Wednesday, February 3, 2010
I was feeling a little grumpy Wednesday morning about having to go to work a little over three hours early without any change in pay, but my kindie kids quickly melted that bad mood with minutes like they always do. We were going on our first field trip of the year, to the National Folk Museum of Korea and the National Children's Museum, both situated at Gyeongbokgung (Gyeongbok Palace) in the Jongno area of Seoul (an area known for its many traditional sites and maintained dedication to Korean culture.) 
Here we are leaving the school at 9AM and getting on the school buses. It took an hour to drive there, whereas it would have taken closer to 40 minutes by subway, but considering it was close to rush hour, it was good timing. Here is what we saw as we entered the grounds:
Those funny statues on the right are called Jangseung (devil images) or Korean totem poles. They are usually carved out of wood or stone and used to be placed at the entrances of villages to mark boundaries and fend away evil spirits. I love taking pictures of them, they always make me smile.It was pretty cold outside, (it's been hanging around -7C/20F the past week or so) so after teachers were satisfied with photo ops, we hurried inside to begin the children's museum. The children's museum is designed to be an interactive environment where children can learn about Korean ancestral lives, values, and wisdom through hands-on learning activities. It setup as a themed exhibition regarding a traditional tale of Shimcheon.
Here is an abbreviated version of the story of Shimcheon:A long, long time ago, a girl named Shimcheon was raised by her blind father. One day her father almost drowned from falling into a stream, but his life was saved by a monk. The monk told the father that if he offered 300 seoks of rice to Buddha, he would be cured of his blindness. The father however couldn't provide such a great amount of rice. Shimcheon decided to offer herself instead, by jumping into the sea, but when she leapt into the waters parted to reveal an underwater palace, where the God of the Sea praised her, and sent her back to the surface in a Lotus flower. At the surface, the King spotted her and fell in love, and took her as his queen. Separated from her father, Shimcheon was sad, so the King threw a party for all the blinds in the land. When the father finally heard the sound of his daughter's voice, his eyes opened wide, and his blindness was cured, and likewise for the other blind people in the room. They lived happily ever after.
There was a pitch-dark room for trying blindness on for size, a ball pit for learning how rice was measure (seoks), and a throne to try out being royalty for a few minutes.
This is a kind of casket for carrying bodies from the ceremony to their final resting place. The detail on it was astounding...it always makes me wonder how many hands and how hours were spent constructing such a thing...
Finally there was a special Hanbok (traditional clothing) exhibition. We were on a tight time schedule so I didn't get to read up on it to much, but the material and presentation was nothing short of beautiful.
1 Comment:
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February 7, 2010 at 12:42 AM
What a wonderful museum! Lovely to have all that history and artistry in your cultural heritage!
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