Visiting Cheonghakdong (meaning "Azure Crane") Village, located on top of Jirisan (智異山) in the southern region of South Korea, was undoubtedly one of the most amazing experiences I've had in my adult life.
After living in Japan for eight years and having visited most of the neighboring countries of both East and South-East Asia, I came to think that there is probably nothing else that can surprise me greatly, but the experience of the last weekend certainly made me understand how ignorant this kind of thinking had been. The thing is that I've been always expecting to be mostly impressed by the beauty of the sites and locations, forgetting that truly meaningful lessons can and should be first and foremost derived from the interactions with people one meets on the way. I guess these years of living far from my family have isolated my heart a little more than I expected, making it quite satisfactory to enjoy the silent dialogue with the nature during my travels, without feeling any necessity to communicate with people more than required. I now realize however that, although this might have been an indispensable part of my growth, it is time to let in what I've been keeping away.
Going back to our experience at the village, the inhabitants of which are maintaining traditional ways of living in unity with the surrounding nature, I must say that, comparing to other villages of the kind, this one's peculiarity is that the villagers' way of reviving the folk customs through their appearance (which includes traditional clothing and almost knee-length hair in knots) and actions seems ultimately effortless, creating an atmosphere of complete authenticity. Thus the time-slip effect is fully reached, helping the visitors to not only enjoy the beautiful sites and views, but to feel free from the anxieties of the city life. Everything in the village is in full harmony with one other - the colors and shapes of the original stone constructions against the background sceneries, the sound of flowing water carrying bright petals on its surface, and the freshness of air filled with the fragrances of grass, clay, and soil.
What surprised me is that, despite being placed in such a different atmosphere, I felt extremely natural, almost if I had visited this site before or if I saw it in one of my dreams, the kind of dreams where one suddenly starts speaking and understanding a foreign language they never learned before or possesses an ability to do unusual things - fearlessly walk on the edge of the cliff or fly. I believe that this was due to the highly welcoming atmosphere created by the religious men, also called "virtuous men", who reside in the village, practicing asceticism and peace.
The event we attended was a wedding of a relative, the ceremony itself conducted by the head master with the help of his family members and disciples. Unlike the currently practiced Chinese-style Korean traditional wedding, where the bride stands apart from the groom with her sleeves against her eyes, the one we witnessed was following one of the oldest purely Korean folk traditions - the couple sat next to each in front of the painting picturing the Creator of Korea in an open temple, both wearing lovely wreaths made from wild flowers, white and blue, and the guests bowed to all sides of the world following the instructions of the master, thus marking the beginning and end of the ceremony. A small folk music orchestra playing at the wedding consisted of a flute, drum and zither.
The second part of the ceremony was held in a long rectangular-shape communal hall, the newly-wedded couple seated in the north-west part of the room, to the left off the performance space, occupied by the orchestra and singers. The head virtuous man was sitting in front of them in the north-east part, followed by a famous governor, all of them wearing traditional clothing, a bright-colored "hanbok" for the couple and white gowns for the head master and other religious men. The guests were all seated along the two walls of the hall, trays with tea and sweets in front of them. The tray in front of the newly-married couple had a bottle of wine as well and was decorated with two wedding geese, symbolizing a union of a husband and wife. After the couple and the guests made their first sips of the drinks, the folk orchestra music started followed by singing and dancing. In the end the guests were invited to join the dance as well. The singing, performed in an old-style way, was deeply moving, and it felt like the sound was coming out from the depth of the singer's body, or better say, it seemed like all her body was singing, not just the throat and lungs. It felt like if one would touch any part of the singer's body, they will feel it being energized with strong vibration. One of the starting songs, recitative in parts, was the one called "Love" ("Pansori Sarang-ga") and it was combined with a game, where the groom had to kiss the bride's hand every time the word "love" was spelled, bringing a lot of laughter. The song also included some jokes with profane language (added deliberately by the performer), something found worldwide in traditional weddings, especially those close to the heathen tradition, and aimed at releasing negative energy and also suggesting physical relation and fertility associated with it. This song was then sung several more times during the third part of the wedding as well as during the meal the next day.
For the third part of the wedding, less ceremonial, the religious men, the couple and the guests all relocated to another communal hall towards the bottom of the mountain, after a fifteen minutes walk down the hill right before it got dark. The food, which included the celebratory dish of fermented skate ("hongeo"), and "makgeolli" rice wine were served, and the feast started with people making toasts and singing or being asked to sing, which everyone did without hesitating. Singing is a commonly found component of Korean parties and the amazing part is that almost everyone without exception is very well versed in many songs and has great voices. The feast continued for over six hours, after which some people went to their inns located nearby, and others, including the couple, relocated to a smaller space to celebrate with the guests who could only arrive towards the night.
Since the day started for us very early and we had to drive to Jirisan for nearly four hours from Seoul and since I was still a little tired from my flight the day before that, we did not join the fourth part of the wedding, which made it possible for us to wake up in time for breakfast and have a rich and slightly spicy bean-paste soup that helped us feel active no matter the rice wine we drank on the wedding day. After the breakfast we climbed up the mountain once again to join the head master for a tea ceremony, with multiple kinds of tea prepared and served by his wife. The room was located right at the edge of the cliff opening a far-reaching view of the forest, mountains, and the sky. The master was making remarks about the Korean history, both political and cultural, and the conversation continued for over an hour, tea refilled every time the cups were emptied. After the tea drinking, everybody went down the mountain and relocated to the site around fifteen-minutes drive away, nearby a beautiful river. We took off our shoes and came to a big stone in the middle of the stream, where we sat down for sometime enjoying the sunshine and forest flowers, lily-of-the-valley being one of them, picked by the master's wife. The site had many paired wooden idols, one bigger and another smaller, most likely representing the whole range of binary oppositions. After approximately half an hour we had a light meal of forest grass with the rice wine, highly fermented and almost with the taste of mud in it, in a small wooden pavilion located next to a big traditional house at the bank of the river.
Very soon we entered this house and had a large meal of grilled duck with the endless portions of various side dishes and wine. It was amazing how every time we moved to a new spot on different levels of the mountain, there was a table there prepared for the occasion, starting from the breakfast and tea ceremony and till the grass and wine snack and the duck meal. The latter also lasted long with many toasts and songs and it wasn't until it started getting slightly dark that we finally got into the car to have our four-hours drive back to Seoul. The further we moved away from Jirisan, the mountain ranges replaced by forests, valleys and villages on flat grounds later on, the more it felt like we were leaving behind a wonderful dream, as the atmosphere there was so harmonious, peaceful and joyful, that it seemed almost unreal for the modern world of hustle and noise.
