By Jeongnam Kim
(Former Senior Presidential Secretary for Education·Culture·Society, World Korean News advisor)
There are not many people who know that a project is underway to rebuild the original walls of the Hanyang (Seoul) castle. It started in 1974, but the progress is at a snail's pace. But with the inauguration of Mayor Park Won-sun kicked it off to finish a plan to connect the whole length of the walls by 2015.
In recent years, the contraction work of a new road along the walls is underway, and people from all over the nation come to join a walk campaign along the new path. It is expected that when the complete connection of the walls is completed, it will become a landmark for Seoul, and the walking along the walls will become an essential trail for not only the Korean people but also those who visit Korea from abroad.
"King Taejo, (or the founding monarch of the Chosun Dynasty), was agonizing for he was not quite sure how to set the boundary of the Capital city, and one night snow fell. He noticed that within a certain boundary the snow melt down, whereas it did not disappear without. Amazed at this line of boundary, he ordered to set the site of his capital city along the line. This is the very scene of the walls."
This is a passage in a book titled "Taikriji," written by Lee Jong-hwan, a Realist School scholar of the Chosun Dynasty, which explains how Seoul was originally established. The Hanyang city the Chosun dynasty founder King Taijo covered a total of 18.6 kilometers along the mountains tops and ridges of Naeseo Mountain, Baekak-san Mounting in the north, Inwang-san Mountain in the west, Nam-san Mountain in the south and the Nak-san Mountain in the east.
On top of that, there were found great gates in the four directions of the city, representing the Benevolence, Righteousness, Propriety, and Wisdom, the four virtues of the human beings taught by the Confucianism philosophy, and four small gates, with the roads running all directions.
During the period of the Chosun Dynasty, there was a custom, called the Wall Pilgrim, whereby the people would take a walk along the castle walls and take a sightseeing of the capital in and out. According to a book titled 'Hanseong Jiryak,' writting by Yu Bon-ye (1772-1842), the citizens of the Hanyang capital city, used to walk side by side and took the pilgrim of the walls which took the full length of a day. The custom and tradition of the pilgrim walk continued until the early days of the Japanese colonial rule.
The Maeil Shinbo Daily carried a story on May 14, 1916 under the subtitle, "The Walk along the Walls is very popular these days." It says that the shop owners of Jong-ro in Seoul, secretly take this pilgrim walk for prosperity and luck of their business, and noted that the walk make wonders only when the pilgrim walk is finished in the span of a day, rain or sun. However, this tradition disappeared into history when the Japanese colonialists took down the walls here and there to build new roads.
The Seoul City government has a pilot team formed which would manage and control a project to finish the reconstruction of the complete length of the walls, and for the portions where a connection work is impossible due to the surface roads an overpass would be erected as well as a line marked with granites so that it shows the passage of the original wall. And when the works would be completed in 2015, it is also contemplated that the walls would be recorded as a world culture heritage.