name, had been a gathering place during the Joseon Dynasty for scholars who also loved the mountain's natural landscape. The scenery was so beautiful it was believed to be worthy of being a playground for the gods.
But the geography of the mountain started to become claimed by contested landmarks following the start of Japan's 35-year colonial occupation in 1910. The mountain saw various Japanese shrines built on it, including Joseon Shrine, the most important Shinto shrine for Japanese occupation forces in Korea, as it represented the spirit of the dominating colonial Japanese empire. A temporary residence for the governor-general of the Japanese occupation forces was also built on the mountain, which was followed by making the mountain a primary stationing ground for the Japanese military police. The opposite side of the mountain became a huge military site used to garrison Japanese troops, Yongsan Garrison.
Even after liberation in 1945, the military site only changed hands to house the United States military as Garrison Yongsan. Following the Korean War, the 1963-79 Park Chung-hee regime set up the Capital Defense Command on the mountain, and a site close to the present-day hanok village was used to detain and torture suspected political dissidents.
It was the city government that tried to replace some of the vestiges of this dark history decades later with Joseon era culture. The initiative, under the slogan "bringing Namsangol back to its original state," came to the conclusion that a hanok village should be recreated at the foot of the mountain. The government relocated some of the remaining hanoks in the city to the current location of Namsangol to make way for urban development. Following the relocation project, the city opened Namsangol Hanok Village to the public in 1998.
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