June 7, 2006
As yet another example of Korean hospitality, we were each given a Sun chip by a little girl at the Gongju National Museum, where we were clearly as much on display as all of the artifacts from the Baekje kingdom. David talked to one of the docents for the children's area (my favorite kind of souvenir--we each did a rubbing!) who said that the last non-Asian tourists they had were two Germans who visited last June. It's really too bad that the area doesn't see more tourists, since the people are lovely and the sites and museum are quite nice, too. The little creature to the right is an imaginary one that the Baekje people believed would guard the dead in their tombs (think small Egyptian pyramids covered with dirt and planted with grass to look like hills).
King Muryeong was one of the last Baekje kings, before they were conquered by the Shilla Kingdom from the East, centered in present-day Gyeongju. By some oversight on the part of grave robbers throughout the last 1500 years, Muryeong's tomb wasn't plundered and when it was 'discovered' in 1971, about 3000 artifacts were found, now housed in the museum. There are several fancy gold ornaments, as well as pots that indicate trade with the Han in China. Being sadly ignorant of the poorly named Three Kingdoms period (there were actually briefly five kingdoms during the 100 BCE-700 CE stretch), I'm sure we're missing lots of clues and interconnections, but it's fun to look at everything anyway.
Somewhat more invigorating than the museum, though, is the old Baekje fortress. Originally built with wood, but burned down in the Japanese invasion of 1592, the fortress is now crumbling stone that tourists traverse. We saw the changing of the guard ceremony that is performed every hour during the summer, which was fun. It must be a rite of passage for young high school boys to work as guards: almost all of the boys were plugged into their ipods and a couple of them were conversing on their cell phones. Clearly historical accuracy is not paramount when you have to stand in the hot sun all day.
