And the Histories, Ever Alive - Gyeongju, Korea Rep.
Gyeongju, Korea Rep.
When I first started browsing places to settle down in South Korea for a year, the familiar cities like Seoul and Busan reared their heads first. Over time and through researching, the expansive but less-spoken-of populaces of Ulsan and Daegu were next. Finally, Gyeongju. Gyeongju? What that a joke? Like it was "beyond me," just spoken with a mouth full of food? I'd never heard of such a place before, and I tell myself I had no reason to know of it. That was until I visited it's National Museum. Now I wonder why I make excuses for myself.
Now I won't go on and say how incredibly breathtaking every piece of historical stone in the Gyeongju National Museum is, because at the end of the day, it's really only has two major components: stone and history. I'm not sure how of a crucial role ancient rock plays for the life of the everyday person, but history is one of those things that everyone can relate to. We all have one. It might not be written in the popular pages of best-selling books, but it's there. Alive, and always has been. And Gyeongju's history is the same way.
IMPORTANT: I do not claim to have a powerful grasp about geography, social constructs, or governmental politics. (In fact, those may be my biggest weaknesses.) I also did not major in Eastern Asian History, nor have I written an academically published dissertation. Thank you for reading my disclaimer. See below.
In a nutshell, Gyeongju has undergone some dramatic changes since the year 500 BC. (That's AD, for those who like tradition.) Since that time, the city (and country) has been infused with Buddhism as its go-to religion. The entire language known as Hangul was constructed so that the Korean populace's literacy rate would improve. Gyeongju itself perservered through multiple dynasties, civil wars, coups, and more change than any group of people should ever be comfortable with. You'll hear names like Silla, Goryeo, and Joseon surface in much of the history. But what do they mean?
Sure, Silla, Goryeo, and Joseon were all names of dynasties that ruled over the histories of Korea, but when most people think of Kings, Queens, and conquests, they think of the cycle of destruction and creation. It tends to be a dynasty's duty to assume control, destroy what was, and build what shall be. Now the interesting thing about Gyeongju's history is that this cycle doesn't hold true here. Look at a number of artifacts within the National Museum and you can see it with your own eyes. No history book needed. Infrastructure like royal architecture was built upon, not torn down and recreated. Rules and regulations weren't abolished, but reformed and amended. Even simple decorations like those of the lotus flower continued to merely evolve with intricacies. Some call it a deviation from the norm, but I like to call it staying alive in another light.
History has many rarities. For one, it contains deviations. It has this little trick of revealing bends and warps in commonplace occurrences. If you look hard enough and look enough, you can find that peasants can attain vast amounts of power, and kings can be reduced to nothing more than figureheads, such as what transpired during the end of the Silla dynasty.
History holds a quiet strength. We all step forward - hell, even the people of Gyeongju step forward - with the pride of their histories behind them. They aren't built upon brutal conquests, but one brick of civilization laid on top of another. The Silla dynasty collapsed, leading into other changes throughout time, that's true. But time has the grand ability to restore, just as it can take away. In time, histories have the strength to build on one enough, and sometimes form a path to the future. Such is Gyeongju.
And finally, history is... well, it's a life, a lot of lives, lives kept on the fringe of consciousness because of records and statues and memories. When you think about history, you're thinking about people, the trials they've endured, and the accomplished they've attained using only the tools they only had access to. I doubt I'll ever fully understand the gravity of clashing dynasties, let alone lead a successful one. Revolting peasants and water dragons are some things I could never appease, as well. However these are some of the things dotting the pages of Gyeongju's histories, and as long as there are other to tell what's written down, they won't be forgotten.