Steeped in tradition ... (clockwise from top) a Royal Ancestral Rites performance; the shrine is World Heritage-listed; two men wear hanboks at the Jongmyo Royal Shrine.Credit: Karen Halabi
Long accustomed to threats from their northern cousins, South Koreans are hard to ruffle. As Miss Kim, my tour guide through Seoul's Changdeokgung Palace, tells me in her charming American accent: "It's just those northern bullies at it again. You maybe find it hard to believe but we don't take much notice. We just go about our business and ignore them. They're full of hot air."
As we walk further through Korea's oldest palace, The Palace of Illustrious Virtue, she adds: "They're always threatening and boasting but we don't take them seriously. We laugh it off."
This was last month. I'm not so sure her fellow South Koreans are still laughing now North Korea has made good on its threats to test nuclear weapons but then again, they're probably staying philosophical.
Koreans are used to bullies and invaders. During their 10,000-year history, they've been invaded more than 90 times by the Japanese, Chinese (which goes a long way towards explaining why Koreans have a very Confucian philosophical world view) and even the Mongols.
I am in the country to witness the annual Royal Ancestral Rites a spectacle of colour, music and elaborate rituals at the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Jongmyo Royal Shrine. An annual event that involves a cast of thousands, the ceremony, including the ritual music, is an intangible cultural heritage that sums up how the whole of Seoul, which was built during the Joseon Dynasty, is rooted in Confucianism.
Confucianism is everywhere in Korea. While religion may be reasonably equally divided between Buddhism and Christianity, it's the underlying long-held Confucian philosophical traditions that hold Korean society together, making it responsible for some of the most orderly, respectful behaviour I've seen anywhere. Never mind that the unthinkable happened when a lone Korean went crazy last year and burnt down the country's number one national treasure, the magnificent Namdaemun gate, which I'd waited 15 years to see.
This event shocked the gentle Korean people to the core but hardened the government's resolve, at a time when Korea was hurtling at great speed into economic development and prosperity, to preserve and respect its traditions and culture. The gate burnt down so easily because it was built of wood like most of Korea's important buildings, including Changdeokgung Palace, whose painted wooden buildings were heritage-listed by UNESCO in 1997.
The Koreans have never invaded anyone but when the Japanese invaded Korea they turned the palace into a zoo and replaced all the native trees with cherry blossoms.
At the end of our palace visit, as we board our bus, a palace official from the bookshop races out after us and throws a clutch of very heavy books into our arms.
"Here", he says, "take these back to your country. When you finish reading them, give them to a school or library. Spread the word about Korean culture." Now that's a first and I promise him I will do so.
Like Changdeok, many of the other spectacular sites of Seoul, including Hwaseong Fortress in the nearby city of Suwon, were built during the Joseon Dynasty, Korea's last dynasty, which began in the 14th century and covered roughly the same period as the Chinese Ming and Qing dynasties. Changdeokgung was built at the same time as the Forbidden City.
The Joseon Dynasty lasted more than 500 years up until the early 20th century. During this time there was no religion in Korea but the country lived and survived beautifully under Confucianism, the principles of which are now ingrained deeply in Korean society.
I want to find out more about this philosophy, so I head to a Confucian school two hours from Seoul in the city of Icheon. Here we take part in an ancestral ritual a memorial ceremony to honour and remember dead relatives on their birthdays.
We don hanboks our own less-elaborate versions of the intricate costumes we've seen at the Jongmyo rites and sit down cross-legged before a Confucian master who teaches us how to lead a virtuous life, to have respect for elders and to make offerings to our ancestors (up to four generations of them hang around to help the living, apparently).
It is a smaller-scale version of the ceremony we saw at the Royal Shrine the day before and a ritual that takes place regularly in every Korean home.
Respect for elders, the family and traditions are paramount. Part of this respect and courtesy is a national obsession with cleanliness, which must be next to godliness for Koreans. I've never been in such a clean, tidy city in Asia as Seoul and keep scouring for litter as I look out the coach window.
This cleanliness also extends to a virtual national obsession with toilets clean toilets, that is.
"We are very proud of our toilets here in Korea," our guide tells us as we inspect some in Suwon, right next to the northern gate of Hwaseong Fortress. "They are very clean and beautiful and all free!"
Seoul underwent a beautiful-toilet drive just before the 2002 soccer World Cup to replace squat toilets with fully automated ones, complete with diligent cleaners and attendants. It must be the only city in the world where you can do a toilet tour, where people will open their homes so you can inspect their toilets and where they even have toilets built in the shape of soccer balls.
The (no less than two) impeccably clean toilets in my room at the Fraser Suites have so many damn functions I can't get the things to work and just keep pushing buttons until gravity saves the day.
The best I see, though, are the funky glass-wall sky toilets at the N Seoul Tower glass basins in a glass room perched high in the sky, with a bird's eye view over the pointy tips of Seoul's skyscrapers.
Koreans are certainly a lot warmer, funnier and, dare I say it, more modern than their closest neighbours, with a distinct sense of humour and an endearing willingness to laugh at themselves, much as Australians do.
On my last two nights in Seoul I decide to wing it and stay overnight at Hwagyesa, a Zen Buddhist monastery on the northern outskirts of Seoul. Arriving at the temple at the foot of Mt Samgaksan, I am drilled on taking off my shoes and bowing before entering rooms, not eating from the table reserved for monks, how to chant and prostrate myself correctly and am warned that I shouldn't fidget or lie down during extended, backbreaking, cross-legged meditations. Then the eagle-eyed Zen master spies me and my camera bag hiding at the back and comes up to me. "Oops," I think. "I'm in big trouble. Cover blown."
"Are you planning to use flash?" he asks in impeccable English, looking very serious. "Aaaah, weell, yes but . . ." I stutter cautiously.
A big smile breaks out on his face. "Good," he beams. "Come on up the front." The head monk spends the rest of a terribly serious ceremony posing for the camera like a Hollywood star and beaming cheeky grins at me from his best angle before every flash.
I always knew I would love South Korea despite a clearly wrong perception that it wouldn't be as culturally interesting as Japan or China.
It's hard not to like a country that's clean and green, where the food and the people are a revelation, where they laugh at your jokes, snub their noses at serious and pompous bullies and care more about how Ji-Sung Park is scoring for Manchester United than the dark shadow hanging over them from the north.
The writer travelled courtesy of the Korea Tourism Organisation and Asiana Airlines.
TRIP NOTES
Asiana Airlines flies daily to Seoul from as little as $740 return. Book through websites such as Zuji and Webjet. The KAL Limousine bus from the airport to your hotel costs 14,000 Won ($14).
Stay in a traditional hanok such as Rakkojae in Bukchon Village, adjacent to the two main palaces and the Jongmyo Shrine. From $200 a night, see rkj.co.kr. A stay at Hwagyesa Temple is $50 a night. Book on seoulzen.org. Apartments at Fraser Suites, in central Seoul, from $130-$230 (two bedrooms) a night, see fraserplace.co.kr.
Book free for the annual Jongmyo Ritual on jongmyo.net. Contact Seowon School of Confucianism, Icheon, on kh2313@han mail.net. Korea Tourism Organisation (KTO), phone 9251 1717, see visitkorea.or.kr. Order a free Visit Korea guidebook at visitkorea@knto.org.au.
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