Recently, I went to the city of Jangseong-gun, aka the Yellow City, with my roommate to visit the Piram Seowon Confucian Academy. Named for the Yellow Swinging Bridge that crosses over the lake, this small city is about a half hour train ride from Gwangju and is a quaint and peaceful place.
View of river-side walkways on the edges of the city on the way to Piram Seowon.
One of several UNESCO-designated seowons in South Korea, Piram Seowon was built in 1590 and is an absolutely gorgeous place consisting of three main sections: Idling, Educational, and Ritual. The Idling section consists of the front gate area and is where students could relax. The Educational Section, where the lecture hall and dormitories are, make up the bulk of the seowon and centrally located. The section in the back of the seowon is the Ritual Section where seasonal rituals would be held to honor the Confucian scholars the academy was devoted to.
While we were there, we ran into a group of men who were taking photos of themselves there and were able to tell us that a member of their group was a descendent of either a student or the scholar of the academy (they spoke only some English, so it wasn’t very clear). Not only that, but they also said that the Ritual Section is only open one day a month and that we happened to go on that day, at the time of that it was open. We were very surprised as we didn’t know that before and we were able to see the shrine. Since the descendent was there, they had lit some incense in honor of the Confucian Scholar Kim In-hu and his son-in-law. It was amazing experience that I am so glad we got to have.
The above photos are of the front gate, the shrine with the doors opened, and the gate to the Ritual Section. While I don’t know if it is in fact disrespectful, I didn’t include a close-up photo of the inside of the shrine with the ancestor tablets out of respect for the shrine.
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