Bongeunsa Temple

This guide to Bongeunsa Temple in Seoul centers on Kim Jeong-hee, the celebrated Joseon calligrapher, in 1856: elderly, twice exiled, and nearing the end of his life, he was asked to write the sign for a new hall built to house eighty-one volumes of sacred printing blocks. It follows what happened to that hall through a 1939 fire and the Korean War, and traces Kim's earlier years of political exile. Look for the weathered sign still hanging above the low wooden hall's door.