Insadong-gil Street

This guide to Insadong-gil Street in Seoul opens with a nobleman selling his grandfather's jade vase to a stranger, one of many forced sales as Japan's occupation pushed old aristocratic families out of this once-restricted government quarter. It follows how those heirlooms flooded into secondhand shops, drawing dealers, then postwar artists and cafe owners, then a nickname, Mary's Alley, that stuck for decades. About forty percent of the country's antique shops and art galleries still cluster along this street today.