Giraffes, Ferris Wheels and Royal Reenactments: Hits and Misses in the Reinvention of a Joseon Palace

Abstract

Tourist sites, like national identities, are selectively promoted depictions often made from highly contested perspectives. A site is a self-perpetuating scene created by host and visitors swapping the same images. Olivia Jenkins has described spiraling circles of representation linked to Australia’s iconic symbols, and Herbert Bix, Carol Gluck and Kosaku Yoshino have applied a similar logic to processes facilitating much greater shifts in the image of the entire nation of Japan. Success in both cases requires cropping pieces that do not fit into the newly evolved, prevalent narrative. The speed at which scenes have shifted at one palace in Seoul has meant entire buildings, a park full of fun rides, and one of Korea’s great works of literature – great at least from a Western-trained perspective -- are vanishing from collective memory. Such “a focus on small-scale or localized change can illustrate or embody much broader processes of political transformation,” as Katherine Verdery says, “the Macro is in the Micro.”

Consequently this thesis examines manifestations of major changes in Korea’s governing and social structures reflected in the grounds of Changgyeonggung. Discourse and content analyses of guide books, brochures, and websites show how visitors come to absorb the conveniently condensed narratives and imagery as successive administrators place new monuments atop or alongside those of their predecessors to rewrite the geographic scenes.