How One Garden In South Korea Flipped Reality on Its Head
In a country the size of Indiana, with only 30% of the peninsula being easily habitable, it wouldn’t be outlandish to assume that intense urbanization would dominate South Korean society. I imagined a massively compact cityscape with skyscrapers dwarfing what I thought humanly possible, people and streets stretching as far as the eye can see, and miles of concrete without an ounce of natural life. For the most part, all of this is true with Seoul, the country’s capital, being the 5th largest city in the world and encompassing a large portion of the country.
What was surprising to me was their commitment to preserving natural spaces amidst the sprawling urban crawl. In the cities that I traveled it was not uncommon to see humble parks dressed with colorful flowers, fountain centers for the nearly daily city-wide events, and the enormous lot given to communities to grow food. From my time there, I gathered that Korean society held a deep respect for the inherent beauty of their country and despite the constant pressure from urban development it was clear that concessions were made so that the natural spaces could be used and preserved by everyone.
As an American, I feel that our cities could learn something about integrating the natural and urban spaces together, especially in the form of community gardens. Yet, despite the public benefit that parks provide it is important to remember that even though parks may be natural they will always be a substitution for nature. A simple fact is that many city-born Koreans have never seen a physical deer before and in this way, parks have become the hyperreal form of nature. In this same way, Disneyland has become more of a popular vacation destination than the Grand Canyon, one of the seven wonders of the world. These simple truths reveal the natural gravitation towards the fantastic and surreal with the departure from reality being the source of conflict.
I use this topic and these relationships as a point of arrival to describe the amazingly special garden in Korea that subverts the classic conflict-oriented relationship between reality and fiction. Generally speaking, parks and gardens are used as a substitution for actual nature in the same way that pictures are a substitution for actual places but the Garden of the Morning Calm (아침고요수목원) uses real flowers, trees, and landscapes, to create a deceiving and all too real fantasy land. A place where the lines between the real and surreal are blurred in incredibly unique ways. It’s bizarre knowing that everything around you is as real as the ground and the sky yet at the same time being visually bombarded with the dream-like fantasy of it all.
The garden is in what I would describe as the Korean countryside, not necessarily a big city but not particularly far from one either. Unfortunately, if public transportation is your preferred travel partner the journey will be long and taxing for you, but the struggle is definitely worth it. The travel took me about an hour and a half on the public train and 30 mins on a public bus that took me right to the garden. Unfortunately, I had to make that same trip home after zooming around the garden with frenetic haste. I recommend finding a Korean friend with a car and pay for their gas, there are many Koreans looking to stretch their language muscles out on native speakers, I met some of my best native friends at an English as a second language conversation hour.
Sitting in the shadows of a small valley created by two enormous mountains sits the tranquil garden with the elevation helping to naturally separate its dynamic elements, and like everything else in Korea I do hope that you’re ready for lots of steps.
Carved into the mountainside is a landing for multiple greenhouses. If you stumble into one you will find a seemingly plain room, your standard rocks, plants, and moss with all the things that you would typically expect from greenhouses.
If you look close enough it becomes increasingly clear that this isn’t your average greenhouse. This is actually a miniature Korea, with craggy cliff faces, traditional homes, miniature trees and beautiful micro streams running through the tiny landscape. My thought went to the miniature plastic models of my childhood, but this was all too real. The water was flowing, the trees were breathing, and the grass was growing. The first point of departure for reality slipping into the fantastic.
Following the mountain ridge will lead to an iconic church-like structure deep within the woods, a brook with tiny rock stacks created by the garden’s many visitors, and uniquely-tall pine trees scattered along the paths that wind down the mountain. Following the mountain slope and into the peaceful valley below will lead to a very traditional looking still pond with a gazebo gently resting in the middle of the lily pad filled water.
Not far from the pond is a very beautiful and historically traditional Korean building that can be explored if the cultural norm is followed, using complimentary slippers to navigate the rooms.
All of this may certainly be a beautiful sight but it surely isn’t as jarring as I had made it out to be. What I had left out of this elaborate tour was how the elevation acts as a looking glass, with the focus being the center of the valley. Here in the heart of the garden is where all convention breaks with reality and the fantastic begins to expresses itself. The colorful flowers are organized together to create immense super-flowers, trees are shaped to meet unnatural angles, and the hills themselves flow like waves found in a quiet cove.
It wasn’t long after I took these two pictures that my two-hour trek back home had come, regrettably with plenty more garden to see. It was here, in this garden, that I saw no more disagreement between the fictitious and the real because everything in sight was a fantasy and everything that was fantastic was living. Under normal circumstances, these things are in constant conflict with each other, but here they have achieved a soft and delightful harmony that I haven’t been able to find anywhere else in the world.
Every year and every season brings something new and exciting to the tapestry of life woven into this place, I went during the fall of 2017 and I hope to come back someday. If you go to the garden’s website you will be able to see some truly stunning professional photography that absolutely captures the feelings I experienced.
I aspire to come back someday but, even if I never make it back I will always think fondly of this amazing place that is like nowhere else on Earth. The one place that was able to harmonize two powerful and diametrically opposite forces in a way that was able to compliment them both.
