Walking Through Jongmyo and Sajik
by Dr. Howard Johnson (Cultural Historian, UK)
If you ever find yourself in Seoul, even briefly, there is one thing I believe you must do—even if you have no interest in history. You must walk through the old palaces that still stand in the heart of the city. Don’t just look. Walk. Breathe. Follow the path with no rush. Let it explain itself.
I started, unwittingly, with a gate. It was called Heunginmun—Gate of Benevolence. At the time, the name meant little to me. But then I learned there were others: Donuimun (Righteousness), Sungnyemun (Propriety), Sukjeongmun (Tranquility), and even a fifth—Hongjimun (Wisdom), used to preserve balance. These gates weren’t just entry points; they were ideas. Seoul, it turned out, was a city that taught morality before movement.
And then I heard about the bell—Bosingak. It once marked the rhythms of the capital: when to enter, when to rest, when to prepare. The city rang with order, not noise. The more I learned, the more the place unfolded.
Eventually, the road brought me to Jongmyo. I admit—I thought it would be just another historic site. But as I passed through the outer gate and into the Three Paths—one for the spirits, one for the king, one for the crown prince—I felt I had entered a different grammar of time. Jeongjeon, the main hall, held the spirit tablets of 19 kings. Yeongnyeongjeon, another hall, enshrined even ancestors who had never ruled, but whose presence made the dynasty whole.
Yet not everyone was included. Yeonsan and Gwanghae, kings who had been deposed, were absent. Meanwhile, kings who oversaw decline—Gojong, Sunjong—remained. That contradiction stayed with me. History, I began to realize, is less a judgment than a mirror.
Then there was the music. Jongmyo Jeryeak, the ritual performance created by King Sejong—equal parts liturgy, memory, and architectural sound. UNESCO has recognized it. But no title can capture what it feels like when the instruments begin and the air changes.
After Jongmyo, I walked toward Sajikdan. The name was unfamiliar. Sajik? The spirits of earth and grain, I was told. The king bowed here—not to his ancestors, but to the land itself. That moved me. A monarch, kneeling before soil.
Sajik ceremonies were never to be missed. Even when wars canceled other rites, this one remained. Food comes before philosophy. Even the Confucian kings knew this. After all, no one contemplates virtue well on an empty stomach.
The altar is under reconstruction now. It was damaged during occupation. But as I stood at the site, I remembered what I’d read: Gwanghaegun, in the aftermath of war, rebuilt Jongmyo and Sajik before anything else. For all his political disgrace, he understood something timeless: without these two, there was no nation to repair.
Not far from Sajik lies Hwanghakjeong, a traditional archery pavilion. I stood there as a young archer loosed an arrow. It hit the target with a sound that echoed more than wood should. History has a way of doing that—it thuds through time, asks to be noticed. It rarely shouts. But it clears its throat in ways you can’t ignore.
I walked back toward the city, changed. I had not visited. I had listened.
Jongmyo and Sajik are not tourist spots. They are questions made visible. They ask what kind of nation bows before its dead, and before its soil. And they offer, perhaps, a quiet answer.
I didn’t just walk through Seoul. I walked through what it remembers.
