Dongbaekseom
Pine-shaded former island where a ninth-century scholar carved a coastline's name into rock.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Dongbaekseom in Busan follows Choi Chi-won, a ninth-century Silla scholar who passed Tang China's brutal civil service exam only to watch his own royal court shelve his reform proposals when he came home. It traces his choice to abandon government work altogether, giving up even a provincial magistrate's post, and wander the southern coast until he settled on this small island with a chisel in hand. Along the way it covers the years he spent as a foreign bureaucrat, drafting official documents in a language not his own.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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