Two and a half years after Yangdong Village was registered with UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage item, a casual visitor to this “gem” of Korea’s traditional community culture sees signs of negligence that give him worries about its future.

The elegant “yangban (nobility)” houses, pavilions and libraries ― 17 compounds in all ― stand there well along with about 100 peasants’ cottages below and around them. And a modern structure was established last year at the entrance to the village to serve as a museum and information center. Former President Lee Myung-bak’s Hangeul calligraphy adorns its black stone marker. 

But what first arrests the eyes of the visitor who paid 4,000 won at the ticket booth is the crumbled stone work by the stream that flows through the village from Seolchangsan Hill to Hyeongsangang River. The stream was almost dry and the water from melting snow was not enough to flush the sewage from the houses of the village.

Walking by the creek with tourists on an afternoon of the last Samil Day holiday, I sadly suspected that the damage might have resulted from the flooding of last summer and remained unrepaired for half a year. The realization that the embankment had been built only recently, not five centuries ago when Yangdong Village was established by the Son and Yi clans, allowed a little consolation.

Along the bank lay a huge bundle of straw ropes extending about 100 meters which must have been used in the tug-of-war event on Lunar New Year’s Day sponsored by Gyeongju City. I imagined the merry atmosphere in the village during the holiday festivities. Yet, the thought that the village with a population of about 300, mostly of an advanced age, was unable to dispose of this leftover item with its own manpower again left me dismayed.

As in any other rural villages, remnants of vinyl and plastic materials used in modern farming are strewn here and there in the patches of paddies and corners of alleyways. The shortage of work hands may be the likely excuse, but in this World Heritage village, one wonders how much (little) its residents feel the need to keep their environs tidy to deserve the great title.

Visitors experience difficulties in negotiating the steep road down from one house to the next one as stone steps are dislocated or missing. Each major building has an automatic narration system in four languages, inviting tourists to push buttons to make their choice of explanation. Unfortunately, however, some kind of “Do not disturb” sign greets them when they walk up to the gate to take a look inside a house.

Yangdong Village, among the six government-designated historical villages, is known for providing the most beautiful layout of residential and public facilities taking advantage of the ideal natural conditions with a river in front and a mountain in the back. It keeps a number of treasure-level scriptures, including a 1422 metal type edition of a Chinese history book, designated National Treasure No. 283, besides the centuries-old houses. How the village was created is a most interesting story.

Unlike the usual composition of Korean traditional villages each made up of a single clan and its servants, Yangdong has had two clans which were related by marriage in the mid-15th century. Son So (1433-1484) of Cheongsong married the only daughter of the Ryu family in Yangdong in the northern edge of the Gyeongju area and moved in to inherit her family’s assets.

Yi Beon (1463-1500) married the second daughter of Son So and they settled down in Yangdong. Their first son, Yi Eon-jeok (1491-1553), became one of the most revered Confucian scholars of the times and he also lived in Yangdong after distinguished official services. Since then, the Son and Yi clans lived harmoniously in Yangdong, competing and cooperating with each other, producing as many as 116 men from both family lines who passed the “Gwageo” state examination throughout the Joseon era.

Hahoe Village in the same North Gyeongsang Province as Yangdong earned fame for the mask dance satirizing the absurdities of the yangban culture and the fantastic encircling of it by the Nakdong River. On the other hand, Yangdong, despite its high historical and cultural values, was rather eclipsed by the ancient Silla capital Gyeongju some 20 kilometers away. It was only in 1984 that Yangdong Village was first designated as an “Important Folk Asset” whereas individual houses and other facilities were given the title much earlier.

Since the 1990s, the cultural administration has introduced a number of major cultural assets to the UNESCO for its World Heritage registry. After Bulguksa Temple, Seokkuram Grotto, Jongmyo Shrine, the 80,000 woodblocks at Haeinsa, Hwaseong Fortress and other relics were listed, Hahoe and Yangdong Villages were recognized in the Brasilia meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in July 2010. There were extensive refurbishments of these villages before the designation.

We are proud that the small villages with rather modest edifices by international standards were included in the world’s representative cultural assets because of their uniqueness in the process of human intellectual and social development. It is not for any architectural grandeur or luxurious lifestyle but for the wisdom of the people maintaining the societal system woven with their vertical and horizontal relations.

Then we should make a little more effort to preserve the place as a true heritage to be shared with the global community. This kind of task requires the positive involvement of three sides ― people who directly inherited the cultural assets, local authorities and the central administration. Yangdong villagers, Gyeongju City Hall and the North Gyeongsang Provincial Government, and the Ministry of Culture have to properly define their respective responsibilities to do the job.

Touring Yangdong and spotting empty plastic vessels that once contained some aquatic plants float in a pond in the center of the village, one regrets that the shared responsibilities do not seem to have been well fulfilled. The local authorities that spent a significant portion of their culture-tourism budget to build the museum should have put more manpower and equipment into sprucing up the village. The Culture Ministry, while trying to enter more Korean items on the World Heritage lists, should pay more attention to how those already entered are being maintained.

President Park Geun-hye stressed in her inaugural address that “culture is power.” She is reminded that “cultural flourishing” can hardly be asserted as long as Yangdong Village remains what it is now.

By Kim Myong-sik

Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer of The Korea Herald. He once served as head of the Korean Culture and Information Service. ― Ed.