This is the very gate which has faced over 500 years of Korea history with our ancestors and current generation.
That is the reason why everybody gathers up in front of KwangHwa Moon whenever important events come up!
- When is your moment when you feel proud of yourself?
- When is your moment when you feel proud of your country?
- When is your moment when you feel proud of history?
There will be lots of answers from these questions above. Even I make different answer depends on situation.
Since I am student, I don’t have much time to visit historical spot, don’t have much time to devote my own time to read book about Korean history or heritage as well. Quite a shameful attitude, honestly.
So, whenever I feel proud of myself was like whenever I do achieve hard work with great success or whenever I feel like I am much closer to my goal. I feel proud of myself whenever Korean companies such as Samsung, Hyundai make huge success at the world-wide market. As you can see, most of things which make me feel better are personal thing, academical/economical things. Culture, heritage-these things-were not existed on my list.
And the thing was I did nor recognize this fact until I visited one of Korean heritage spot called “KwangHwa Moon”. Of course, I have visited here before, but at that moment when I visited was when I was a student who was not grown up enough. Now, I am different from the girl of my past and stood right in front of the Great Korean Heritage-Kwang Hwa Mon.
The first emotion I could describe with one word was ; PROUD
The second word which popped up in my mind was ; OVERWHELMED
The third words which popped up in my mind was ; STUDY HISTORY
I realized we should keep this heritage, hands down to our next generations. And to follow these ideas, more studies and more attentions should be needed.
Thanks to GoUNESCO’s #makeheritagefun events, I could look back of myself.
As a Korean, as a youth who are living in this world, I should do something at least that can be very little. And I will devote my attention to heritage/ history as a member of this world.
Now, I think it is the time to introduce KwangHwa-Moon, one of great heritages in Korea.
The reason why we are visit our historical place is not only because re-think our ancestors’ spirit but also to see how did our ancestors work and behave at that time.
The Chef gate Keeper. He never moves how cold the weather is and while watching him I could imagine how much harder our ancestors who were the gate keepers in Josun Dynasty.
Of course, the palace, garden, castle- all are important. However, the reason why I visit the gate-KwangHwa Moon-as the first place to introduce for #makeheritagefun is this gate is the starting point of our Korean history.
It survived with Korean while Japanese invasion while the Japan tried to split up our spirit by moving the location. It survived from the Korean war, even though it was hurt from bunch of bombs.
No matter how hard and difficult the time was, The KwangHwa Moon survived form it and now, it is standing and keeping the place by guarding all people in Korea.
Wish you enjoy my article and have interest about KwangHwa Moon more.