Sense of History in Gyeongju

Pre-20th century Korean history, at least as I've seen it represented in Korean dramas and museums, seems to represent for many Koreans a time of glory, a time when Korea was unconquered and bold and at a cultural high. In the dramas I have seen depicted over and over in highly positive ways values of reverence for nature, service to country, fierce loyalty to a superior, deep ties to family ancestry and descendents, lifelong friendships, love of art and architecture and the spiritual and physical properties of food and drink, clearly defined social roles, physical prowess for men and soft poise for women, carefully enacted rituals, the nobility of sacrifice, and so on. Even in Seoul, and all around, the preserved and restored palaces and temples and traditional villages and houses and historical reenactments in traditional costume seem revered and loved.

So I wanted to visit Gyeongju. This historic city is known as the "museum without walls," and many Koreans told me I should visit it. It seems most Koreans I talked to had been there, even if it was long ago on a school field trip. In Gyeongju there are numerous temples, tombs, monuments and the like dating from the time Gyeongju was the capital of the Shilla Kingdom, which for a time during the 7th-9th centuries AD ruled much of southern Korea.

And so we went and saw lots of things like these large numbers of ancient royal tombs:

And this particularly famous and revered Buddhist temple, Bulguksa (now on the UNESCO World Heritage List):

I now see why most of the pictures of Bulguksa you see in the tourist brochures are taken from the left side. Anyway, if you would like to see some really nice pictures of Bulguksa without a dominating sign that says "TOILET," just google it!

And these turn out to be the only pictures I took in Gyeongju. But maybe that's appropriate. Of course, not being Korean, I don't know what it really feels like, but there must be a sense of enormous separation between that history and life today. Unlike American history, where today's government is still a continuation of that formed at the beginning of its national history, this seems, in practice if not in feeling, a broken and abandoned history, remembered nostalgically, imagined, mourned perhaps, but left behind, with little that seems applicable to today's world.

But I'm a foreigner looking in. I appreciate the professionals who restore the buildings and take the beautiful pictures and perform the traditional arts and wear the traditional costumes and create these historical scenes and provide a glimpse of what life was like back then. And I'll continue to watch the dramas and enjoy spending some time imagining life in this ancient Korean world.

For a really nice article on the sights of Gyeongju, see SJCC's own Charles Montgomery's article, printed in 10 Magazine - an English-language magazine published in Korea. You'll notice that Charles took his picture of Bulguksa from the left.