The Dong-A Ilbo touches something close to my heart—modern cultural properties.
The paper rightly points out that something doesn’t necessarily have to date back to the Joseon period to be a “cultural property” (munhwajae). Many of Korea’s modern “firsts” may soon become registered cultural properties, too.
Starting next year, the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) will begin listing early examples of Korean music albums, books and films, early modern transportation and communications, early medicine and housing culture as registered cultural properties. This means you’ll see things like trains, planes, phones, popular music and parks become cultural properties.
Among the means of transportation that will be listed is the VIP train used exclusively by former presidents Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee (built in Seoul in 1927) and the “Buhwal-ho,” Korea’s first domestically produced aircraft (built in 1953 and restored in 2004).
Other firsts that will make the list are a stamper imported from Germany in 1886 to produce paper money for the Gyeongseong (Seoul) Bureau of Exchange, Korea’s first mint; coins produced in 1884, Korea’s first telephone (1896); a music album from 1923 that contains what is believed to be Korea’s first piece of popular music, “Himangga” (”Song of Hope”); Incheon’s Jayu Park (1888), Korea’s first Western-style park; and Unam Power Station (1928) in Jeongeup-si, the first power generation plant built in the territory that is now South Korea.
The number of designated cultural properties has greatly increased over the last several years; in 2003, there were 21, but by 2006, there were 92. The official in charge of modern cultural properties over at the CHA, Kim In-gyu, told the Dong-A Ilbo that the importance of preserving Korea’s modern cultural heritage for future generations was growing as more and more structures were being lost. He also noted that unlike normal cultural properties, which are usually designated according to their artistic value or rarity, modern cultural properties are usually selected based on how greatly they influenced modern life.
Unfortunately, designating something a cultural property isn’t as easy as it sounds. Many modern cultural properties are private property. The residents of Jeju Island’s Seolchon Village, for example, rejected the CHA’s proposal to designate their stone walls as modern cultural properties as it would have placed limits on their private property rights. Another issue, of course, is that a good many of Korea’s modern cultural properties are leftovers from the Japanese imperial period, and their continued existence is a sore spot to some. An example of this, said the paper, was the demolition of Korea’s first stock exchange building in Myeongdong in 2005 (Marmot’s note: this was more an issue of private property than history—the CHA announced it would designate the building a cultural property, and the developers who owned the site tore the place down one month later in order to build a commercial complex). The head of the Korea Cultural Heritage Policy Research Institute acknowledged that many of Korea’s modern cultural properties were “negative cultural properties” that had a harmful influence on Korean society, but such properties needed to be maintained not as memorials but as historical records [so that Korea never forgets].
Meanwhile, if you read Korean, here are three articles you may enjoy–I’ll probably be citing in later posts:
- “Mingled Feelings of Sadness and Joy at Registration of Modern Cultural Properties” (Seoul Sinmun);
- “The Beauty of Old Buildings Where History Breathes” (OhMyNews);
- the MUST READ, of course, is the government press release on Korea’s modern “firsts” that will make the modern cultural properties list. Very interesting.
19 Comments
I hereby propose (perhaps I should direct this to the Administration and not to The Hole) that despite their Japanese origin, “flower cards” be designated as a modern cultural property of Korea. Further, a skillful player of “go-stop” or another played with the aforementioned cards who also uses the game to cultivate amicable relations around him or her should be designated as an “intangible cultural property” in the manner of performers of folk songs or shamanic rituals.
Next in line in my list of cultural properties is ppeontwigi machine (see photograph), which in terms of nostalgia value must be unbeatable.
It’s a pity that Korea’s “negative cultural properties” don’t rival others such as the Taj Mahal. That would really cause some “mingled feelings”.
Asia’s biggest cockup re modern cultural heritage is the destruction of Frank Llyod Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Survived the 1923 Tokyo earthquake and World War II but its time ran out in 1968.
seouldout—That’s an absolutely amazing website you’ve linked to. Thanks.
Koreans are more interested in making money by destroying and selling cultural artifacts rather than preserving them for future generations.
So I doubt, the CHA will make any headway, although I do wish them luck.
Because I do believe that the cultural heritage of Korea should be preserved and not be buried under all that urban development.
As a guy who’s lived in Tokyo, thanks a lot for that website, Seouldout. Way cool.
Are you kidding me? The Korean government is spending billions of won creating some of the nicest historical buildings in Asia. Why get all uptight about preserving old culture when you can just build some new old culture? (Exhibit A: Gahoe-dong)
Good point, Seouldout. The Taj Mahal can be seen as symbolizing the authority of the the Muslim king over his Hindu subjects.
Modern cultural heritage tangible property No. 1: budae jjigae
Cultural heritage Koreans would rather forget: Hyundai Pony
Bravo, michael. Pretty scary that the only modern ingredients added to Korean fare are spam and hotdogs.
The Pony was an alright car, especially when everyone’s reference point of a mass-appeal car was the Daewoo Maepsy, which really was a Chevette. Just horrible. My first car here was a used , made by Kia in the late 70s / early 80s. A nightmare to own in Korea. Had to learn where the junkyards were to get parts. Kia also built the Fiat 132. Saw a few of them on the road until the mid 90s. I reckon Korea’s first great car was the Kia Pride. Though it was a Ford design, Kia executed it really well. Incredibly durable. Sold under the Ford Festiva badge, it was a Korean car that sold very well worldwide in an era the Korean cars were seen as no better than a Yugo.
That’s one hella of link I made. Sorry about that. I’m all cross-eyed and dizzy ‘cuz I’ve been staring at this for a while. Hypnotizing.
It should have been..was a used Peugeot 604,…
seouldout, here’s a trip down memory lane for you…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....mp;search=
I rather enjoyed those old TV ads that had a narator with a thundering voice and the same cheesy electronic music (I don’t think I’ve been here as long as you have, seouldout, but I do remember when movie theatres still sold beer, which we drank during the movie to wash down the mandu that we had bought across the street).
For those of you who have been here for just a couple of years: Korean TV ads were quite charming up until 1998 or so.
PS. If you didn’t get AFKN, you probably just used your TV to watch videos because the availability of English programming was quite limited, and unpredictable (Channel V from Hong Kong had some English programming, but the VJs would constantly switch from English to Mandarin (back then, Koreans still saw Chinese pop music as something to emulate). Once, in the period of one month, I went from having no English channels to having CNN, then Bloomberg, which was in turn replaced by BBC News, and then back to nothing.
…were this charming…
Great ads, someguy. The Maepsy tune sounds really familiar. Lionel Ritchie’s “Running with the Night”? Same 2 or 3 sound-alike guys did all the voice overs.
Pirate cable drove me batty. But it was 4000 won a month, and they forgot to bill me for almost 2 years. The cable operators would sometimes have to pull the unlicensed programing, such a CNN & BBC, during gov’t. crackdowns. The only channel that never disappeared was Italy’s RAI. It was 24-hour-a-day variety show like the ones here, except I think it was the same guy who hosted all the time. They were always having beauty pageants.
Beer in theaters I remember. Was the only way to get through the Daehan News. You know, I think all the softcore-porn theaters have disappeared.
seouldout—if you could do me a favor, please be sure to close your tags when you use blockquote. If you don’t, it screws up the rest of the comments section.
“The cable operators would sometimes have to pull the unlicensed programing, such a CNN & BBC, during gov’t. crackdowns.”
Yeah, and I don’t know if it’s just me, but CNN always seemed to be cut whenever some major incident occured between South and North Korea.
The regular movie theatres in my hometown would show the softcore porn (went to see one of those with my then friend/soon to become girlfriend (she had told me she wanted to go see a French movie with me…she didn’t tell me it was titled ‘Erotique’)).
Korea has a great program called something like the “designated skill keeper for Intangible Cultural Property No. xxx,” like a guy who plays the kayageum and even one who makes kayageums–it’s a great idea.
I don’t really get this one though, especially the “negative cultural properties”– what do they mean, miniskirts? How about all the mullets Koreans had a few years ago? Those were certainly negative
Have they already bulldozed the bordello that Park Jung Hee had build just a short distance from the Blue House? If not, what are the odds of this ‘historical site’ becoming a modern cultural asset? It should/should have been protected to serve as a reminder of the excesses of Korea’s past dictatorships. For example, the former KCIA building on Namsan, where many dissidents were tortured and possibly killed, has been conserved. It now serves as a youth centre, if I remember correctly.
Someguy,
The gov’t. crackdowns on the pirate cable operators were due to piracy of content, i.e., not sharing some of the $ w/ CNN & BBC. The channel would be dark, I’d call, and they’d state it had to be off for a while since the gov’t told them to knock it off.
Gov’t-run bordello? You referring to what is now the Seoul Club–near the Shilla Hotel. Don’t know if this is true, but former Peace Corps buddies state so. Nicest swimming pool in Seoul. Great RALF parties in the past.
Robert, very sorry about that. Any chance of a Preview Comment button?