( CULTURAL BRIEFING N^O 13 )

Gyeongbokgung

The ancient art of feng shui

_EN

            Fittingly, my last packaged tour with my parents was to South Korea in the early summer of 2011 — a nearly 16-year gap from our last memorable one to Beijing.

            I remember the coach driving straight up the wide boulevard of Sejong the Great’s statue, with Gwanghwamun coming into view, and Bugaksan poking out in the background.

            That was when I knew Gyeongbokgung was built following classical Chinese feng shui principles — the boulevard being the central axis, leading to the main gate of the palace, the palace itself, and the mountain backing it. These were the lessons that I absorbed from my Chinese tour guide’s introduction to the Forbidden City.

            It was either an exhibition at the Cheongwadae Sarangchae cultural museum, or years later online, where I came across an aerial photograph of the Japanese Government-General Building standing at where Gwanghwamun is supposed to be, blocking off the entire palace complex.

            Three words immediately came to mind — 斷龍脈 — the deliberate breaking of the dragon vein. This was an act of cultural desecration during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Large swathes of the royal palace were dismantled and the parts sold.

            The Japanese would know feng shui. After all, Heian-kyo (modern day Kyoto) was modelled on the ancient city of Chang’an (modern day Xi’an). The symbolic siting of the Government-General Building was meant to break the last Korean monarchy’s traditional seat of power, and therefore its people’s psyche.

            It took until the 1990s — half a century after the end of the occupation — but I’m glad that South Korea has torn it down and rebuilt Gwanghwamun at its original location, and is in the process of sensitively restoring Gyeongbokgung to its former glory.

            The twin statues along Gwanghwamun Square today obscure the fact that the wide boulevard is Seoul’s ancient central axis. Tourists posing on the square might or might not know that the king’s procession would have marched on this very path into the palace in the distant past.

            But this part of the city has remained essentially unchanged for more than 600 years, and city-planning decisions made centuries ago still echo and affect its inhabitants to this day.

Notes from Ben:
This Cultural Briefing was first observed in Jun 2011, and written in May 2026.

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