[One Thousand Characters a Day] Kim Seoul's 'A Very Private Palace Walk' <5>

Editor's NoteWhen entering Gyeongbokgung Palace through Gwanghwamun, the National Palace Museum is located on the left. A museum dealing with royal court relics was not established for a long time even after liberation, and it was only in 1992 that the Royal Relics Exhibition Hall was set up. In 2004, it moved to Yongsan, taking over the building of the National Museum of Korea, and in 2005, the Palace Museum was opened. True to its name, it collects and manages relics related to the Joseon royal family within the palace, with a collection of over 40,000 items. Some argue that the Palace Museum stands where government offices should be within Gyeongbokgung, hindering the restoration of the palace, but writer Kim Seoul says it is fortunate that the museum is located inside Gyeongbokgung. Word count: 989 characters.

Anyone who has visited the palace even once would know that the palace we see now is close to just the shell of the Joseon palace. Only the buildings and some landscaping installations remain, and after the people who lived and worked in the palace disappeared, the Joseon palace became an empty space.

In reality, traces of people living there and the daily life and habits of the time?the culture of the Joseon royal family?are nowhere to be found in the current palace. The everyday items and interior accessories that once filled every corner of the palace have all been moved to the National Palace Museum, leaving only the exterior materials behind. Ultimately, to see the objects used in the palace, one must visit the Palace Museum.

In this situation, if the Palace Museum were to move to another area, the distance between the exterior and interior materials of the Joseon royal family would become even greater. If the Palace Museum is not located on palace grounds, where else should it go? The area near Gwanghwamun is already densely packed with high-rise buildings, and it is unlikely that surrounding buildings would easily give up their space. In many ways, the Palace Museum will have no choice but to remain part of Gyeongbokgung for the time being, so it is unfair to direct criticism at the museum.

It would be ideal for visitors if royal items were displayed inside the palace buildings as they were used in the past. However, now there is no one to use those items in that space, and royal objects are no longer practical items like a mug on my desk or earphones; they have become precious artifacts covered by a new layer called 'relics,' carefully managed under glass cases. In other words, they have become objects that must be passed down from this generation to the next, and the next, for as long as possible.

We cannot take them out from the museum storage just to please our eyes and expose them to environments with wind, sunlight, sometimes moisture and cold from rain or snow, and even mice and insects. So, let's set aside our regrets and diligently take in the relics at the Palace Museum inside Gyeongbokgung, then quickly walk back to the palace buildings and imagine how the items in the museum would have been placed there.

- Kim Seoul, A Very Private Palace Walk, Nol, 15,000 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.