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When they had built the temple from the restaurant, they made a shrine for Kim Younghan. Her shrine was across the main building of the temple. The Shrine was located on the hill and concealed by the trees.
There was a bridge to get to her shrine. The bridge made me imagine it as a symbol of the connection between this world and the next world. Under the bridge, there was a small valley and stream. Yes, Kim Younghan already had crossed the river of never return.
Walking on the bridge, I could see the small but impressive monument. It was a monument for a poet and her eternal love. There was carved a poem written when the poet left her at the very last night.
The poet’s parents strongly opposed to their love. Any parents hadn’t have permitted marriage with Ghisaeng. His parents forced him quit relation with her and to marry noble lady when he had visited home. At that time, that kinds of thing was not special.
As you know in Confucian society, King, Parents and Teachers had same authority. Nobody could refuse to their parents. So he got married at home town where is North Korea now and ran away to Seoul where is South Korea nowadays. Poet proposed her to run away far way together.
But she refused his request. She was very complicated. She understood his parents position warring about poet’s future. Of course, she had some kinds of a reproach and a complaint to him not to refuse his parents to the end at the same time. Anyway, She refused to leave together, and a poet fell in a desperate breaking heart.
The name of the poem is
“ I and Natasha and white Donkey”
It seemed that this is one of the best Lyric of Korean History of Literature.
It is too sorry that I can’t translate this poem into English. It is far beyond out of my ability.
It seemed that he had wrote this poem at once.
He left her with leaving this poem. They never had met again before they died.
I read the poem once again written in this monument.
She had to live her entire life with breaking heart. At her old age, she published a book on the poem of Baek Seok.
After looking at her shrine, I walked around the Temple. There I found the statue of the Goddess of Mercy.
My cousin told me it looked like the Holy mother of the Catholic Church. It is said that the artist tried to show the harmony of the religion between the Buddhism and the Catholic church.
But the statue seemed to remind me of Kim Younghan.
There is another story in this temple with a great monk. (to be continued)