When a foreigner comes to Korea the first place he is told to see is Seoul's Sungnyemun (formerly known as Namdaemun) gate. The gate lies at the center of Seoul's city bus tour, and it is always at the forefront on material promoting Korea overseas. There is one single reason for that. It is National Treasure Number 1.
So then, when a foreigner stands in front of Sungnyemun, is he able to feel something of Korea's cultural strength, its artistic spirit, and where it has been during its history? Who would be able to get a sense of that when it lacks the fortress walls that are its wings, and when it is a miserable wooden structure surrounded by high-rise buildings?
Those questions, however, are not enough reason to change the number that it has been assigned. The authorities responsible for the country's cultural properties never considered Sungnyemun the cultural asset that best represents Korea. They gave it a number to keep track of it and didn't give it any thought. It was like a Resident Registration Number (jumin deungnok beonho). The only problem was that they never considered the symbolic significance of the number "one."
Still, on Wednesday the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) recommended that something else be "National Treasure Number 1," and the subsequent debate is nevertheless a meaningful one. There was discussion about a change in 1996, in the context of correcting problems from the historical past. In 1934 the Japanese colonial government downgraded the gate and called it "Namdaemun," then named it Chosen's (Korea's) "historical site number 1" because it was what they could see the best from the colonial government building. Even after Liberation our government followed the same ordering system without ever ordering any process of expert review. All sorts of government agencies advertised the gate as the cultural property that represents the country.
This time the discussion needs to be turned into a process of straightening our system of designating cultural assets, something that has long been postponed. Doing that will require being receptive to the collective wisdom of the experts and the views of the public. And as the experts note, designation numbers can be misunderstood as a value ranking and so should not be assigned. Instead, cultural properties should be classified by type and then symbolic relics from each classification can be used for government and international publicity and as educational material.
The Hankyoreh, 10 November 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] Be Careful Designating Cultural Properties |
