1. A stone Buddha image stands facing a three-story stone pagoda featuring an engraved figure of a monk offering tea with both hands. 2. Monk Jiheo is a master of traditional tea ceremony.
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“As a child, the rocks along the walls near the South Gate, each standing taller than me, always made me wonder how they were able to haul these massive rocks here and stack them up,” said the custodian on guard at the West Gate. Standing on the wall, I could look over the entire village as well as the plains and mountains beyond the fortress.
nace. The smokestack is so tall and close to the roof that I was worried the sparks would catch fire on the thatched roof.... When I sit here on my little veranda looking at people coming and going, I’m not bored at all.” Then, we heard the sound of a scooter. She called out the name of the man riding it and said: “Are you going on a delivery? Come in!” She turned to me and explained: “He likes coffee. So I’ll have to give him a cup.” Through the loudspeakers installed around the village, the village chief asked the residents to come by his office to pick up the fertilizer that they had ordered. Farming is indeed a vital industry, even today. In October, however, about 300,000 tourists flood into the village to attend the Namdo Food Festival, during which time the most prominent restaurants all through South Jeolla Province close their doors for a few days so that they can present their specialties in Nagan. K o r e a n a ı S u mme r 2 012
Tea Offering at Geumdun Temple Not far from the fortress town, Mt. Geumjeon is the home of Geumdun Temple, which vividly testifies to the area’s lengthy history. There, I met Monk Jiheo, who tends to the adjacent wild tea fields and makes tea offerings to the Buddha. At this temple built in the sixth century during the reign of King Wideok of the Baekje Kingdom, a seventh-century stone Buddha from Baekje and a ninthcentury stone pagoda are preserved on its grounds. The original temple buildings were burnt down during the 16th-century Japanese Invasions and later restored by Monk Jiheo in 1983. “I stopped here by chance one summer to enjoy a watermelon. Then I noticed a Buddha lying in ruins. A few years later, a strange coincidence brought me back to this place and I’ve lived here ever since,” the monk said. “The three-story stone pagoda is carved with the scene of a tea offering ceremony, providing important information on our tea tradition.” The pagoda and the Buddha stand facing each other against the backdrop of a mountain cliff. The pagoda’s second story features the carved figures of two monks with one knee on the floor, offering tea with both hands. At the temple, Monk Jiheo made an offering of tea in front of the stone Buddha with exactly the same posture as the pagoda’s carving.
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