Last updated on August 16, 2024
Over the past few years, Bukchon has become one of the leading tourist destinations in Seoul. The area contains the highest density of tile-roofed, traditional Korean houses in Seoul and sits auspiciously between Gyeongbok Palace and Changdeok Palace, offering sweeping views of the cityscape and Namsan. It has a number of galleries, and is close to the Insa-dong shopping area and the Samcheong-dong café area. It also a neighborhood where people from all walks of life, live and work.
The tourists come from all over, but there are two main groups throughout the week: photographers and Japanese women. On the weekends, they are joined by two other groups: families and dating couples. Japanese women tend to dominate the morning, whereas the photographers prefer the angled sun of the afternoon, particularly on clear days in the fall and winter. Crowds build on the weekends after lunch and reach a peak in late afternoon. The tourists thin by early evening, and the area becomes eerily quiet at night.
One thing that all tourists have in common, however, is a camera. Tourist maps of the area show eight photo spots that offer sweeping views of tile-roofed houses and the cityscape. Some use mobile phones, others video cameras, but most use digital cameras. The photographers, of course, carry state-of-the-art cameras that hang heavily on their shoulders. And then there are the film-makers who block the way with the lights and other equipment in search of the right moment. Together, the tourists of different origins and interests form a vast photography tribe that descends on Bukchon daily.
Photography contains two main variables: the subject and the photographer. The camera is a variable, of course, but the technical details are less important in the digital age because the product can always be (and usually is) altered later. To understand the “photography tribe,” we need to think about what they are photographing and why. In “On Photography,” Susan Sontag said, “The images that mobilize conscience are always linked to a given historical situation. The more general they are, the less likely they are to be effective.” If so, then Bukchon’s appeal might be its historicity, its link to a recent past that has all but disappeared elsewhere. The narrow streets, the alleys, the brick walls, and the tile-roofs have become foreign, and thereby exotic, to the young generation of Koreans and Japanese who grew up in large concrete apartment complexes or the many four-story multifamily housing units that dominate contemporary cityscapes.
The search for historicity in Bukchon is ironic because the area is hardly traditional. Nearly all of the traditional houses in the area were built in the 1930s, when large estates were divided up into smaller plots to make room for denser housing to accommodate the sharp increase in the population of Seoul in the 1930s. The design of the houses drew on traditional Korean architectural motifs and used traditional materials, such as wood, clay, tile, and paper. Brick and glass, two Western materials, were incorporated into the design for convenience.
Fast forward to the present and the historicity of the area is even more questionable. Since the early 2000s, the city concentrated its efforts on preserving the traditional houses through generous financial support for renovations. Somehow in the process, historical preservation and reconstruction blurred, resulting in the complete rebuilding of many houses. The photography tribes come in search of tradition, but are actually photographing a collection of mid-20th century and early 21st century tile-roofed houses intermingled with various other structures.
And yet the photography tribe comes, which suggests that Bukchon’s appeal is more than its pseudo-traditional atmosphere. For in the digital age, if they came and were disappointed, word would spread and they would stop coming. The appeal of Bukchon, then, may have more to do with the photographer than the subject.
The photography tribe is a herd; rarely do individuals wander far or strike out on their own. Japanese women follow the tour guide dutifully and stop to take pictures of the fellow travelers amid the Bukchon backdrop. Families and dating couples stick tightly together, talking and laughing between photo spots. The sole photographer lost in his or her art is a rare sight; more common is small groups of photographers sharing photo tips while enjoying camaraderie.
In the end, like so many things in Korea, the Bukchon photography tribe is about people, not buildings and cityscape. Historicity and nostalgia take second place to creating new memories that involve people. The camera is an accessory that helps bind people together and give permanence to the memories created. People look at the photos and are reminded of who there were and who they were with when they took them.
If Bukchon helps people bond through memory-creating photography, then it takes on new meaning in this busy, ephemeral age.