National Museum of Korea

Still in Seoul, I spent the better part of the morning, and a bit more, in the National Museum of Korea. For definitional purposes, I should add that “the better part of a morning” is the part that’s not particularly early.

The National Museum of Korea edifice is striking. There are two buildings. One of them contains all of the permanent collection. I didn’t go into the other one, but according to the signage, the other building contains another temporary exhibit gallery, a children’s museum, and a theatre. The two buildings are joined by what looks like a windowless walkway suspended perhaps three storeys in the air.

The open space under the raised walkway perfectly frames Namsan (South Mountain) and its tower in the near background. I visited Namsan on my first morning in Seoul.

The interior of the building that houses the permanent collection is also stunning. A stylish atrium runs down the middle of the full length of the building. A glass ceiling lets in lots of natural light.

Entrance to the permanent collections of the National Museum of Korea is free for everyone—infants, ancients, and every age in between.

National Museum of Korea Highlights Tour

Almost immediately after getting past security (just a metal detector if you don’t have a bag) and entering the exhibition area, I was confronted with a sign listing times for free highlight tours of the National Museum of Korea. The first one in English was at 10:30. I looked at my watch. It was 10:27.

I made a supreme sacrifice. I waited for the three minutes and went on the tour.

I don’t think I heard correctly the name of the docent who led the tour, which, unfortunately, isn’t as much of a problem as it would have been for reporting purposes here if I remembered what I thought I heard. I don’t.

So, with apologies to him, I’ll refer to him as just “the docent” herein.

Before leading us out, the docent told us that his highlight tour of the National Museum of Korea would last about 90 minutes.

A highlight tour that lasts 90 minutes? If the museum offers an in-depth tour, I’ll be sure to bring a sleeping bag should I go on it.

In fact, the tour lasted about 75, not 90 minutes. I considered asking for a prorated refund, but that seemed pointless, seeing as though the museum and the tour were free.

The docent’s English vocabulary was excellent. His English grammar was very good, although some of his sentences were somewhat stilted. And his pronunciation was good as well, but I get the sense that he wasn’t as confident as he should have been about his pronunciation.

Frequently, when he said a word that he thought we might not have heard correctly the word he was trying to say, he would pause and ask, “Do you know what I mean by ______?” Then, if it was a short word, like “tree” (an actual example), he’d spell it “T-R-E-E” to make sure we knew what he was saying. When it was a longer word, he sometimes provided a synonym to give us a better chance of getting at least one of them.

The thing is, almost every single time, I knew exactly what he said the first time. He was a very nice man who was very considerate of his guests.

The docent started by telling us that Korea (South Koreans call their country Korea, not South Korea) has a culture that includes four major religions. In order of founding: Shamanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Christianity. (However, he said, Confucianism is not a religion, but a philosophy and a way of living.) He told us that he would take us to see artifacts related to the first three, but Christianity came to Korea much later and wasn’t represented in the National Museum of Korea, or at least not in what he would show us.

But before that, he took us to displays on what he called Korea’s two prides.

The first was an exhibit on the Korean alphabet, Hangul. According to the docent, in part with my memory aided by the internet*, the alphabet was invented in the 15th century by King Sejong. Before then, Koreans used Chinese pictographic characters. Because that involves so many characters and is so hard to learn, most Koreans were illiterate. King Sejong wanted to correct that.

(* In subsequent narrative in this post, my memory will also be aided by pictures I took of placards beside the items the docent showed us.)

The alphabet he invented has five basic consonants. The characters for them show the shape of the primary vocal organ—tongue, lips, teeth, or vocal cords—that makes that sound when vocalizing it. There are also nine additional consonants, the characters for which are compounds of the five basic consonants. There are 10 vowels. I forgot how their characters were formed.

So there are 24 Korean characters in total, compared to goodness knows how many Chinese pictogram characters. According to the docent, each letter is pronounced identically every time, regardless of the context. This contrasts with English, where, say, “G” can be pronounced as a hard g, such as in gift, gorilla, girl, or GIF. Or it can be pronounced as a soft g, such as in giraffe, gentle, gerrymander, or GIF. (I still don’t know if GIF is pronounced with a hard or soft g.)

The small, finite number of letters compared to Chinese characters, and the consistency of the pronunciation of the letters, meant that Koreans, who obviously could already speak the language, could learn the written language very quickly—generally a matter of a few weeks. As a result, Korea went from a country with a very high illiteracy rate to one with a very high literacy rate very rapidly after King Sejong introduced the alphabet.

The second Korean pride he took us to see was a piece of movable metal type. He claimed that Korea was the first country to make movable metal type (although not the first to make wood type). Two pieces of movable metal type were discovered in an ancient tomb. Nobody can precisely date those pieces of type, but a book that was printed with them was also found. An inscription in the book said it was published in 1377, so the type must date from at least then, if not before.

Because the type piece pre-dated the invention of Hangul, it’s a Chinese pictographic character.

The book is now in the collection of the National Library of France. The two pieces of metal type aren’t. One was sitting in front of me, on the other side of glass and a permanently positioned magnifying glass. The other one is in North Korea.

After that, he took us to see one of the National Museum of Korea’s treasures, a crown from the fifth century. The docent said it was a product of a Shamanist society. The crown is made of one kilogram of pure gold, with jade ornaments.

After that, it was on to a pagoda. It’s a huge, ten-tier stone pagoda that sits in the tall atrium. It’s far too tall to sit anywhere else in the museum. According to the docent, unlike in Japan and China, Korean pagodas are usually made of stone. He said that most Korean pagodas are made of granite, but this one is unusual in that it’s made of marble.

The docent said that when the French invaded Korea in the late 19th century, I forget if it was a general or political figure, saw the pagoda, loved it, and, overnight, had it disassembled and shipped to France. (The pagoda was never made from a single stone. It has always been 100 pieces that were assembled into the pagoda.)

Two intrepid journalists from I forget which countries who learned about the theft got on the case and embarrassed the French government into returning the pagoda fairly quickly. And now it sits in the National Museum of Korea. Score one for journalism.

The majority of the pagoda’s components are original, but it has a few new replacement pieces for parts that were broken in transit.

The docent then took us to look at a mock-up of a room in a Confucian home. The walls were pure white with no decorations. The furnishings—mostly small cabinets—were wood with few decorations.

The docent explained that Confucianism values clean simplicity as a philosophical aesthetic.

He also explained why traditional Confucian homes, even in the upper class, don’t have couches, beds, or dining room tables. Everything is done on the floor—sitting, eating, and sleeping. Even centuries ago, including in the palaces I visited on this trip, buildings used underfloor heating. Centuries ago, there were wood-burning furnaces under the floors of buildings. Air ducts under the floors circulated the hot air, heating the rooms. Chimneys at the end of the air ducts vented the smoke.

So people sat, ate, and slept on the floors to stay warmer. Hence, centuries ago, most buildings were only one storey tall. Even today, heating in Korea is generally under-the-floor, even in high-rises. However, today, rather than air ducts, boilers heat water that circulates through under-floor pipes to heat the rooms.

The docent said that he was in his seventies, but when he was a boy, there were no trees on the mountains. Back then, boilers were all wood-fired. People went and chopped down the trees for fuel.

Wood is no longer used for that purpose in South Korea. The boilers were all converted to oil, and then to natural gas or electricity. Consequently, the mountains have all, just in his lifetime, now been reforested. He said that if you see any pictures from North Korea, the mountains there are still all bare because they still use wood for heating and cooking.

Then he took us to see a gorgeous, green Buddhist incense burner. I forgot what material it’s made of, but it has beautiful relief carvings, cut-outs and other decorative elements.

Next, he took us to see a Korean moon jar. At least, that’s what the sign said. The docent said that it should really be called a full-moon jar. To qualify as an authentic Korean full-moon jar, it must be pure white with no other decoration. And it must be in the shape of a full moon.

The docent claimed that this aesthetic combined elements of Buddhism and Confucianism. He said that both Shamanism and Buddhism value ostentatious luxury. (He used “luxury” plus another adjective similar to ostentatious, but I can’t remember what it was. I hope I captured his meaning.) But Confucianism values simple, pure designs. Korean full-moon jars combine both.

Then we went on to our last stop of the tour, another of the major treasures at the National Museum of Korea. These two related objects had a room to themselves. The docent told us about them while we were outside the room because talking is not allowed in the room.

The artifacts were two beautiful Buddha statues made of, I forgot what material.

Before going in, the docent encouraged us to look closely and carefully at the expressions of the Buddhas and to memorize them. They were expressions of incredibly serene smiles and pure happiness.

After we came out of the room, the docent talked to us about the expressions. He encouraged us to remember them and take them back home with us in our heads. He suggested that whenever we’re feeling down in life, we should remember the smiles and we’ll be happy again. It’s worth a try, I guess.

And then the tour was over, and he left us.

More of the National Museum of Korea

After the tour, I went to a cafe in the museum to fortify myself with an espresso. I then spent probably another 45 minutes visiting some of the rooms in the National Museum of Korea that the docent didn’t take us into.

The docent showed us only Korean artifacts, but the museum has a broader collection. I went into rooms with ancient artifacts from China, Japan, India, Rome and Greece, as well as Muslim art. They had some beautiful old pieces.

I took some pictures of some of the displayed items, including the informational placards beside them. But I’m tired, and I still feel obliged to publish another post tonight, one that I haven’t yet started about my afternoon activities. So, I’m going to skip a discussion of the other stuff I saw at the National Museum and put a period at the end of this post now.

Period.

More artifacts from the National Museum of Korea: