I already wrote about the itinerary for days 6 and 7 in the previous blog post, I won’t repeat them here. What I want to talk about is the idea of authenticity.
So at the Golgulsa temple, there are a number of stone statues and structures all around the temple grounds. The most famous of these is the 1500 year old stone Buddha carved into a cliffside. However, there are also a large number of smaller statues: other Buddhas, polished stones with inscriptions, various Asian human figures, monuments, etc… It gave the place a sense of wonder and spirituality, really great for atmosphere building because you have all these ancient-looking monuments in every other hillside and clearing.
But when I say “ancient-looking”, the emphasis is on the “looking”, because the more I looked at these structures, the more I realized that none of them looked particularly old. The stone Buddha did for sure, but the others ones still had their sharp details, polished finishes, and exact characters engravings. I don’t know for certain, but I would say that none of them were any more than 30 years old, probably being placed there when the temple was renovated, or after the fact.
A bit later, when we were driving from the temple to Gyeongju, I noticed that on the side of the road in some places, there were some traditional-looking stone carvings, often in very convenient spots such as at the corner of an intersection, as if they were placed after the construction of the road. There were also traditional-looking pagodas in some of the greenspaces, but based on similar context, they were likely built in the last few decades.
So the question is, should I care?
I posed this situation to my new friend Ben See, a fellow student on the trip, and we ended up having a long discussion about it. Some of our ideas follow:
Suppose that a replica of a historic object is placed in the original place or at another appropriate location. Suppose that a historic statue were found in ruin and replaced with a faithful reconstruction in the same exact place, preferably with a placard explaining that it is a replica. An example that we saw was at the royal tombs museum in Gyeongju, where artifacts that are currently on display in in a larger museum are recreated as they would have looked brand new and put in display cases. We decided that it was entirely appropriate, because it does well to inform museum visitors what the actual artifact looked like, and to explain the intent behind the design. If it were a statue rebuilt on the temple grounds, or an entire building rebuilt at the original palace, it would still be appropriate, because it paints a more accurate picture of what the temple might have looked like in its past. It helps educate the visitors. But should I care? That’s a different question than whether it’s good or not. Based on a conversation with Jacob and Madeleine, I should be happy about it. I think I am.
Before we get to the more complicated case, let’s cover a slightly easier case: Suppose that a non historically accurate structure is placed at a site. For example, placing a Vietnamese style statue at a Korean site because it looks cool, but not providing any disclaimer. I think this is unethical, and misleads the visitors while misrepresenting the local culture and history. But should I care? I’m not sure. I think I should be opposed to it, but if I don’t know any better between Vietnamese and Korean art, and the statue looks cool, then I shouldn’t care too much.
But for the more complex case, suppose that at the temple grounds, there were a handful of statues originally at the temple, but the people who run the temple have since added more monuments around the temple grounds that are manufactured in the modern age but are historically accurate to the region and the context. This is what I believe was done at Golgulsa.
Ben and I decided that it depends on the motivations and the execution. If the motivation is merely to add atmosphere, and there are appropriate descriptions for the monuments, then it’s probably okay. I know as a visitor to the temple that these are not 1500 year old statues, but their presence still enhances my experience. Should I care though? I don’t think I should be fed up about it; they’re being transparent about their efforts to improve my experience.
However, if the motivation is to falsely portray the temple (even if the lie is benign, like making it seem like there were more statues than originally), and the statues were placed without any posted information about the true origin, then it’s definitely a bit disingenuous. But the question is, should I care? If the presence of the new statue enhances my experience and gives me a reason to respect the temple and its grounds, and new monument is culturally respectful, then perhaps it’s fine.
But then when I spoke with Ben, he brought up something interesting. Why should we care at all about them adding new structures that are similar or different? The temple isn’t a historic site the way that the fortresses and palaces we have visited are; since it’s being continually used, there’s no good reason to “preserve” it. It should be maintained, but it shouldn’t be frozen in a certain state. After all, on the same site as the 1500 year old stone Buddha are statues that are only a few hundred years old. The people who placed the later statues were certainly aware of the stone Buddha, but didn’t feel that their additions to the site were inappropriate, they didn’t feel that they had to preserve the state of the site. We don’t know what their motivations were, perhaps they brought over statues from another part of Asia simply because they thought they looked cool, and nowadays we call this part of the historical cultural mixing.
So maybe it doesn’t matter at all what modern people add to the temple, because it simply becomes part of the history of the temple. And therefore, it doesn’t matter if statues that are placed in the modern day are accurate to the historical ones; in fact if the sole goal is to make the place prettier instead of trying to inform the visitors about the past, it might be more unethical to place historically accurate ones, because they are inaccurate to the time they are placed.
As an example, I talked with Ben about a piece of art that I made a few years back. It was inspired by a piece of carved turquoise (maybe jade) from the British Museum: one half of what was once probably a circular carving. In my work, I drew from the details and motifs of the existing half to imagine what the lost half might have looked like. (The first piece on this page, but check it all out!) Ben argued that this art would be highly appropriate to display in the right setting (imagine a stone version of this being placed in an archeological park in Mexico as an art piece alongside ancient works), because it is an authentic reaction to old work, just as statues made by 15th century Buddhists at Golgulsa take inspiration from the 5th century stone Buddha. And authenticity is really what we’re going for here.
And this goes for the random roadside statues, the pagodas in the park, and the ancient-looking but modern housing buildings at the temple. They are merely reactions to the previous work and the present time period, so they are authentic and genuine.
So in a poor conclusion, maybe don’t graffiti old statues you don’t like just because that’s your authentic reaction to them (because we still have a responsibility to respect and maintain the past, even if we don’t like it), but maybe we shouldn’t let old things remain frozen in time.
I actually really enjoyed writing this blog post, I think I’m going to rewrite it at some point as a more formal essay-type piece. Maybe I’ll choose my 3 favorite South Korea posts and rewrite them as essays with better organization, more research, and more concrete arguments.
-Rohit