When the Joseon Dynasty opened up to the world, the population of the city stood at about 200,000. By the end of the Korean War, it ballooned to about two million, as Koreans from the North sought refuge in Seoul, and it had steadily increased. Presently, Seoul has a population of a little over ten million and is considered one of the most crowded in the world.
But I could not readily see the crowdedness now, perhaps having used to the more crowded Manila. I saw clean streets, gleaming buildings and neon lights. The lights at night were specifically noticeable. Because it was Christmas season, there were numerous and showy. Seoul had more Christmas lights than Manila, which boasts to celebrate Christmas with much more enthusiasm than anyone else. Despite being largely Confucian and Buddhist, Christmas was palpable, with buildings wreathed in pine leaves and decorated with ribbons and mistletoes.
By the city hall, we saw an awesome arrangement of Christmas lights. Tiny dots of multi-colored lights were arranged to form an almost life-size building, outshining the constellations in the sky. On one of the highways, lights formed into a static fountain. There were more installations on the bridges of Cheonggye Stream. The city called this attraction Lucevista, a festival of lights from the Italian, to enliven the winter and celebrate Christmas.
After leaving our things at the Ibis Ambassador Seoul, a small but charming hotel in the southern part of the city, we went out for dinner in a small and warm restaurant tucked between other small restaurants and boutiques. We ordered bulgogi, one of Korea’s famous dishes. Pieces of pork with mushroom were broiled in front of us. We fished out the cooked meat and wrapped it in lettuce with a dab of tasty samjang. Making the table colorful was the array of side dishes, de-rigeuer in any Korean meal. There were different types of kimchis-radish and the more familiar Chinese cabbage-which I ate with gusto. There were rape plant leaves and mung bean sprouts sautéed in sesame oil. There was a side dish that looked like a dark green mash, almost like a large dollop of rotting moss sprinkled with sesame seeds. But it was actually seaweed and it tasted amazing. Jessie said it is an old traditional side dish that is seldom made nowadays. We finished off the seaweed that tasted of old times and eternal sea, and asked for seconds. A companion requested if she can buy a jar of it. The owners deliberated and granted her request.
With the delectable dinner over and sucking peppermint candies, we spilled into the narrow street that sloped downward and was illuminated by numerous neon signs. The temperature dipped and it was getting late. Many stores were closing. Many people were still strolling about. Three teens were ribbing each other, a tad drunk and getting rough sometimes. It was nothing to worry about. Seoul is safe, Jessie assured. Indeed, it is one of the safest cities in the world with a low crime rate. One thing to worry about, at least for us, was the cold.
We walked on until we could not bear the cold. My earlobes were aching terribly. I was bungling with my layers of clothes and hefty jacket. I needed to get used to this much clothing on me. We passed by cosmopolitan Koreans, a couple of girls in high-cut boots and miniskirts, striding like it was summer. I thought my fingers and ears will fall off, and bleed from the cold. We took refuge inside a coffee shop, ordered coffee and held on to the warms cup like they were life-giving fire. A group of boys came in, dusky like us. We nodded to each other as if we had seen each other before. One approached me. Philippines, I said as if I read his mind. Malaysia, he said. We smiled, we creatures of the tropics and refugees of the cold. I could not talk from the cold. My lips were always at the rim of the steaming cup of coffee.
It was almost as cold early the next morning. The hotel room was warm, and the breakfast buffet tempted one to linger. But we only had half a day to see the city, so we set out for the Blue House.
It is said that as the population grew Seoul also grew in size, spreading over 605 square kilometers by 1973, more than doubling the area in 1948, and becoming the fifth largest city in the world. The city consists of 25 gu and 522 villages. From the ruins of war, the rise of Seoul is remarkable. Now, the city is a big and neat assemblage of high-rise buildings, malls, convention centers, hotels, wide streets, subways, and entertainment complexes.
Gerald Ramos, an editor at The Business Mirror, remarked that many parts of the city reminded him of Tokyo, but without its impersonality. I discerned a sense of neighborliness and quaintness.
"Even Seoul is beautiful-which is another surprise," wrote Pantoja-Hidalgo. "Somehow, very few modern cities are. Skyscrapers, elevated highways, subways, ten-lane avenues, neon signs-certainly they are an imposing sight. But also cold and alienating. In Seoul, the harshness of the asphalt jungle is softened by the contours of the land. Seoul is a city built on hills, with the Han River cutting across it, and its wooded park lands painstakingly preserved."
Also, it is a city where modern structures stand side by side ancient monuments, carefully preserved. As we zipped through the highway, we passed by old massive gates, reminders of the Joseon Dynasty when Seoul was encompassed by huge walls. In downtown Seoul, said to be traditional heart of the city, there were more grand vestiges of the dynasty, which stand among government offices, corporate headquarters, hotels and traditional markets.
It is in this area where the most important government landmark stands. The Cheong Wa Dae is where the presidents of South Korea reside and hold office. The name means "house of the blue roof tiles" because of its blue-green roof. But it is commonly called "The Blue House." We could only view the building from across the rotunda with a monument of a phoenix-like creature, shivering in the cold. I was more enthralled by the small mountain of Bukhan on its backdrop. I could see the blue roof of the official residence. Cheong Wa Dae is actually a complex, which includes the Yeongbin-gwan or the guest house, the Chunchugwan press hall, and the secretariat buildings, sitting on an area of about 250,000 square meters.
Originally, this was the site of a royal villa built in 1104 by King Sukjong of the Goryeo Kingdom. The area was called Namgyeong, the southern capital. During the Joseon period, it became the back garden of the Gyeongbok Palace. During the Japanese annexation, Japanese authorities erected government buildings on the site, including the official residence and office of the governor-general. After liberation and the establishment of the Republic of Korea in 1948, President Lee Seung-man used the building as his office and residence, calling it "Gyeongmudae." When Yun Bo-seon rose to power in 1960, he changed it to "Cheong Wa Dae." Subsequent presidents also used the building, restructuring it, particularly dismantling things that symbolize Japanese occupation.
It now stands there, reverent, with the backdrop of Bukhan Mountain. To the left is the mountain of Naksan, symbolizing the Blue Dragon, and to the right is the mountain of Inwangsan, symbolizing the White Tiger. The protective mountain of Namsan is at the south. Here, the stream of Cheonggyecheon flows to the Han River. It is very blessed location, according to geomancers.
Nearby is the Gyeongbok Palace, one of great old palaces of Seoul. We passed by the quaint street of Samcheong on the way there. The tree-lined street is studded with cafes, restaurants, wine bars and art galleries, which makes for a thoroughly inspiring walk. This is a recent development in this once quiet neighborhood. Because it is near The Blue House, development was forbidden. When the government changed its mind, an artist community began to burgeon. Old houses were transformed into restaurants. Galleries and shops blossomed, and visitors came in, many preferring Samcheong than the busier shopping districts of the city.
We stood in front of the imposing gate, Geunjeong-mun, of the Gyeongbok Palace, marveling at the ornate eaves and roofs, at the red-painted doors and pillars. We just had little time, said Jessie, and the palace is a sprawling complex, which includes many rooms, halls, pavilions, ponds, gates, foot bridges and museums. Spreading over an area of 410,000 square meters, Gyeongbok is the grandest of the four Joseon-era palaces in the city, three of them near each other in northern Seoul.
Gyeongbok was built in 1395 and was expanded in the succeeding years, but it was burned down during the Japanese invasion two centuries later. It was rebuilt in 1867 during the regency of Daewon-gun with 330 buildings but were destroyed save for ten by the Japanese in 1911, when Japan annexed Korea. At the southern part, in front of the throne hall, the Japanese built a capitol for the governor-general. During the Korean War, the palace again suffered some damages.
Restoration of Gyeongbok Palace began during the 1960s. The main gate was constructed, hiding the capitol, which was turned into a museum. But there are still structures representative of the Joseon Dynasty remaining, enough to effect an august and ancient atmosphere.
But we stopped by the Geunjeong-mun only. I knew if we went inside I will be lingering too long and will missing the flight to Jeju later in the day. Guards in colorful Joseon-era costumes were stationed at the front yard. Visitors took turns being photographed with the unmoving and formidable guards. Then the ceremony of the changing of the guards began.
The same ceremony was taking place at the Deoksu Palace on Jeong Street in Jung-gu. Located in a busy intersection of the downtown, the palace stands among modern buildings and shops. It was easy to spot it with the throng of people watching and taking pictures of the ceremony.
The gate of the Deoksu Palaca is smaller than Gyeongbok’s but the roof is just as ornate with tiles and eaves that curl upwards. The compound is surrounded by a stone wall, separating it from the busy metropolitan goings-on. Again, we just stopped by the gate. Amidst the office workers going to and fro and a small crowd of onlookers, the guards marched in their costumes, adding streaks of striking colors in the mix of grays and blacks.
This little palace was once the villa of Prince Wolsan, older brother of the Joseon king Seongjong (1469-1494). When other palaces were burned down by the Japanese in 1592, during the Seven-Year War, Deoksu became the royal palace, and King Seonjo was the first king to reside in Deoksu. In 1608, King Gwanghaegun was crowned in this palace, which he then called Gyeongun-gung in 1611. When Changdeokgung was rebuilt in 1618, the royal residence was moved there, and Deoksu became an auxiliary palace, renamed Seogung or West Palace. It was then called Deoksu in the late 19th century during the reign of Sunjong, after Emperor Gojong abdicated but continued to live in Deoksu.
At Deoksu Palace, our group split. One group wanted to check out Seoul’s shopping districts, and the other the Vincent Van Gogh exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art. We stepped out of the shadows of Korean history and into modern Seoul. It was already midmorning, and the sun was slowly gilding the streets and buildings. Although the temperature was up to a degree or two, I still felt cold and was still waking up.
"Winters were long and very cold," wrote Pantoja-Hidalgo in her 1992 book I Remember…: Travel Essays. "But most days were dry and bright like diamonds. Sometimes it was grey, and the trees and buildings were covered with a soft mist. By midday, the sun would shine forth, and through the mist, everything would look as if it had been sprinkled with gold dust."
At the Seoul Museum of Art, the color of gold burst forth, along with wine, burgundy and burnt orange. The museum is nestled in a small hill, among trees, some leafless and some burning with fiery colors. As much as we were fascinated by nature’s palette, we were looking forward to a genius who mixed colors into amazing visions.
I thought it weird to be viewing the works of the famous Dutch painter and that I should be marveling over Korean artifacts. "The rare opportunity to see Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpieces in Seoul is not one to be missed," said The Korea Times, "especially since the directors of the Van Gogh Museum and Kroller-Muller Museum from the Netherlands are calling ‘Van Gogh: Voyage into the Myth’ one of the best Van Gogh exhibitions ever in Asia." So we headed to Seosomun Street. The museum is very near the Deoksu Palace.
The exhibit, which the Korean organizers diligently prepared to mount, covered the prolific ten-year period in his career with 67, including 45 paintings and 22 drawings, said to be "the biggest Van Gogh exhibition since the exhibition marking the 100th anniversary of the artist’s death at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam in 1990." Furthermore, according to one of the organizers, the Van Gogh Museum is not planning to hold another exhibition of this kind for the next ten years.
The Van Gogh works are in Korea for four months, from late November to middle of March the following year. It was opportune that we were in Seoul in that period. It was an unexpected side trip. Banners about the exhibit festooned the streets of Seoul as we went around. Gerald could not stop hankering about it.
Vincent Van Gogh, one of most provocative painters of the world, mystifies many people. He seems to epitomize the image of the struggling artist with his troubled life and his conflicted soul. Throughout his life, he was largely unrecognized, was suffering from depression and could barely support himself. With the unselfish help from his brother Theo, Vincent was able to survive and paint, a fact I find touching. But in 1890 at the age of 37, Van Gogh shot himself in a field and died two days later. Dying, he said to Theo, "the sadness will last forever." Theo died six months later. In 1914, Theo’s body was exhumed and re-buried beside Vincent. After his death, his works had been hailed worldwide, and he was considered a genius.
And we were at the threshold of genius one very cold morning among trees with the color of fire. I was getting cheesy and humming "Vincent," Don McLean’s ballad that starts with "Starry, starry night," and continues to say, "This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you." The world now is beautiful and sometimes I cannot believe I am in it. At the museum’s garden, I saw something close to snow-ice formed at cracks on the pavement and on the earth by the roots of trees. The ground was covered with dead maple and ginkgo leaves. We touched the ice and picked up the leaves like children. At the square by the entrance, benches basked under the precious sunlight, surrounded by leafless trees, which in turn were encompassed by rows of little buildings, their windows still holding the shadows of last night.
Behind us, the museum building, built in the 1920s, stood august and gray with Renaissance-inspired architecture. It was actually a courthouse, housing the Supreme Court of the Republic of Korea from 1948 to 1995. The Seoul Museum of Art was originally in the Gyeoghui Palace, occupying a building that was once the Gyeongseong Middle School. The school became the Seoul High School after the Korean independence, then the Seoul Museum of Art in 1988. The Seoul Museum of Art moved into the Seosomun building when the Supreme Court was transferred to another building, on May 2002. The museum expanded, opening the Nam Seoul Annex Building in the southern part of the city where there are relatively fewer facilities.
Seoul actually has numerous museums and galleries, ranging from the grand to the intriguing. There is the grand National Museum of Korea, the National Folk Museum, the Beautiful Tea Museum, the Kimchi Field Museum, the Museum of Korean Embroidery, the Korean Kitchen Utensil Museum, the National Museum of Contemporary Art and the Seoul Museum of History, among others. Many are located at the northern part.
Seoul seems cultured, and the cultural spaces here must have been well-patronized. This was especially true at the Seoul Museum of Art now with the Van Gogh exhibit. People came in droves this Sunday morning, and we sometimes needed to squeeze in among the throngs to gawk at the paintings. Inside, the museum was alive, warm and throbbing. The lobby, main hall and atrium were studded with television monitors, a video installation. The Van Gogh exhibit occupied the second and third floors.
This "voyage into the myth" started with the artist’s early Netherlands period, from 1881 to 1885, when the twenty-eight-year old Van Gogh had decided to pursue art earnestly and began painting. He lived in the countryside in Etten with his parents, drawing his neighbors as subjects, and then moved to Drenthe, The Hague and Nuenen. He had unfortunate love affairs. His attempt to break into the art world was disheartening. His father died of a stroke.
I finally saw The Potato Eaters, which I first saw in my college humanities textbook, a somber lithograph depicting five peasants sharing a meal of potatoes under an oil lamp. The scene is wrapped in darkness but there is intensity in the depiction of the figures and their expressions, making the lithograph luminous. Van Gogh drew this in the spring of 1885 in Neunen. It was considered a failure, both by the critics and art dealers and by himself, not fulfilling what he initially intended to do. But after his death, The Potato Eaters was considered a masterpiece, his first.
Many of the works during this period were realistic and melancholic. Sorrow (November 1882) depicts a nude woman crouching in despair. Many were everyday scenes: Man at Table, Peasant Women Digging Potatoes and Loom with Weaver.
In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris, got exposed to art trends, befriended fellow artists and experimented with colors. Many works during the Paris period, from 1886 to 1888, are still-life: Parisian Novels; Vase of Cornflowers, Daisies, Poppies and Carnations; Glass of Absinthe and a Carafe; Roses and Peonies; and Flowers in a Blue Vase. In this portion, I saw his famous Self-Portrait, one of his many. This was not the one with the bandage, a later version done after he cut off his ear, but the one where he wore a straw hat and a yellow waistcoat.
From Paris, Van Gogh moved to Arles with ideas of establishing an art colony. He stayed at a hotel and then rented a house, called the Yellow House, at Number Two, Place Lamartine. Here he embarked on a project of decorating the house and was joined by artist Paul Gaugin. But they had a falling out. In 1889, Van Gogh suffered from hallucinations and paranoia.
The works in his Arles period, from February 1888 to May 1889, were marked by intense colors and energy. Included in the exhibit were Portrait of Joseph Roulin, The Yellow House, and The Sower. The last one I was very familiar with, a painting that burst with yellow color. Another famous work from this period, but not in the exhibit, is the Sunflower series, which was done August and September 1888. The wilting flowers were done in impasto, intended as decoration for Gaugin’s room in The Yellow House.
The third floor of the museum housed Van Gogh’s works during the Saint Remy de Provence and the Auvers-sur-Oise periods and some works on paper.
After Arles, Van Gogh was committed to a mental hospital of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, which was a former monastery in Saint Remy, a mile and a half out of the town and surrounded by cornfields, vineyards and olive trees. During his stay here, he had limited access to the world and his subjects were taken from his surroundings, when he went for short supervised walks, and from his imagination. The clinic and the garden became his main subjects. It was also during this time that he began to gain recognition.
Some his works during this period were marked by swirls, as seen in The Starry Night, perhaps his best known painting. But this was not in the exhibit. Instead, we saw A Pair of Leather Clogs, the religious Pieta, the romantic Country Road in Provence by Night and another famous still-life Irises.
In the last year of his life, in 1890, Van Gogh went to Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris. Before going here, his thoughts were returning to "memories of the North," thus some of his Auvers-sur-Oise works, about seventy of them, were evocative of northern scenes. Some works were characterized by certain kind of intensity. On July, when his depression intensified, he killed himself. In this period, we saw Chestnut trees in Blossom, Farmhouse and Ears of Wheat, bucolic images before Van Gogh’s tragic end.
At the top floor, there was a Van Gogh souvenir shop, selling items from mugs to notebooks. The Starry Night umbrellas hung overhead and Sunflowers pens decorated the counter. My companions bought reproductions of Irises.
From the shop, we viewed the goings-on at the museum. More people were pouring in, riding the escalators and going and out of the exhibition rooms. Although our viewing was less than ideal, we were amused by the crowd-parents taking their children and explaining the paintings to them, lovers holding hands while transfixed at Roses and Peonies, teenagers wheeling in their grandmothers, students taking notes. We thought of our almost empty museums back home.
It was almost lunchtime, and Mr. Kim, a Seoul native who is now based in the Philippines where he operates a travel agency, was beckoning to us. He served as our guide for this side trip, while Jessie took the others shopping. We were to rejoin and have the famous Korean ginseng chicken soup for lunch. The restaurant was near the museum.
The Korea Samkyetang Restaurant, as the name explicitly suggests, specializes in the samkyetang or ginseng chicken soup, which is whole young chicken stuffed with glutinous rice and boiled in a broth of ginseng, dried jujube fruit, garlic and ginger. The diminutive restaurant, said to be established in 1968, has about five floors, which can get crowded during lunchtime.
Lunch started with a shot of ginseng wine and samplings of kimchi. Each of us had an earthen pot of whole chicken immersed in steaming cream-colored broth and sprinkled with chopped leeks. The recipes for samkyetang of most restaurants specializing on the dish are often kept secret. For the Korea Samkyetang Restaurant, the "key to the taste is using ingredients from four-year-old ginseng cultivated in Geumsan and native chickens grown in the farm," its Web site says. "Everyday, young chickens that hatched only forty-nine days ago are delivered. With these chickens, ginseng, Chinese dates, garlic, and glutinous rice are boiled and make a fine soup."
Said to be nutritious and even therapeutic, samkyetang is traditionally eaten during the hot summer months. It is a little puzzling but its fighting-fire-with-fire logic sounds acceptable. For us, samkyetang could not be more apt this winter. The soup was unlike any other Korean dishes we had tasted with its subtle flavors. For others, it is almost bland. The chicken meat and bones easily fell off to reveal the stuffing of soft and sticky rice. I munched on kimchi and slurped the soup.
Thus fortified, we were ready to face again the wintry weather outside. I held a postcard of Van Gogh’s Sunflower, which I bought at the museum, like a talisman against cold. My anxiety on Seoul’s coldness was much lesser now, if not altogether gone. My first venture into winter and first visit to Seoul was short and hurried, and I wished to visit again and be more contemplative in whatever season, even winter again. My mind burnt with the images of Korea-the culture, the food, the history, the palaces, the gothic trees with leaves of fire and roots of ice.
