May 2006: Insadong


A street vendor is drumming out a simple rhythm with a pair of archaic iron scissors in one hand and some tongs in the other. The tinny clank against the tin pan stacked with layers of yeot, a hard pumpkin taffy. The sunlight glints off the puddles left from yesterday's rain. Two Buddhist monks step, almost with purpose, over the water. Their heads inclined to each other, hands clasped behind their backs and gray temple habits fluttering loosely in the wind, they disappear into the crowd. At the corner, a popped rice cart, brimming with bags of different sized tuibab rests on it's handlebars; the owner temporaraly absent. Pass that, round that corner, take a few more steps and you're in Insadong, Seoul's traditional arts thoroughfare.

The sheer amount of things in this market is enough to give you a bit of a headache: Folding fans, traditional folk paintings of animals, people and both Chinese and Korean characters, masks, incense, textured paper, calligraphy inks, teacups, chopsticks, medicine chests, old books, vases, paint brushes, maps, knives, plastic cherubs, rings, paper lamps, old money, board games, traditional clothing, steaming noodles, marionettes, balloons for the kiddos, bells, drums, and that's not quite through the inventory of the first store. There are street vendors that set up walls of Buddhist figurines, curios and hand made jewelry. Artisans come in from the countryside to hawk tables, kitchen wares and clothing. Out in front of stores are bins overflowing with keychain baubles, hair adornments, lapel pins, and decorations for anything for any occasion. There are tea shops, cafes, restaurants and bars. There are famous designers, students, and amateurs all competing for your attention with something that's got something to do with traditional Korean culture.




A fortune teller has set up a table with an electric lantern in the middle. Even though it's just past noon, the lamp does add to the mood. He holds a woman's wrist and inspects her palm. On a sandwich board next to him, six or seven different kinds of fortune services are rendered for a few dollars. Across the street, watching the crowd go by is an old man tending an enormous cart loaded with every conceivable sort of apparatus imaginable putting some jade onto. Next to him, a woman is selling silk scarves out of a cardboard box.




The whole place, if the street weren't so broad, would have the feel of a bazaar. On any given weekend, there are thousands of people who pass through, taking pictures, out for a walk, going to lunch, buying gifts, looking for curios, studying for art class, holding a coffee and looking anxiously at the clock on the big screen TV... Pushing through them all, ten different languages, a couple of dozen skin tones, a hundred different fashions it's easy to briefly forget that the central theme here is Korean-ness. It's that same characteristic that transforms objects created by a hermit kingdom into the loud, disorganized clutter of the place. Here, all the things that Korea spent so long keeping from the world explodes out at it.




Insadong is an easy place to spend an afternoon, in the early summer. The ginkgo leaves are still tiny on the trees, not yet broadly shading the street like they will later in the summer. Most of the sycamores are bare, too. People have noticed the shift in weather, though. No one is wearing a coat this morning. The guy selling whistles made from clay is doing brisk business. Although he's the only one in sight actually playing one, further on ahead, behind and nearby the drone of the city and din of the throngs is interrupted frequently by shrill little blasts.







There's a couple, flipping though pictures on her digital camera. Her, crouched on a bench and him, leaning over behind completely absorbed. They're oblivious to a small parade of 15th century court scholars, resplendent in crisp white uniforms, trailing behind an ornate palaquin covered in silks hiding the royal actor inside. Rapt with attention, as fixated on everything going on as the couple is not, a tiny girl with an ice cream twice the size of her hand stares up and marvels.