20170916 slowwalker
Here I had posted several times so far when it comes to the name of Palace. I explained on that several times, it would be difficult for you to understand. The names of Palace were originated from chinese letters and confucianism.
For many westerners, it looked very similar among the cultures of Asian countries , esp in North East Asian countries. But Korea, Japan and China are quite different from each other. In ethnical, lingual, religious and historical background, these three countries are much more different than the difference between Germany.and Russia.
It is difficult here to explain everything in detail when it comes to the differences among 3 countries of North East Asia. If you understand the reason why, then you may understand the reason why these 3 countries have fought through their long history of thousands years.
Here I'd like to depict one aspect, the religion.
It was well known that North East Asian Countries are Confucian Society. That's right, but only Korean Society had accepted confucianism up to a level of religion. May be I think we have chance to look around that relations between korean traditional religion and Confucianism.
Actually the religion in China could be told Taoism. Confucianism had had a tendency of forced political system to chinese by foreign invaders. Strangely enough, when china ruled by foreign invaders' dynasty was strong, for example Tang, Mongol, Qing dynasty, etc. Confucianism was a very attractive instrument for the Dynasties which rooted from foreigner to force chinese officer keep the Loyalty to the King. Simply put, Confucianism was an instrument to rule the native chines. Then what is Original chines religion ? That is Taoism. In every chinese family they have had strong belief in Taoism even under the communist rule.
Japan is quite different from Korea and China. The religion of Japanese is Shindo. Shindo could be evaluated as a primitive polytheism. It is very difficult to understand how Japanese rulers had not received sophiscated religion for unifying their people. Sometimes I had thought the reason why Japan had maintained the feudalism even until late 19C.
Interesting thing is that Vietnam was a Confucianism country. The value of the Confucianism was core of managing Vietnam Society and it was internalized in mind of Vietnamese. I had felt so many similarities with Vietnamese when I met them from time to time.
In this regards, the Palace was the essence of Confucian Philosophy. They tried to expressed the core of the Confucian principles. Gyeong Bok Goong was built earlier than the chinese forbidden city.
Let's go .
After passing the Heung Yeh Moon, Moon is not moon but gate,
I could see the stone bridge. It seemed that had specific meaning, but there was no board for explanations.
There were interesting statues of animals. I guessed these animals were kinds of guards against the bad lucks and misfortune.
Under the stone bridge there was an artificial stream
And there were fierce animals. They seemes to look at something bad to kill
Thank you so much for your reading