Ajumma's Journal: Connecting the Dots - Hwaseong, Painter of the Wind and Cheongyecheon

Jeongjo was a child when he begged his grandfather in vain to spare his own father’s life. He was dragged away from the terrible scene when his father, Prince Sado was pressed by King Yeongjo, to enter the infamous rice chest where he died some days later. Palace rumours of Sado plotting parricide had grown too strong for Yeongjo to overlook his spoilt and troubled son’s record of murdering palace slaves and others outside the palace. The king felt compelled to punish or get rid of his own son in this bizarre way as executing him directly would have made the monarch a criminal and compromised his right to rule. One wonders why he didn’t ask the Crown Prince to swallow poison for a swifter and more certain end. Instead, when poor Sado failed to strangle himself before his frustrated parent, the former was locked in the rice box and left to rot and expire in the summer heat.

Hwaseong - a loyal son's tribute to a wretched father

The incident left a deep impression on Jeongjo who grew up resenting the unjust treatment of his father whose mental illness had never been acknowledged by the grandfather. So when he became the 22nd king of the Joseon Dynasty in 1777, he was determined to restore honour to Prince Sado by moving the latter’s tomb to Suwon to a site deemed as the most ideal burial site in terms of geomancy and constructing Hwaseong Fortress there to commemorate and to give Sado the posthumous title of King Jangjo. According to Henny Savenjie, the project was also “an attempt to balance the power between various political partisans and to test the potential of a new center of national spirit, in short, an attempt to build satellite cities scattered along the outskirts of the capital Seoul. Jeongjo died before he could carry out any plan to relocate the capital.

TV drama series loosely based on the lives of Kim Hong-do and Shin Yun-bok

against a background of Joseon palace intrigue.

I wasn’t really connecting the dots until most recently when I realised that Jeongjo was the king who appointed Kim Hong-do and Shin Yun-bok to paint a portrait of his late father in the drama series, Painter of the Wind. Granted a lot of licence may have been taken with the real details of history, but the episode in which the artists reconstruct the image of Sado like a literal jigsaw puzzle, was fascinating to watch. Then again, I realised that I had also paused during my walk along Cheonggyecheon (stream) in Seoul to admire a mural near the Samil Building. It turns out the grand procession depicted in the mural was King Jeongjo’s 8-day journey to Suwon to perform rites to honour his father. The real Kim Hong-do may well have been one of the many palace artists who painted the original illustration. When I first saw the mural, I hadn’t any clue who the king was and what the whole procession meant. But now that names like Jeongjo, Sado or Jangjo and Kim Hong-do aren’t merely names, I’d like to go back to Seoul to pay closer attention to the Cheongyecheon mural.