More than 4,000 exhibits are on display at the Gapjae Traditional Folklore Exhibition Hall, which opened on Oct.31, 2016, in a former school in Goheung County, South Jeolla Province. Goheung County provides rental and maintenance costs for buildings. Lee Ki-jae, director of the exhibition hall, has provided the county with 4,000 folk and craft items that he collected himself.
Among the items on exhibition are daily items used by noble ladies and their husbands, as well as examples of agricultural and ordinary household tools. There is also a display of how telephones and electricity use developed over time, and a variety of books from both the Japanese colonial period and the post-war era. These provide good opportunities for reading about local culture.
Before the hall opened, Lee operated a similar exhibition hall on his own for more than ten years. It was quite some distance from Gapjae Hall, but it was impossible for him to maintain the many artworks himself, so he donated his entire collection to Goheung County.
In 1986, Lee was employed as a teacher. That year, he visited his home village in Yeonggwang County, South Jeolla Province, during a holiday. When he went to his uncle’s house, he was mesmerized by the flash and shine of two brassware bowls in the attic. He asked his uncle to give him the bowls as a gift, and thereafter began collecting various traditional folk items from the houses of his family’s relatives and from shops.
Lee married in 1987. He lived and worked in Yeosu City, where he visited shops that sold traditional folk arts. Every Saturday for 10 years or more, he bought items in Yeosu and Suncheon in South Jeolla Province and in Jinju in South Gyeongsang Province.
Because of his desire to collect things, living on his salary was difficult, so his wife took on a side job. Over time, they relocated to another area and had four children. Lee’s collections grew so large that he needed to move to a larger house. As a solution, he rented a former school with 12 rooms in Donggang-myeon, Goheung County.
For two months in 1999, Lee spent every weekend cleaning the 5,000 pyeong playground and school building by himself. Finally, the items he had collected were displayed in eleven rooms. The twelfth room was decorated as a house.
Once the various folk items had been neatly organized, the building was opened to the public. It became famous as a local attraction. Every weekend, citizens would visit. It also became known as a regular field trip destination for elementary school and kindergarten students.
Thanks to his commitment, the exhibition hall was recognized as an excellent example of how to manage a school building that had been closed. As a result, the local education office agreed to rent the building to him for free. Nevertheless, it was still difficult to maintain it by himself. In 2003, his wife quit her side job and started studying and learning to use natural dyes to make clothing. With her husband, she ran a school for natural dyeing in the same building.
Since Lee retired a few years ago, he has been working at the hall as a manager and guide. He says he sometimes feels uncomfortable because of such a managed life. Nevertheless, during his private time, he still adds to his collection. As a result, his room is full of other traditional items. His hobby serves as a bridge to understanding the traditional flow of our culture.
Source: Korea Times News
