Winter of Jongmyo

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WINTER OF JONGMYO

宗廟の冬

There is a moment you have to wait a long time to encounter. A special moment we can only have when all aspects of our lives — nature, society, culture, people, etc. — suddenly and accidentally collapse together at a certain time in a certain place, long after our busy personal lives, and then face it in the same exact direction altogether. What a person can do for such a moment is just do whatever they can and wait with faith and hope.

While I looked at Jeongjeon Hall that day, I exclaimed unconsciously. The endlessly stretched out, snow-covered, all-white Hawoldae (Lower Moon Terrace) that no one yet had stepped on was just supremely pure and simply sublime. I did not step up onto the Woldae, hoping that the person after me could also see the same magnificent view as I did. My face and hair were frozen with tension when the blizzard hit the place. The Jeongjeon Hall standing in the middle of scattered snow was surreal. Perhaps it was the time in which it blew that day rather than the wind itself.

This building is probably a matchless cultural asset among other Korean historical buildings. It displays what

time-transcending beauty should be through its temperance and repetition, without any exaggeration or vanity.

The Jeongjeon Hall silently, yet powerfully, confronts our "era of lightness" where everything changes overnight,

asserting with its existence that there is something more meaningful than the change.

長い時間を待たなければ会えない瞬間がある。自然と環境、社会と文化、そして他人との絆。人生を構成する様々な要因が各自見えないところで忙しく動き回る間、すべてに偶然が重なり、同日同時に正確に同じ方向に向かった時にだけ見ることができるそんな特別な風景。人のなすべきことをすべてなし終えたら結果は天に任せて待つだけだ。

真っ白な正殿と向き合った瞬間、思わず嘆声が漏れた。果てしなく広がる純白の下月台†は誰も踏まず、限りなく純潔でそれ自体で崇高だった。次にやってくる人も同じ風景を見てほしいという思いで月台の上には登らなかった。風が吹いて吹雪が舞い散る瞬間には、緊張したあまり体と頭が凍りついた。舞い散る雪越しに見える正殿はまるでこの世のようではなかった。おそらく吹いてきたのは風ではなく時間だろう。

この端麗で清楚な文化財は朝鮮時代、いや韓国の歴史を通して断然最高の建物ではないだろうか。誇張と虚飾を排除し節制と反復を通じて、時間を越した美しさが何かを見せてくれる。一夜にしてすべてが変わってしまう軽さの時代の前で、変化が必ずしも正解なわけではないと、正殿は言葉なく重い反論を出す。