Gudun Station, Jipyeong Brewery and the French at Chipyong-ni

Old train stations, 80-year-old breweries and Korean War battle sites — what more can you ask for in a day trip?

NOTE: For the full-size photos, see the Flickr slideshow!

Gudun Station

I just love whistle stop stations. As I wrote in the February issue of SEOUL, they don’t just link destinations, but also eras. Unassuming structures that still maintain a simple elegance, many of Korea’s whistle stop stations where built in the Japanese colonial era to open up rural areas of the country — one of them, Chunpo Station in Iksan, is Korea’s oldest existent train station.

The Jungang Line, which links Seoul with many of the mountain communities of central Korea, has many old whistle stop stations, several of which have been registered as modern cultural properties in recognition of their architectural and historical importance. Gudun Station in lovely Yangpyeong, which you see above, is one such whistle stop. Built in 1940, it is quite typical of Korea’s colonial-era whistle stops — it’s a rectangular building with a t-shaped gabled roof of the style loved by Japanese railroad engineers. There’s no ticket booth — if you’re boarding at Gudun Station, you need to purchase your ticket on the train. Situated in the middle of nowhere amidst the mountains of Yangpyeong, it’s a lovely little location that is as far from the big city in terms of atmosphere as you can find.

Not so long ago, this was a fairly busy station full of students commuting to schools in Seoul and farmers selling herbs at Seoul’s Gyeongdong Market, but times have changed, and now, only three trains a day stop here from Cheongnyang-ni — the two nice KORAIL guys who work at the station have schedules if you need one. When work on the commuter train line to link Seoul and Wonju is completed in 2010, train service to Gudun Station will be terminated completely. The train station and the rail line will be maintained as a tourist site and film set, but to me, a piece of history will be disappearing. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Makgeolli… the Old-Fashioned Way

In the nearby small town of Jipyeong-ni, a stone’s throw from the local Nonghyup, is a charmingly dilapidated structure that, at first glance, appears to be an abandoned factory of some sort. In fact, it’s Jipyeong Brewery, which for three generations has produced some of Korea’s best makgeolli, or milky rice beer. Built in 1925, it is one of only a handful of old breweries still in existence (see also here). This is living history.

In the 60s and 70s, brewing makgeolli — then the national drink — was one of Korea’s top industries; at the industry’s height, there were some 2,500 makkeolli breweries nationwide. In the 1980s, however, the demand for makkeolli started to decline: communal agriculture began an interminable decline as Koreans gave up farming and left the countryside and agriculture grew increasingly mechanized, robbing makgeolli of one of its major markets. Meanwhile, new firewaters hit the market — the much stronger soju became Korea’s booze of first resort, and beer grew popular. Some 70% of the makgeolli breweries closed down as a result.

But not Jipyeong Brewery, which continues to go strong. They produce some of the country’s tastiest makkeolli the old fashioned way — by taking a mash of rice and wheat, adding good water and yeast and letting it ferment at a constant temperature and humidity in clay Korean jars, or hangari. Making good makkeolli takes a skilled artisan with a good nose and good ears — you have to listen to it bubble away as it ferments.

Both externally and internally (the friendly owners were kind enough to let me shoot a few shots in here), you’ll notice many similarities to Sewang Brewery (Jincheon Deoksan Brewery), which was built at roughly the same time for roughly the same purpose. You have an office, work space, a hot and humid fermentation room, and some other rooms for mixing mash and other processes. There’s a water well, too. The structure’s ventilation is designed to promote the fermentation process. While Sewang Brewery was designed by a Japanese architect in Japanese style, Jipyeong Brewery mixes Korean and Japanese architectural elements. I didn’t ask, but I’d be willing to bet the wall structure is the same, too — a sandwich of two wood boards, clay and rice chaff.

It smells the same, too — nothing quite like the smell of fermenting makkeolli.

An unexpected historical bonus — the brewery was used as a command post by the French in the Battle of Chipyong-ni (see below). Hey, if Woody Guthrie’s guitar killed fascists, this makgeolli kills communists!

Jipyeong Brewery sells its product at a shop a short walk from the brewery. When I visited, it seemed the entire clan was there for the Lunar New Year, and with many Jipyeong-ites returning home for the holiday, it looked like they were doing a good trade — it is, after all, a regional specialty. The plastic jugs of makgeolli sell for 15,000 won each.

A note — if you’re visiting the brewery, it’s best to get off at Jipyeong Station. If you’d like to visit Gudun Station first, you have to take an infrequent bus from the station to Jipyeong or Yongmun, or ask the station master to call up a call taxi to take you to Jipyeong Brewery (about 10,000 won).

The Tricolore Still Flies

Due to changes in Romanization, it had never dawned on me (until I arrived) that Jipyeong-ni was the same place as Chipyong-ni, the site of one of fiercest battles of Korean War. The battle — fought in the bitter cold of Feb 13—14, 1951 — probably deserves its own photo essay, and I didn’t get a chance to visit all the relevant sites, but what I did see was a memorial (right next to Jipyeong Station) to the French Battalion that fought as part of the 23d Regimental Combat Team of 2ID.

The French Battalion was led by Lt. Col. Ralph Monclar, a veteran of both world wars who was approaching retirement when he voluntarily requested a demotion from three-star general to lieutenant colonel to lead his battalion in Korea. He was a big believer in the mission:

“I was with the French at Chipyong-ni. They were superb soldiers, and they were all volunteers. Everyone of them was in Korea because he wanted to be there. They were led by a man named Monclar, a general in the French army who had taken a reduction in rank just to lead the battalion to Korea. Monclar was an old man by then, but he was a fighter. He spoke pretty good English, and once when we were in the perimeter at Chipyon he overheard some of the guys griping about having to be in Korea. ‘What are we doing here anyway?’ That kind of thing. Monclar walked right up to these guys and said, ‘Just a minute. This is the first time in five thousand years of recorded civilization that there has ever been an international organization to help preserve the peace. This is the first time an international army has fought to maintain law and order. If civilization lasts another five thousand years, that will not change the fact that this is the first time it’s ever been done. And you people are part of it. And you should be honored to be part of it.’ And then he turned on his heel and walked away.’

His men, meanwhile, were mainly French Foreign Legion types (as was Monclar) looking for a fight — and at Chipyong-ri, they found one, with 4,500 US and French troops defending against an attacking Chinese force of 25,000. And they won, handing the Chinese their first tactical defeat and giving the UN the initiative for the rest of the war. One of more interesting moments of the battle came when the Chinese attempted a bayonet charge on a French-occupied hill:

These two machine guns fired steadily for several hours, although no close action developed until about 0200 on 14 February when a platoonsized group of Chinese made an attack against the French Battalion just to the right of the machine-gun outpost. The enemy soldiers formed one hundred or two hundred yards in front of the small hill which the French occupied, then launched their attack, blowing whistles and bugles, and running with bayonets fixed. When this noise started, the French soldiers began cranking a hand siren they had, and one squad started running toward the Chinese, yelling and throwing grenades far to the front and to the side. When the two forces were within twenty yards of each other the Chinese suddenly turned and ran in the opposite direction. It was all over within a minute. After this incident it was relatively quiet in the rice paddies near the road cut.

The French came to Korea to fight, and participated in some of the nastiest engagements of the war, earning the respect of Gen. Matthew Ridgeway, who said about them to Congress in 1952:

I shall speak briefly of the 23rd US Infantry Regiment, Colonel Paul L. Freeman commanding, [and] with the French Battalion… Isolated far in advance of the general battle line, completely surrounded in near-zero weather, they repelled repeated assaults by day and night by vastly superior numbers of Chinese. They were finally relieved… I want to say that these American fighting men, with their French comrades-in-arms, measured up in every way to the battle conduct of the finest troops America and France have produced throughout their national existence.

Last year, the JoongAng Ilbo met with some of the French veterans. The French, Americans and Koreans also apparently held a ceremony to commemorate the battle last year last year.