Recently, I was watching a Korean TV series that just started. In the TV series, I saw a lot of historical buildings in South Korea, so I wanted to know more about them. On my previous trip to Seoul, I visited the Gyeongbokgung Palace, and there is another important historical site in Seoul that I failed to see, Jongmyo Shrine. Jongmyo is the oldest and most authentic of the Confucian royal shrines to have been preserved. Dedicated to the forefathers of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), the shrine has existed in its present form since the 16th century and houses tablets bearing the teachings of members of the former royal family. Ritual ceremonies linking music, song, and dance still take place there, perpetuating a tradition that goes back to the 14th century. These buildings in jongmyo are usually asymmetrical in position, but they are symmetrical as a whole.
According to the space and importance of the order, the main hall and longing hall eaves, the height of the roof, and the thickness of the columns are not the same. The number and thickness of the columns increased with the number of worshiped gods, resulting in a unique size and shape of the interior space. Although the main hall is the longest wooden building in Korea, the overall style and decoration are relatively simple. There are two special paths in jongmyo, one for the soul and the other for the king. The pavements of the two roads are paved with black brick and stone, which makes them different from ordinary roads. The path of the king was slightly higher than that of the left and right sides. Only the king and his son could walk in the middle, and the officials walked on the left and right sides. This shows the dignity and authority of the temples in South Korea.
The main activity held in jongmyo is sacrifice, so sacrificial music is indispensable. In every jongmyo ritual, there are songs and dances to pray for peace and development of the country and to praise literature and martial arts. In the sacrificial ceremonies of Korean ancestors, "musicians" in red robes made beautiful music with instruments such as stone, metal, wood, leather, and silk. While playing the unique sacrificial music, some exquisitely dressed people offered wine and offerings to their ancestors, while other young dancers, dressed in scarlet, stood in a neat square, slowly bending and swaying in a simple and restrained dance. On the first Sunday of each may, the descendants of the Korean royal family hold a ceremony in Seoul to honor their ancestors and their great achievements. In 2001, jongmyo ritual and jongmyo music was listed on the representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO.
China also has the same function as the jongmyo building, which is the Tai temple. In contrast to the complex and ornate Chinese imperial temples, Seoul's jongmyo temple is characterized by a long facade, simple décor, and few colors said to embody the Confucian spirit of simplicity. In terms of the architectural arrangement, the main feature of jongmyo in Seoul is that it is built according to the natural terrain, so it is not like Chinese architecture to have a unified central axis. From the appearance, there is no unity in the main palaces, but the building successfully achieves the unity of the whole by cleverly utilizing the concepts of order and moderation.
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