Rediscovering charm of hanok

On my last trip to Korea I attended a sijo conference held at a hanok, a traditional Korean house, in Changnyeong, a rural center south of Daegu. The hanok complex had a conference center, a three-room complex, — wait for it — built underground so as to not destroy the ambiance of the old hanok architecture. It was breath-taking — both the old houses above ground and the underground conference rooms!

First of all, the hanok complex was the nicest I’ve seen. I don’t know that I’ve seen all the hanok complexes that have survived, but I’ve seen many of them. In fact, on seven occasions, I hosted summer school sessions with 10 or 15 of my students from America, where we lived in a hanok village for seven weeks — half of a semester. My first hanok summer school was held in the village of Yangdong, now a UNESCO world heritage site. That was in 1999, before hanok experiences were popular. We found hanok cool long before the crowd caught on.

I have had students and my family staying in hanok in Yangdong as part of programs with Yeongnam University in Gimhae and with Inje University for a total of seven different summers from 1999 to 2013. The hanok experience may be a response to the temple stay offered at some Buddhist temples — a kind of Confucian alternative. Many of today’s hanok experiences are associated with villages that have a Confucian shrine in the back of the complex, or are located at or near a Confucian seowon, or academy.

I’ve seen a number of hanok, or what is sometimes called “gotaek,” meaning old houses. Those are usually associated with a prominent person who once lived there. The “Seong-ssi gotaek” or old house of the Seong lineage where we held our sijo conference in Changnyeong this time is not where the most famous man named Seong lived. That would be Seong Sammun, who lived in the 16th century, one of the famous six martyrs who lost their lives defending the boy king, Danjong. This event scarred the Joseon dynasty for the remainder of its reign — it divided the aristocracy into those who supported Danjong and lost their lives, and those who supported the usurper Sejo.

This event damaged the legacy of the magnificent King Sejong. For it was his son, Sejo, who took the throne from Sejong’s grandson. Sejong’s first son, Munjong died after two years on the throne, leaving the throne to his son, Danjong, who was only 14 years old. The young king had his advisors, Seong Sammun among them. When Sejo took over, he killed many of Danjong’s advisors, but singled out six of them for execution. They are now known to history as the “sayukshin” — literally, the six dead officials or the six martyrs. This was in contrast to the “saengyukshin,” the six living officials who survived but left the capital, choosing isolation and poverty rather than supporting Sejo.

The best-known of martyrs was Seong Sammun. And one reason for his fame is that on the way to his execution, he wrote a death poem. It goes:

The beating of the drum calls for a life.

As I look to the west, the sun wants to set.

There is no inn on the road to hell.

At whose home will I rest my head tonight?

An obviously dark poem, but laced with bleak humor, for his head was about to be severed from his body.

The beautiful setting of the Seong estate in Changnyeong was not a place that Seong Sammun ever knew. But visiting made me think of Seong Sammun and his death poem. The hanok complex is the finest I’ve seen; it is expansive and well-kept. A careful observer can see that the buildings on one edge of the complex are new, but built in the gracious style of the rest of the complex. There is a glass covering for a stairway leading underground.

When you go down the stairs, you are overwhelmed with the beauty of a fully modern conference center with two main assembly rooms, and a large and elegant side room that is a library with shelves from floor to ceiling. It has modern books on two walls, and traditional books that lay in flat stacks on the third wall. It is truly elegant.

The size and modern appearance of the conference center underground is surprising, and one cannot help but be impressed with the planning and construction of a center that allows for seminars and conferences in the comfort of the modern world without destroying the atmosphere of the old hanok setting. Participants stay overnight, sleeping on the floor in the hanok above, and then meet in the ultra-modern conference rooms. It was breathtaking to behold, and I truly appreciated this innovative way to honor the hanok of the past.

Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is associate professor of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.