Goryeo Stones Once Locked in a Farm Vault: The Time of the Balsan-ri Stone Lantern and Lee Yeong-chun House

Climb the forest path around Guam-ro in Gaejeong-dong and a unique wooden building appears, combining a Western exterior, Japanese tatami rooms and Korean heated-floor rooms under one roof. Kumamoto Rihei, one of the largest farm owners in colonial Joseon, built it as his villa around 1920. Today it is Lee Yeong-chun House.

This luxury villa is said to have been built with materials brought from Baekdusan Mountain and elsewhere, at a cost rivaling the Government-General's official residence of the time. After liberation, it came to write a completely different history. That is because Dr. Ssangcheon Lee Yeong-chun, called 'the Schweitzer of Korea', lived here. He led the Rural Hygiene Research Institute and Gaejeong Central Hospital and devoted his life to fighting tuberculosis and to rural medical service. It is a dramatic site where a space at the peak of exploitation was turned into a base for the benevolent art of saving lives.

Move from Lee Yeong-chun House to Balsan-ri in Gaejeong-myeon and you meet a strange scene behind Balsan Elementary School. There stand the massive 2-story reinforced concrete former Japanese farm warehouse of Balsan-ri (National Registered Heritage) and the Goryeo stone relics that keep it company.

This warehouse is a kind of giant vault, built by the Japanese landowner who ran the Shimatani Farm under Japanese rule to store art and valuables he collected across the country. Its windows have iron bars, and it has an American-made vault door. More surprising are the pieces standing in the yard. They are the state-designated Treasure Balsan-ri Stone Lantern (thought to date from the early Goryeo period, around the 10th century), the Balsan-ri Five-story Stone Pagoda and the 6-sided Stupa in Balsan-ri, 175 cm tall. These relics originally stood at the Bongnimsa Temple Site in Wanju-gun, and the Japanese landowner hauled them away whole to decorate his farm garden. After liberation, a school was built on the farm site, and to this day they tell the story of heritage's ordeals from inside the school grounds.

Time in Balsan-ri does not stop at the modern era. On the hillside of Balsan-ri (46 Bareume-gil) is the General Choe Ho Site, a provincial monument that enshrines the spirit tablet of General Choe Ho (Lord Chungwon), a military officer under King Seonjo of Joseon.

It is a shrine honoring General Choe Ho's loyalty. In the 29th year of King Seonjo (1596), he put down the rebellion of Yi Mong-hak and was named a Merit Subject for Quelling the Rebellion. In 1597 he fought to the end in the sea battle of Chilcheollyang and died a martyr. Look around the quiet red spiked gate and the shrine, and you can calmly take in a scene where Goryeo stone art, Joseon loyalty and modern pain overlap in one village.

Gaejeong-dong and the Balsan-ri area are a little over 15 minutes by car from the old downtown, but with few tour groups, they are ideal for walking and reflecting. Set aside half a day, morning or afternoon. We suggest seeing Lee Yeong-chun House first, then moving on to Balsan-ri and linking in turn the former Japanese farm warehouse, the Balsan-ri Stone Lantern, Five-story Stone Pagoda and 6-sided Stupa, and the General Choe Ho Site.

The Balsan-ri relics adjoin the grounds of Balsan Elementary School, so during weekday class hours please take care to keep quiet as you look around.