대오서점에서 청계천 헌책방 거리까지 / A Walk from Seochon to Second-hand Book Street through Boshingak and Dongmyo

오늘은 책도 구경할 겸해서 #서촌의 #대오서점에서 시작하여 종로서적이 있던 보신각, 헌책방들이 있는 동묘를 지나 #청계천변 #평화시장의 헌책방거리에서 나들이를 마무리합니다.

00:00 Intro
00:08 Tongin Traditional Market in Seochon
Today’s walk starts at Tongin Market in Seochon (also called Sangchon), a traditional marketplace where a variety of steaming food is ready on the stalls and shop owners are busy preparing to serve the customers. Tucked away on a small side street behind the market is a bookshop founded in 1951, which has recently become a café.

01:47 Former Jongno Bookstore Site and Bosingak
Near the Bosingak Belfry once stood the buildings of the Korean Religious Tract Society and the Bible Society. These organizations played an important role in liberation of ‘vulgar’ Korean from the dominance of classical Confucian ideology and Chinese characters during the late Joseon era.

Deadongseosi, a small shop selling Christian literature and foreign histories, helped open door to world and new ideas. Jongno Bookstore, which began in that area in 1907 as a modest shop, eventually grew into the largest bookstore in Korea. It was run by the family of a classmate of novelist Park Wan-suh and the grandfather of singer Chang Kiha. However, faced with intense competition from emerging major bookstores, it went bankrupt in 2002 and a bookshop with the same name opened across the street.

The original bronze Bosingak bell, cast during the reign of King Sejo, survived fires and wars for centuries. It was struck to signal the opening and closing of Seoul’s gates until tram construction in 1899 ended the curfew system. Later, the bell, now housed in the National Museum of Korea, was struck symbolically on several historic occasions, including the March 1st Independence Movement in 1919, Korea’s liberation, and after the Korean War.

When the pavilion was rebuilt in 1985, a new bell modelled on the Emille Bell, the Great King Seongdeok’s Sacred Bell from 771 during Unified Silla, was installed. Visitors often confused the old Bronze Bosingak bell with the Emille Bell, which is associated with a legend about a sacrificed infant. The new bell, decorated with Taegeuk and Mugunghwa motifs, will ring to celebrate the year 2026 in a month’s time.

The Jongno intersection was once the commercial heart of the city, lined with shops and busy with activity until recently. It also served as a rallying point for reform-minded protesters in the late Joseon period. Nearby stood a prison, a high-officials’ prosecution office, and a shrine dedicated to Guan Yu, the famed general from the late Han dynasty. Under Japanese occupation, a night market operated along the street.

07:05 Dongmyo
The area around Dongmyo, one of five shrines devoted to Guan Yu, is now known for its bustling second-hand market. In one used bookstore, a newly issued edition of the original 1895 Korean translation of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (by James S. Gale) was on display.

10:41 Second-Hand Book Street at Pyeonghwa Market by Cheonggyecheon Stream
This translation was released nine years before The Cloud Dream of the Nine (Guunmong), one of the first novels written in Korean. That Buddhist allegory, also translated into English by Gale, was composed during the time when neo-Confucianism gradually became the state orthodoxy, branding any deviation as heresy and intensifying political strife. Meanwhile, European intellectuals in the 17th century were working to liberate society from the oppressive power of the tyrannical old church.

After the Cheonggyecheon stream was covered in 1962, many “Pyeonghwa (Peace)” markets were constructed on former farmland and school sites. These market buildings typically had shops on the ground floors and small factories above, where young laborers endured harsh working conditions for low wages.

Pyeonghwa Market once had numerous small second-hand bookshops, but with the advent of photocopiers and the internet, the once-thriving trade has dwindled, leaving only a few shops still open. I purchased two books containing excerpts from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Milton’s Areopagitica, and other 17th-century works from one of the tiny shops resembling a beehive cell full of treasures.

In Areopagitica, John Milton declared that “the State shall be my governors, but not my critics,” issuing a bold appeal to the English Parliament to end censorship designed to silence dissent. The bravery of thinkers like Milton, who defended conscience and reason at critical juncture in European history, played a vital role in the progress of European society.

Although his works were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum for centuries, the arguments he advanced in Areopagitica, at great personal risk of punishment such as whipping or the pillory, challenged hypocritical, “rules for thee, not for me” partisanship during the English Civil War. These ideas later influenced numerous court rulings in freedom of press cases in the U.S..