Today we learned about 창경궁. The structure of the palace divides 3 parts. Outer palace, Inner palace and the back garden. The outer palace was used for official works and holding events. 명정전, 문정전 and 숭문당 are the one of them, The inner palace was the place for royal family’s daily life. 경춘전, 환경전, 양화당 and 통화전 are the Inner palace. The back garden is the royal family’s resting place. The most of the back garden of 창경궁 belongs to 창덕궁. Only 춘덩지 and 관덕정 areas belong to 창경궁 back garden. There are sad strories about the palace. First, lady Jang cursed 숙종’s first wife to death. Also, prince Sado was dead inside in a rice chest. Lastly, when Japan occupated Korea, they used 창경궁 as a zoo. There are some interesting things at 창경궁. First, 단청. 단청 is a traditional color of Korea. 단청 protects the wood from moisture and insects. Also it has some symbolic meaning. Red represents fire, black represents water, green or blue represents wood, white represents metal and yellow represents earth. Lastly I’m going to talk about 잡상. 잡상 is a small figures at the roof. People thought that the figures protects the palaces from getting fire. The figures are the characters from the Journey to the west. The front is the Budist monk leading monkey, ping and the water ghost. I felt that 창경궁 is an interesting place and had a sad story.
