TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon was reborn by merging the museum of Kookmin University (KMU), which was located on the fifth floor of Sungkok Library, and the Myung Won Folk House, which has made earnest efforts to spread tea culture in Korea. Built in the style of a hanok, the newly constructed museum is equipped with educational areas and resting facilities. Visitors will be able to enjoy the exhibitions while walking around in a 130-year-old traditional Korean house and enjoying their time at this cultural complex. We asked the director of the museum, Kim Jae-Hong, about the changes made to TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon and its future plans.

Q1. Could you briefly explain the history of TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon?
 To talk about the history of TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon, I first have to talk about the original Myung Won Folk House and the museum of KMU. TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon was created by merging these two institutions. First, the KMU museum was established on the fifth floor of Sungok Library in the 1970s. Second, the Myung Won Folk House was brought from the old house of of Han Gyu-Sul, the one-and-only opponent among the Minister of Political Affairs against the Eulsaneukyak (Protectorate Treaty between Korea and Japan), and restored to its original form here. Furthermore, the modern Korean tea ceremony was invented by Myung Won Kim Mi-Hui, who also brought back Korea’s long-forgotten traditional tea, tea ceremony, and tea industry. She founded the Myung Won Folk House at KMU in 1981 and launched the first tea ceremony lecture among Korea’s 4-year universities. So, inessence, TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon is the combination of two distinct cultures, as the two buildings were originally separate. The KMU museum served as a place for exhibits on traditional Korean culture, ranging from the Stone Age to the Joseon Dynasty, and the Myung Won Folk House functioned as a place for  providing education on tea ceremonies and hosting performances of various genres, such as traditional Korean music. Although their locations and functions were different, they now share common ground in the sense that they are working to revive traditional culture in modern times.

Q2. What is the reason for combining the Myung Won Folk House and the KMU museum?
 Since both of the museums aim to harmonize traditional culture with our modern culture, I believe that the combination of the Myung Won Folk House and the KMU museum will create a synergy effect. The KMU museum focuses on exhibitions, while the Myung Won Folk House emphasizes performances and education. After the merging of the two, the KMU museum has expanded its permanent exhibit hall and added a special gallery, which will be operated for one to two months. On top of that, the Myung Won Folk House continues to host performances on a regular basis in order to harmonize traditional culture with modern culture and has also installed new classrooms where visitors can take tea ceremony lessons. TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon is also in the process of installing a coffee shop. With this new construction of the special gallery, classrooms, and coffee shop, it has been made possible to operate TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon freely, which was sometimes challenging due to the demands of conserving its cultural assets. TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon is not only a museum but also functions as a cultural complex.

Q3. Are there any differences in the exterior and interior components of TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon after the merger?
 In the past, there was only the old house of Han Gyu-Sul at this place. However, through the refurbishment, another hanok was built at a distance sufficient so as not to damage the space of the old house. So, there are two hanok now: the old house and the newly built one. Therefore, the main characteristic of our museum is the harmony between the old and the new. Inside the new hanok, there is an elevator and also a system for controlling the temperature in the museum. Even in the museum’s architecture, the traditional and the modern are in harmony. Regarding the interior, we have modernized the exhibition halls and are operating modern art exhibitions at the old house. The direction in which TEAGARDEN Museum Myungwon is moving is toward harmony between the traditional and modernity so that many young visitors can enjoy this space.

Q4. What does TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon own and exhibit?
 First of all, TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon has collected teacups from different time periods, ranging from the Three Kingdoms Period to the Joseon Dynasty. This makes it easier for visitors to understand the history of tea culture in general. The museum also owns a rubbed copy of the Bangudae Petroglyphs in Ulsan. Two kilometers away from the Bangudae Petroglyphs is the Petroglyphs of Cheonjeon-ri, which illustrate stories of King Jinheung and King Beopheung of the Silla Dynasty. TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon owns a rubbed copy of the Petroglyphs of Cheonjeon-ri, too. We are also the only university museum that has a permanent exhibition of these two copies. Lastly, we own 4,400 documents from the Joseon Dynasty. In particular, we have old documents from the Seolchon family, which allow us to see what the lifestyle was like back then and even how real estate contracts were written.

Q5. Is there any ongoing event at TEAGARDEN Museum Myungwon? If there is, please tell us about it briefly.
 All events at TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon involve sharing with the local community. This year, we are holding a special TEAGARDEN FESTIVAL event to commemorate the grand opening of TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon. The “Joy of Sharing the Arts (Master Series)” is currently underway, where visitors can enjoy the atmosphere of the hanok and the small but simple and rich culture of yangban families. As the last event of this year, the fifth episode of the “Master Series,” a pansori performance, will be held at 5p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 24. In addition, the cultural events for the second semester of 2022 are being held together with both video filming for YouTube and face-to-face performances.

Q6. Is there any program TEAGARDEN Museum Myungwon plans to hold in the future?
 In connection with Seongbuk-gu and Korea University’s Human City Organization, daily humanities courses linking Seongbuk-gu and Dongdaemun-gu with traditional, modern, and future cultures will be held from October to December. The humanities course program is for elementary school students to adults, and the humanities experience program is for children to elementary school students and their parents. In this way, we plan to hold programs through which we can interact with the local community until the end of this year. Next year, we will regularly hold tea ceremony programs, programs with the local
community, and festivals.

Q7. Is there any program in which foreign and exchange students can partake?
 There is a Korean culture experience education held in the old house of Han Gyu-Seol. This is a program to experience traditional Korean culture through food, clothing, and housing. It also provides tea ceremony education to show how Koreans thought and reflect themselves among the noble families.
There is also a tea ceremony experience consisting of a tour of a traditional house, traditional costume experience, and traditional way of bowing. In other words, it is a program where foreigners get to try on traditional Korean clothes, drink tea, and acquire knowledge about food, clothing, and housing of the old Korean aristocratic houses.

Q8. What do you expect most from the establishment of TEAGARDEN MuseumMyungwon?
 So far, our museum has grown from a small museum on the fifth floor of KMU’s Sungkok Library to a museum with the proper noun “Myungwon” in its name. It has also expanded by combining the functions of the traditional folk house. Through this, our goal is to revive traditional culture through exhibitions,
education, performances, opportunities for relaxation and then adapt traditional and modern culture within the cultural complex.

Although our museum is on the campus of KMU, we are anindependent organization based on the ideal of connecting with the local community and other cities in Korea, growingfrom a museum at KMU to a museum of Korea and, finally, a museum of the world. In addition, we plan to expand our museum based on Korean tea culture under the name “Myungwon.”

In summary, we have three distinct characteristics: the desire to expand from KMU to the world, the exhibition of other cultures based on tea culture to harmonize tradition and modernity, and the function of a complex cultural institution through the recreational

Kim Seo-Hyun, Sun Ji-Woo

Reporters

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