[Opinion] Piwon

I returned from Piwon, the Secret Garden. My tour of the garden included Pandoji (Pando Pond) and Okryucheon (Okryu Stream), which have been closed to the general public for 28 years to protect the cultural properties and to conserve the ecology, and filled me with fresh emotion. The two and a half hours elapsed like a dream. Walking leisurely in the Royal Palace where kings used to stroll with their women, I felt lucky to be living in this time of the world, although it is a troublesome time. If I were born as a commoner in the Yi Dynasty, it would be unthinkable to even enter here.

Piwon is a rear garden in the Changdok Palace, a palace that served as a kings’ residence for longer than any other palace in Korea. The garden was originally named “Keumwon” meaning that commoners were forbidden. Later, the name was changed to “Piwon” by imperialist Japan. During the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592, all of the palaces in Hanyang were burned and the Changdok Palace, which used to be an eastern palace, was renovated in 1610 (the second year under Kwanghaekun’s rule) to serve as the main palace until Daewonkun rebuilt the Kyongbok Palace in 1868. While the main building of the Kyongbok Palace displays symmetry, the Changdok Palace possesses a unique natural beauty as its buildings are embraced by valleys along the bottom of a mountain. Particularly charming is the nature-friendly Piwon, a model of a Korean beauty.

The Cultural Properties Administration extended the permitted area of Piwon to include Pandoji and Okryucheon, with tours given three times a day beginning on May 1. It received great public response. On the first day that the administration began to receive reservations for the tour through the Internet, one month of reservations were sold out. During June, each day’s tour could be reserved on a daily basis, but these daily reservations also sold out within two to three minutes after midnight. Many of the reservations are made by groups such as families and companies. Starting from July, it is planned that reservations can be made a month ahead, each day starting at 9 a.m. with 20 percent of reservations being saved for on-the-spot sales.

“Beauty does not belong to the one who owns it, but to the one who knows how to appreciate it,” said Keum-a Pi Cheon-deuk. According to him, Piwon belongs to everybody who has an appreciative eye. It cannot be believed that there exist such wonderful cultural properties in the middle of Seoul unless one goes inside it and takes a walk. The garden is also a treasure house with 290,000 trees of 160 species and birds of 40 species. I feel that I cannot move out of Seoul because of Piwon, even if the capital moves to Chungcheong Province.

Oh Myung-cheol, Editorial writer oscar@donga.com