Korea's Agricultural Museum, Seoul

Located near "downtown" Seoul*, the Agricultural Museum has an extensive look at Korea's heritage and future on the farms.
 Admission is free, and the exhibits start outside with an example of some rice storage huts and a millstone.
 Inside the building, you'll find three exhibition halls.
 The History Hall has an extensive display on agricultural methods in the past and the development of farming methods over Korea's history.
 This area is the museum's strongest point. The dioramas especially are very attractive.
 As with much of Asia, rice is the most important part of a Korean's diet, and irrigation ditches to keep the rice paddies appropriately wet were developed quickly.
 Of course, animal labor was used in the past.
 If you zoom in on the picture, you'll see the text explaining that these paintings demonstrate ancient kitchens and home life.
 As you look at the dioramas, the small details provide some humor and some beauty.
 It also shows the changing of the seasons in addition to the changing of the times.
 Ducks in the field, men harvesting in the fall.
 Women hard at work bundling up the sticks.
 Moving on to the Life of Farmers Hall, the displays change from dioramas to life-size displays.
 They show life in Korean villages in pre-modern times, including home life, shops, and more. There are fewer things to see here, but of course they are larger and more immersive!
The final hall is the Agricultural Cooperatives Promotion Hall with information on current farming companies and the products they grow. It's quite commercial in nature, unsurprisingly, but informative.

The museum is open 9:30-18:00 (17:30 November through February), closed Mondays. Admission is free. Take the subway Line 5 to Seodaemun Station; it's about a three minute walk from there along the main road. Just look for the gold sign at the top of the building as you can see in one of the photos at the top of this post.

No comments:

Post a Comment