Tableaus interpret an agrarian lifestyle across four seasons with colorful displays, audio and video recordings. I especially attended to winter traditions as these relate to the present season and Olympic and Paralympic Games held in PyeongChang. Korean farming families were incredibly resilient, hanging quilted curtains as room dividers, bringing braziers to heat indoors, and relying on fruits of their prior labors (smoked and dried meats, grains, preserved fruits and vegetables) for sustenance.
During the coldest months, tools were cleaned and repaired, ice fishing brought meat, and families read, conversed and played games to pass the time. Kimchee was prepared and shared communally.
A gallery of life passages presents life-size exhibits of important rituals, wedding, birth, education and selection for state bureaucratic service, aging and death. Ritual foods are prepared in anticipation of childbirth and then fed to the new mother after she delivers her baby.
In one scene, a female shaman conducts a ritual to cure childhood illness. She contacts helping spirits in an effort to bring healing.
Did you know that children held large parties for their parents' 60h birthdays, presenting "towers" of colorful foods to be shared with guests? Elders made or selected silken burial shrouds, thus assuring their continued longevity. Upon death, the eldest son must locate a suitable tomb while his wife prepares ritual foods. The family enters an extended period of mourning, holding rites at ancestor shrines and sometimes living in straw houses adjacent to burial sites.
The museum grounds includes a traditional Korean village and streets of modern Korea.
Video introduction (2:13)
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