T
raditional Korean houses seen from the outside are elegant and dignified. Whether grand tiledroof residences or humble thatched-roof cottages, they are graceful and attractive in their own ways. Although the thatched cottages of the commoners hardly exist any longer, there remain some of the old residences of the nobility, demonstrating the graceful beauty of traditional houses. When observed from inside, however, these attractive old houses seem to present considerable problems for modern living. They are especially unfriendly to women, who are in charge of housework in most homes. The residents of these houses — usually the eldest son of a family’s main lineage and his wife, who take the responsibility for maintaining their ancestors’ legacy — often admit that it is hard to live in them without some renovations. In most cases, the kitchen is the first place to be refurbished. Cooking and Heating at the Same Time The kitchen in a traditional Korean house was designed so that cooking and heating could be carried out at the same time. Wood and twigs were burned in the furnace below the clay stove, sending hot air flowing through underfloor flues to heat the floor, and the air in the room also warmed by the convective heat. In the meantime, the iron pots on the stove were used for cooking rice and other dishes. It was a very efficient system at a time when fuel sources were scarce. When these houses were built centuries ago, they would have been the optimal architectural solution for the natural and ecological conditions of the time. The kitchen, too, would have been built applying an array of scientific knowledge and technologies available back then. Gradually, however, technological development in the fields of fuels, tools and equipment brought profound changes to people’s lifestyles. So now, it seems impossible to stick to the old way of life in a traditional house without modernizing the kitchen. Recently, I had an opportunity to visit the old house of Park Gyeong-jung, distinguished for its style and size among the old residences remaining in the Honam region of southwestern
Korea. On the site where Park’s sixth-generation ancestor Park Seung-hui (1814–1895) had lived in a thatched cottage, his fourth-generation ancestor Park Jae-gyu (1857–1931) built the great house modeled after the royal palace. Park Gyeong-jung, the eldest son of the clan head family, lives in the house and takes care of it. He explained that the construction of the inner quarters and the detached outer quarters had begun in 1884, but it was only around 1930 that the entire compound was completed with all auxiliary structures. It was astonishing to see that a house of such size had survived the wars and social tumult of the ensuing decades largely undamaged. When I stood in the courtyard and looked at the house, a new, modern kitchen caught my eye. Located in a separate building, the new kitchen presented a striking contrast to the old one adjacent to the anbang (main bedroom) in the inner quarters. I was told that the kitchen and dining room had been built in a shed to the west of the inner quarters when Park’s mother, Yim Myo-suk, the 14th-generation eldest daughterin-law of the clan head family, became too frail to use the old kitchen. The life of a house continues only when people live in it. No matter how valuable a house might be, it is no more than a museum if no one lives in it. Therefore, a house should be renovated to accommodate the contemporary lifestyle — to the extent that it doesn’t inflict excessive damage to the original structure — so that the family can live in it generation after generation. In this sense, I found the old Park family house remarkable as it has maintained its vitality without losing its original elegance, and the modern kitchen in the new shed seemed to symbolize that enduring vitality. The Kitchen Extends to the Entire House Stories of the women who had looked after this house for generations came alive in the place where they spent so much time. The old kitchen, with its original features preserved almost intact, spoke intimately about the lives of the generations of daughters-in-law of this family, who would have been constantly coming and going.
The old kitchen seen from the back door at dusk. It has two doors facing each other for convenient access and better ventilation. The narrow wooden bench just inside the back door is where the women sat for a break to eat and rest. The shelves on the right side of the front door were for storing firewood.
6 KOREANA Autumn 2017