contributed by Ko Chang-Soo, culture writer

At the Jirye Artists' Colony guests can experience some aspects of traditional Korean culture and lifestyle, regain, even if for a while,
their peace of mind and soul, and meditate on nature and humanity After four hours by car from Seoul to Andong City and one more hour along mountain roads, we arrived finally at Jirye Artists' Colony in the gray twilight of a June evening The colony, which is located several miles trom the closest neighbor and a 50-minute dreve from Andong City, is tucked away cozily in the recesses of Yong-ji Mountain overlooking the Yesu River, Now a reservoir.
 Looking around, I could get glimpses of the dimly glowing water in the distance. The colony comprises a dozen wooden structures including tradithional Korean tiled-roof houses. the houses originally were built in 1663 during the Yi Dynasty.
The compound includes residences, an ancestral shrine and a confucian school, among others.
The buildings originally were located in a village by the Yesu River, some distance from the present site. When the construcion of a multipurpose dam threatened to submerge them, the buildings were moved to a high plateau at the foot of the mountain.
 Poets, writers, scholars, artists, businessmen, government officials and other people visit the place for an overnight stay or for longer periods, for retreats, seminars, readings or to engage in writing or painting, or merely to enjoy the profound quiet and silence away from the distractions of urban life.
 Guests can experience some aspects of traditional korean culture and lifestyle, reganin, even if for a while, their peace of mind and soul, and meditate on nature and humanity.
At least I did fully enjoy the calm, soothing evening hours, occasionally broken by some bird songs, which did not disturb the peace but seemed to blend perfectly into it.

 
I could almost sense the numberless winters and autumns that have elapsed in this place and the timeless quietude that has ruled the area, presumably broken by occasional events and incidents.
  Watching raindrops tricking down the roof tiles - almost in slow motion, as it seemed to me - scretinizing the Korean architecture, drinking local wine and chatting with friends, I truly could savor the blissful tranquility.
  I recalled the frequent joke of a filmmaker friend of mine who says that in his cottage deep in a forest he can hear the earth rotating.
  I only hoped that soimeday  I'd be lucky enough to stay here for a longer period - say, a few weeks on end - to immerse myself in the quietude of this place, hopefully launching into a novel or a screenplay of some grand scale.
 Kim Weon-Gil, director of the colony, a former professor and poet who spent several years turning the compound into today's artists'colony and historical site, at the breakfast table, recited a poem he particularly admires for its transcendental Son (Zen) qualities.
Professor Kim demonstrated enough resolve to preserve and enhance Korean traditional culture with uncommon insights into Korean culture and history. I admired the way he seemed to cherish and uphold Korean cultural heritage with all his mind and heart.
From this place, one easily can bisit Andong City, Haboe Village, Dosan Academy and other historic places in the vicinity.
Hahoe Village is virtually a living museum that showcases segments of Korean traditional culture and lifestyle with its inhabitants impersonating Yi Dynasty characters in their centuries-old thatched-roof houses and performing their renowned Haboe mask dances. Andong is a long-time center of Korean Confucianism.
At Dosan Academy the world-famous Neo-Confucian scholar, Yi Hwang, or Toegye, taught and practiced Korean Neo-confucianism, which often is regarded as the acme of Neo-Confucianism any where, as well as a state philosophy of the Yi Dynasty.
Quite late in the evening, we were joined by a group of professional women including university professors, medical doctors, and school teachers, who arrived in a tour bus. We joined them in their campfire late in the evening, We found them articulate and self-assertive and with a great sense of humor.
The director of the colony, instead of playing his large flute (daegeum), Whis-tled a korean tune with his mouth as a flute to the applause of the audience.
Once the party was over, just before midnight, the colony director and my companions talked about things Korean late into the night. The colony director seemed to have a huge spool of fascinating stories he could unwind.
I could visualize the original village built by the river with a mountain in the back like a screen, probably in accorance with some geographic precepts.
I could imagine the peace, security and love of nature that must have brought the original inhabitants to this isolated pastoral scene.
  I could visualize them boating on the river, fishing, picking vegetables and herbs in the surrounding forests, studying and upholding Confucian classics and ideals, gazing at the moon and listening to birds and insects, contemplating nature and the basic human condition and trying to achieve some enlightenment.
One memorable experience for us was meeting Mr. Kim Gu-Jik, the senior of the household and the colony director's father, who happened to be a prominent calligrapher and photographer. In fact, we could see many samples of his excellent calligraphy on doors and house fronts.
His other son, who is a managing director of a major hotel in Seoul, on a morning stroll, showed us a fine specimen of his father's calligraphic skill on the tombstones of one of their ancestors.  I greatly admired the way the calligrapher has embodied in his works and daily life his family traditions with Confucian dignity
On our way back to Seoul from the colony, we were taken to a place where the river took a sudden 90-degree turn around a looming shapely island. Along the road to the place I noticed a long succession of steep cliffs of a mountain that somehow reminded me of the Red Wall pansori tales (one of Korean traditional pansori).
  I told myself that someday I'd return here for a longer stay so that I could experience Korean history and culture in profound reflections and meditations while listening to the inmost voices of the primordial silence of the area and plumbing its depths. I also hoped that the next time I could take better pictures and even videotape the Jirye Artists' Colony and its environs.

Nestled in the midst of rich mountainous flora and pristine forests, Chirye Artist Town provides a genuine taste of traditional Korean living culture in harmony  with untainted nature. Courtesy, Cha Joon-yup

Traditional Korean Lifestyle Harmonized With Nature

By Cha Joon-yup Contributing writer

Chirye Artist town, a 45-minute drive mostly on an unpaved road east of Andong City in Kyongsang-pukto, is nestled in the midst of rich mountainous flora and pristine forests.
 Overlooking the meandering Naktong River, the town is deemed as one of the very few ecological habitats in the southern half of the korean peninsula.
  Visitors to the town, located exactly opposite the much-publicized "Hahoe Maul," can get a genuine taste of traditional Korean living culture in harmony uature.
  The birth of the town traces back to 1990, when a cluster of traditional Korean houses for the "Kim" clan, originating from Uisong in Kyonsangpukto, were threated to become submerged due to the construction of a huge dam. Builet in 1663, the traditional Korean houses were then located 200 meters below the town.
  Their move to the present location was the fruit of lonely but strenuous struggles for five years by kim wongil, who gave up his faculty seat at Andong University to save them for posterity as well as to use them as a  creative ground for artists. He also intended to help foreign tourists get in touch with the genuine aspects of traditional Korean culture.
  The culturally rich houses were relocated to the town shortly before the dam's completion in 1990.
  Traditional Korean houses called "Hanok" can be easily assembled and dissembled.
  Besides local visitors, foreign tourists, mostly cultural and anthropological scholars, occasionally visit the town to appreciate the history of the Land of the Morning Calm and take a look into the nature-friendly tradition al Korean living style.
  Most of all, they are impressed by ancestral family rites conducted over 10 nights a yesar. They are also allowed to taste and take with them food offered to ancestors after the rites.
  The town will offer a camp for teenagers, both local and foreign, on Aug. 1-5, to give them a chance to experence traditional Korean living
   For further info on Chirye Artist Town, visit the homepage(www.jirye.com) or send an e-mail to (webmaster@jirye.com) or call (016-502-2590)

 
Morning calm
 Living the traditions in a centuries-old village CHIRYE, South korea - The mud-walled, wooden houses with their sloping tiled roofs sit high above the Naktong River in the mountains of Southwest Korea.
  In 1663, when they were built, they were used as family homes, a Confucian school and an ancestral worship house.
  Today the compound of 10 buildings makes up the Chirye Artists' Colony, a remote enclave where travelers can experience traditional Korean culture. Surrounded by peaceful forests dotted with maples, it's an area that brings meaning to Korea's description as the Land of the Morning Calm.
  The forest floor is like a garden strewn with wild mushrooms and delicate flowers. Dates dry on trays set out in the sun. Red-orange persimmons the size of baseballs dangle from the trees. And when darkness falls, the moon casts a soft light through windows covered with rice paper.
  I had beed sitting at the dinner table with Chirye's owner and patriarch Kim Weon-gil, talking and sipping strawberry wine. Now it was time to put on plastic slippers and walk back to my room for bed. The temperature had dropped, and the mountain air was chilly.
  I stepped into my one-room bungalow-a square box raised several feet above the ground and furnished with a pile of bedding, a mirror and low table - and turned on the floor.
   With the flip of the wall switch, I began to feel heat rising under my feet. Embedded in the clay floor covered with a yellow, oiled paper was an ondol heating system, a traditional Korean system of under-the-floor radiant heat. Early ondol systems were fuelked by hot smoke from a wood fire; today the heat source is more likely to be oil or electric.
   I laid a thin mattress, called a yo, on the floor. Then I crawled under a comforter for the best night's sleep I'd had in the seven days I'd been in Korea.
  The ondol system was just one of the unique aspects of korean culture that I had been anxious to experience during my fall visit. Chirye was the perfect spot. The retreat has been preserved as a historical site, due mainly to the efforts of Kim Weon-gil, a 54-year-old former professor at Andong University. His family's ancestral houses make up most of the compound.