Folk Village Idiot

Went to the Korean Folk Museum near Suwon last weekend. I’d been told to go this time of year, and the advice was spot-on—the essence of fall pervaded the place like a friendly ghost, and being there was glorious. Korean leaves still aren’t as riotous as the hometown varieties—another teacher from Toronto and I got into a bit of rhapsodizing about the wonders of Northeastern (or southeastern for her) autumn—but it was close enough, and the colors and the crunch and the smell were salve for the soul.

This is supposed to be one of the better folk museums in Korea, and it certainly is attractive, tucked in next to forested hills, full of trees, with a large creek crossed by several bridges. I was initially disappointed that I hadn’t arrived the minute the gates opened, then figured it was just as well when I hit saturation around 4:00, but on second (or third) thought, a few extra hours to roam the fringes would have been well-used. Feeling pressed for time after lunch, our group split up so we could all tend our highest priorities, and I wandered out behind the Nobleman’s House and suddenly found myself in Corbett’s Glen! In my mind, anyway. The hill, the foliage, the forest floor, the quiet, the light filtering in...my life force filled up like I’d found the golden coin in a video game. Opportunities to walk on an unpaved surface through the woods don’t grow on trees around here, and it was another, albeit pleasant, reminder of what I so painfully miss.

I got another rare opportunity just a few minutes later when I hiked up to the village’s temple. Temples in Korea all have virtually identical architecture—I used to think the “seen one, seen ‘em all” attitude was pitiably cynical, but they might have a point. What almost never happens, though, is seeing a temple in total solitude. Apparently, most people don’t feel that another temple is worth the hike at the Folk Village, and I got a precious 15 minutes of just me and the persimmon trees to really appreciate the place. It makes a difference!

Yet another cool experience was at the pottery studio. The English signage was concise, so I don’t have a lot of details to relate, but the dioramas and mud kilns imply that pottery goes back a long time in Korea. You see it (all over) today in the form of kimchi pots, which have changed very little in the intervening centuries. Diana the Torontan and I were poking around and discovered a crowd watching a 4-year-old boy molding a bowl out of clay (with a great deal of guidance, mind you). A little sleuthing revealed that we, too, could have the privilege for a mere $10, so I’m waiting expectantly for my very own handmade souvenir to arrive in the mail. The Korean potter did most of the work, guiding my hands at key points, but I was on my own for decorating the thing. So, like the sandblasting in Corning, the Korean fanmaking at orientation, and several of my knitting projects (to cite just a few examples), the bowl looks like the punchline of a Far Side cartoon. I needed no Korean to comprehend the sad, resigned look of the lady who was overseeing the site as she watched me savage this heretofore beautiful craft with my plastic stylus. It won’t even be a conversation piece when I’m serving peanut M&Ms in it next Thanksgiving, since people will be too diplomatic to mention it. At least I know it was made in Korea!

While the setup and feel of the place was reassuringly universal, the details were unmistakably Korean. Traditional Korean houses have a linear floor plan, like the Lego houses kids build, and you spend a lot of time outside getting from one section to another. I’m mystified by how this became the prevailing architecture in a country with a climate like New York’s, but for all the regional variations—thicker walls to withstand the wind on Jeju Island, different roofing materials based on what was locally available—the basic layout was consistent. As for the roofs, they were either clay tiles (what you still see in most traditional architecture), wood shingles (of the same shape as the tiles), or thatched. The thatched were said to last 10 years, and they did look remarkably sturdy. Some of the houses had pumpkins growing on the roofs—I’ve seen it in Seoul, and I speculated that it was an answer to space constraints, but it doesn’t seem as though farmers of centuries gone by would have had to make room for the PC Bang next door, so maybe it’s a climate thing, or just a national quirk. We were wondering what time period all these buildings represent…it doesn’t appear that Korean building styles changed much for several hundred years, but maybe that’s the glib assertion of a foreigner. Like so much else, the more I learn, the more I don’t know.