Like much of the world, I've found myself drawn over recent years to the entertainment emanating from South Korea - first, movies like Train to Busan and Parasite, and then television like Squid Game. (K-pop has, perhaps thankfully, passed me by.)
Yet even as I ruminated on the themes of these productions (often about economic inequality and class differences ... oh, and zombies), I realised I knew very little about the country's culture and history. Coming here, I had hoped to learn more. But just a day into my trip to South Korea, I realise I know even less than I thought.
In the capital, Seoul, I had expected to find a smaller version of Tokyo. And, sure, there are similarities like the phalanxes of skyscrapers and a subway map that looks like a bowl of noodles. But missing are - on one hand - the walls of neon lights, the jangling din of the arcade parlours, and the quirky collections of cosplayers - and on the other - all the restaurants with people silently eating alone, the almost slavish devotion to not breaking rules, and the drab suited uniforms of the salarymen.
On first impressions, Seoul appears to be a city attuned to its heritage and enlivened by its communities. Restaurants are often raucous affairs with soju freely flowing while meat sizzles on the small table BBQ. (I'm actually turned away from several restaurants during my time in South Korea because their menu doesn't cater for solo diners.) Yet there's also a reverential calm at the palaces and shrines throughout the city.
I encounter it on my first morning at Changdeokgung Palace, one of the five main imperial sites left in the capital from the Joseon dynasty that ruled Korea for five centuries until 1897.
Changdeokgung is considered the best-preserved landmark from this period (many of the other sites were destroyed by Japanese invasions and subsequently rebuilt) and the imposing gates and halls are an ideal introduction to the styles of classic Korean art and architecture. With sloped tiled roofs like wings in suspended animation, the multi-tiered wooden buildings are painted vibrantly, the dominant blue-green and ochre-red colours revealing detailed patterns and motifs as you get closer.
The palace grounds of Changdeokgung are home to the 'Secret Garden', which I nevertheless find on the official guided tour where I'm first introduced to some of the Joseon kings and their often dramatic biographies. But none is as gruesome as the one I discover a couple of days later at the Hwaseong Fortress on the southern outskirts of Seoul.
This enormous complex was built by the king in the 1790s to honour his father, Prince Sado, who never took the throne because, at the age of 27, he was locked in a box by the then-king (his father) and left there for eight days until he died. This was apparently the only solution at the time to the crown prince's mental illness that had turned him into a serial murderer and rapist who nobody was able to stop.
These days, the fortress itself is an impressive sight to visit, where the highlight is the six-kilometre defensive wall lined with gates and towers, which you can walk for most of its length. Very few original buildings remain within the walls, and the large area is now mostly filled with the new city, along with a recent reconstruction of the palace that would've once stood here.
This mix of modern urbanity integrated with bastions of heritage is found throughout much of central Seoul, where the traditional 'hanok' neighbourhoods in places like Bukchon and Namsangol feel like the set of a period drama, elegant homes with sloped tiled coverings behind rough stone walls; and the glitzy avenues of Gangnam, made famous by K-pop's PSY, are lined with designer stores, trendy cafes, and well-dressed office workers. (There's even a small Gangnam Style stage where tourists stop to do the horse dance pose.)
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One day I head out of Seoul on a tour to visit the DMZ, the four-kilometre-wide buffer that separates South Korea from North Korea. The large military presence and procedures to go into the additional buffer zone on the southern side (you don't actually go into the DMZ itself) create a sense of expectation, and the sight of the two competing flagpoles on either side (the north won with its 160-metre-high one) and the 'fake propaganda village' in the distance is certainly interesting. Yet, for something that has defined the region's geopolitics for decades, it feels like a bit of an anti-climax.
Perhaps that's because tourist life in Seoul is rarely dominated by the threat from across the border. It's about grand palaces, historic tombs, and an enormous national museum. It's about window shopping in the enchanting neighbourhood of Insadong, and the busy street market amongst the lights of Myeongdong. It's battling peak hour on the subway, and any of the thousands of coffee shops that seem to be everywhere. It's even about taking a day to head up into the surrounding hills to hike through forest to shrines and abandoned forts.
Do I understand those Korean movies and television shows any better after just a week in Seoul? Yes, a bit. (And I've also been introduced to a new one called Kingdom about the Joseon imperial court with... you guessed it... zombies.)
But I've also come to realise how complex and nuanced the stories are here, a constant pulsation of old and new, rich and poor, even north and south. Seoul has plenty for visitors to fill their days - but perhaps too much for those hoping to make sense of it all.
You can see more things to do in South Korea on Michael's Time Travel Turtle website.
Michael Turtle
Michael Turtle is an Australian journalist who left his job in television to travel the world forever. He'll show you how to find the lesser-known places, get involved in the culture, learn the history, and meet locals along the way.
Michael Turtle is an Australian journalist who left his job in television to travel the world forever. He'll show you how to find the lesser-known places, get involved in the culture, learn the history, and meet locals along the way.
