The Marmot’s Hole

This is the more detailed post of my Chuseok travels I promised earlier.

Daejeon

You know, in 10 years in Korea, I’d never spent a single night in Daejeon. Like everyone else, I’d been through Daejeon something like 1,000 times, the railroad town being a major transportation hub. Unlike towns like Gyeongju, Andong or even nextdoor Gongju, Daejeon is a relatively new city (created in 1914, to be specific), so I never thought it had anything that would hold my attention.

And, in fact, it doesn’t. A nice city to live in, sure. Emphasis on the “nice.” It’s probably Korea’s best-planed city, with wide streets and a distinct feeling of space. Pretty clean. And now with the KTX bringing you to Seoul in under an hour, it’s become almost a suburb of the nation’s capital. But if you’re looking for pretty old Korean buildings or reminders of Korea’s more recent past, Daejeon has a few, but not many.

Anyway, if you’re really into Korea’s colonial past, and you have a couple of hours in Daejeon to kill, the Chungcheongnam-do Provincial Hall is worth a looksie. Built in 1932, the main lobby is an impressive piece of period design. I would have taken a picture of it, but I made the mistake of asking the information people first… just to be polite. A couple of phone calls later, somebody gave me the thumbs down, apparently believing caution was the better part of valor. The outside of the building, however, was fair game.

Also snapped a shot of this collection of yeoinsuk inns near Seodaejeon Station. Nothing really comment-worthy, but places like this are becoming increasing rare in Korea’s ever-developing cityscape.

Then, of course, there were the old missionary homes on the campus of Hannam University. I talked about them in my first post on the trip.

Ganggyeong

I read about Ganggyeong first on a Korean blog a couple of weeks ago. Being, as I am, into Korea’s early modern and colonial architecture and fond of traveling to out-of-the-way towns, I figured it would be worth a visit, although I wasn’t sure of what I’d find. As it would turn out, the town greatly exceeded my expectations. Visiting Ganggyeong is like stepping back into the 1930s. As a historical experience, it’s even more profound than Gunsan, which is still a living, developing city. Ganggyeong, on the other hand, hasn’t changed a whole lot since the Korean War:

Pretty much what you’ll find all the way along the main strip of downtown Ganggyeong

Ganggyeong today is just a small, bumfuck town of 14,000 people. But this wasn’t always the case. During the Joseon era, it was one of Korea’s three biggest monthly markets along with Pyongyang and Daegu. It was also one of Korea’s two largest ports, the other one being Wonsan. Being at the confluence of two tributaries that form the Geum River, Ganggyeong was a particular good spot to deal in both sea products and agricultural goods from the surrounding plains. In fact, some 80 percent of the sea products brought into Gunsan were marketed in Ganggyeong.

The Japanese would come to Ganggyeong in 1899, when a Japanese merchant opened up a seafood wholesale business there. In 1905, a Japanese elementary school opened up. In 1902, the town would become the first in Chungcheongnam-do to get a post office. The Japanese build a court, town office, commercial high school and other public buildings. The town got electricity and a water supply-sewage system in the 1920s, as well as the first theater in the Honam region.

Also of interest is that unlike many other Korean towns, where the Japanese tended to live apart from their colonial subjects, in Ganggyeong, the Japanese and Koreans lived and mixed together. Even the Chinese, of whom there were apparently many during the colonial period, didn’t reside in a separate Chinatown.

History would not be kind to the city, however. The opening of the Seoul-Busan railroad in 1906 brought the Gongju-Cheongju area out of the town’s orbit. The opening of the Gunsan and Seoul-Mokpo lines put another nail in the town’s coffin—seafood from Gunsan and agricultural goods from the surrounding areas now bypassed Ganggyeong’s markets. Nevertheless, the city retained its importance as a market through the 1930s. The death blow came with the Korean War, when much of the city’s market facilities were destroyed.

Now the town is a small regional market specializing in jeotgal, or salted seafood.

A mixing of Ganggyeong’s past with its present—a jeotgal shop in an old colonial building

There is plenty of evidence of the town’s colonial glory days, however. A stroll through the old downtown area is like venturing onto the film set of a drama set during the 1930s. An old department store, the old Japanese electric company office, old banks, Japanese shops, hospitals… there is plenty to see. The kanji signs on the buildings have mostly been defaced, although on some of the buildings—most notable the office of the Daedong Electric Company and the Hwasin Suit Store (named for the famous department store in Seoul)—the kanji characters have been preserved.

The Geum River, seen from where the old port of Ganggyeong used to be. In the old days, before silting and the development of Gunsan port took its toll, this used to be one of the busiest ports in Korea, with some 100 ships a day coming in and out.

Beautiful old school house at Jungang Elementary School. The building was constructed in 1937, and is registered as a cultural property. The school itself was founded in 1905, making it the second oldest school in Chungcheongnam-do.

The old Joheung Bank building. Established as the Hanho Agricultural and Industrial Bank in 1905, it became the Chosun Industrial Bank after Korea’s colonization of Korea. After Liberation, it became the branch No. 1 of Hanil Bank. A number of banks opened their No. 2 or No. 3 branches in Ganggyeong, giving you an idea of how commercially important the city was. The bank building is empty now, but the vault is still in there.

The handsome old Hwasin Suit Store. Named for Seoul’s Hwasin Department Store, Korea’s first ever department store. Which, in a way, it kind of resembles.

The kanji signboard is still quite legible:

Most of the kanji signboards on the other buildings, however, have been, well, altered:

But not all!

Like I said, there are tons of old buildings to see… it’s just a matter of how much time and legwork you’re willing to invest.

An old Chinese medicine factory/shop. Now a private residence

Same Chinese medicine shop. Seen from the side

More pics:

Oh, and you’ll be happy to know that even in Nonsan, you can get a reasonably priced, ahem, massage:

Busan

Busan Tower

After Gangyeong, my traveling partner (and co-blogger) and I headed down to Busan to pay Jeff a visit in the hospital.

Hadn’t been to Busan in about seven years. I really like the place, but it has to be one of the most haphazardly thrown-together cities on the planet. Which I guess is part of the charm. But I need to ask—when is the city going to get new buses? Even Ulaan Baator, making use as it does of “old” Seoul city buses sold/donated to the city, has nicer buses. And that just shouldn’t… be… the case.

Panorama from Busan Tower (1,200 pixel version here)

Anyway, while I was in town, I took the opportunity to visit a couple of places of interest. After paying an obligatory visit to Busan Tower, we stopped by the Busan office of the old Oriental Development Company, which played a role in Korea similar to that of the British East India Company on the subcontinent. Built in 1929, after liberation, it was used as a U.S. Army barracks and, later, the USIS. In 1982, student radicals set fire to the building to protest U.S. support for Chun Doo-hwan and call attention to U.S. responsibility for the Gwangju Massacre. They didn’t get an apology from Washington, although they did manage to kill a fellow student who was studying at the library at the time.

Figured while I was at Korea’s biggest port I should take a photo of the harbor as well:

Click here for the photo in all 2,701 pixel glory!

And look, it’s the good ship Dokdo sitting in the harbor!

Afterwards, we rushed over to Beomeo-sa Temple, high in the mountains overlooking Busan. Beomeo-sa is one of my favorite temples in Korea—it’s got a great location and a fine collection of old buildings and priceless artwork.

If you want to hear a bit of the evening yebul, a ceremony in which the monks gather to chant the Homage to the Buddha and the Heart Sutra, I shot a bit of video footage, although there ain’t much to see thanks to the dark. Still worth listening to:

Seoul

Old Seoul Station

Took the KTX back to Seoul the next morning. Spent most of the day relaxing, although I did pop by Yongsan Electronics Market and Danggogae Catholic Holy Spot. Danggogae, which sits atop a rocky hill overlooking Yongsan, was the spot where 10 Catholic martyrs (nine of whom became saints) were executed during the Persecution of 1839. One of those killed was the mother of Father Thomas Choe Yang-eop, Korea’s second Catholic priest. Luckily for Father Tom, he was studying in Macao at the time. He returned to Korea in 1849 and spent the next 12 years working himself to death… literally. In 1861, he collapsed as he was making his way through Mungyeong Sae Jae pass, dying of exhaustion at the age of 40.

While I was looking around Yongsan, BTW, I came across this little piece of graffiti, which I found kind of cute: