The day was hot. I visited the house of the noble family in Choseon Dynasty. The name of the house was Yeom Seon Jae 念先齋. It means that ‘the house of memory on the ancestor’ Yeom Seon Jae was a typical noble family ‘Yangban’ house. In Choseon dynasty, Yangban was the name of the noble family.

Yangban means 2 kinds of noblemen, scholar and warrior. Choseon was built by the warrior. So at first warrior’s power and authority was so strong, but while time is passing by the scholars’ authority was stronger than the warriors.

The house I had visited was representative scholar family. The most important figure was Kim Jang Saeng. He was born in 1548 AD and died 1631 AD. He was very famous scholar in Confucian philosophy. He died in this house.

At first I took some photos from outside

Passing through the front gate you can see the main building. I took this photo with wide angle. It was too wide to use normal lense

It was main entrance.

The house was built on raised foundation with stone and clay. I could look down everything in this house. In this main building was studyroom and reception room

Side View

Entrance from main building

Yeom Seon Jae was surrounded by the apartments.
I wish you enjoy the contrast and combination between old and new.
Old is romantic but inconvenient. New is convenient but not so romantic.
I opened the door and entered into. The rooms were small and humble. Due to the confucian philosophy, the extravagance was the kinds of worst evil at that time.

There were some furnitures and poems and the portrait of Kim Jang Saeng.

Impressive thing was traditional hat.
It’s name was GAT. The gat was symbol of the Yangban.
Gat was made by horsehairs.

Thank you for reading. In next posting, let’s go inside of this house.