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[HanCinema's Korea Diaries] "Jeju City" April 14th-15th

In addition to simple landscapes and modern doodads, Jeju City also has plenty of traditional cultural locations. Which are to a certain extent also modern inventions. Take the statue pictured above. This is a Dolhareubang (돌하르방)...oh my goodness a lot of these Korean words really do look hideous transliterated to English don't they? Well, this one is a little clunky in Korean, too, what with the Jeju Dialect (which is really more its own distinct language) being involved. There are other names which look equally as strange in written English, so I'm just going to call them Guardian Statues, which is usually what they come out as literally anyway.

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Anyway, Guardian Statues are pretty much everywhere in Jeju Island. At this point the ones constructed for tourist purposes probably outnumber the ones originally designed to ward off evil spirits. Or possibly just to look cool. The Guardian Statue above is one of the verifiably older ones- it comes with its own monument, and is verified as one of forty six that Jeju's cultural bureau is quite sure dates back to ancient times. It can be found outside of the Gwandeokjeung Pavilion (관덕정), which itself can be found outside the former Jeju Government Office (제주목 관아).

...Pictured here. Yes, uninspiring name notwithstanding, the former Jeju Government Office is indeed a historical structure dating back to ancient times. Like many such structures, it has been rebuilt on multiple occasions throughout history on account of a rampaging army. The current version was only finished relatively recently following several excavations in the nineties, intended to help architects figure out what the structure looked like. Now it's a popular destination for school field trips.

A little to the west of the former Jeju Government Office is the Jeju Confucian School, which to this day offers lessons about proper Confucian philosophy. It's not exactly the easiest place to photograph, because what is a school really? It's a place where you learn stuff, and I just sort of checked in to see what it looks like. Gnarly Confucius statue notwithstanding one would be hard-pressed to find anything all that unique about this place. At least to a foreigner. I don't think any of their activities are available in the English language although the musical sessions (which I was not present for) are probably not disadvantaged in such a way.

This delightful structure sits at final visible end of the Sanjicheon stream. Aside from its generally neat appearance I'm afraid I don't much about what this fixture actually is. But it was right next to my guest house so I was passing it all the time, and you know, after a certain point it just feels awkward not to take picture. It's a helpful little landmark to be sure- if you see it you know you're right next to the traditional market, as well as most of downtown, trifling though that may be. Jeju City really is a mostly empty town. I can't recall ever seeing downtown within walking distance of an airport before, yet there it is.

 

 

What's not within walking distance of the airport (for sane people anyway) is Samseonghyeol (삼성혈), a cultural site which supposedly denotes the place where the ancient three Gods of Jeju came down from the heavens. Given that, it makes sense that the site is really just a park. The traditional building there is in fact an administrative office. I do enjoy it when traditional architecture is used like, you know, a normal building rather than a museum.

Anyway, the story of the three Gods goes something that they came down to Jeju, and hunted, and built stuff, then some King from the mainland sent them some daughters to marry. I'm not intentionally trying to be flippant- origin myths in general tend to be rather uncomplicated, and the animated film they show on site isn't exactly Disney level epic. Still, Samseonghyeol is a rather nice park- worth visiting if only for that calm moment of quiet, in my mind.

William Schwartz

Bonus Pictures~

 

 

 

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