KJCKorea
Journal Central

This study discovered and introduced the travel gasa (an old form of Korean verse) <The Trade Fair in Seoul Diary>, which had not been recognized so far. This study found the clue regarding the writer based on the contents of the gasa and they have been identified through the writer's descendants. The writer was Kim Jae-kook (金濟國, 1913 ~ 1992) who lived in Yeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, from the Japanese Colonial Era to the modern times. He visited the 1st Korea Trade Fair, which was held in September 1968 in Guro-dong, Seoul, and went sightseeing in Seoul afterwards. On 30 September 1968, he arrived in Seoul after taking an express Jungang Line train from Yeongju Station and traveled the trade fair and Seoul. On 9 October the same year, he went back to Yeongju in a Jungang train. <The Trade Fair in Seoul Diary> had several descriptive characteristics. The writer wrote realistically about travel plans and experience but wrote about his own feelings and impressions in literary style. He chose the method of combining gasa and Chinese poetry when it came to writing gasa. In addition, expectations and interest toward traditional customs and modern civilization can be found in his work when seeing that he lived in the period of the Japanese colonial rule and modern era. In particular, he was interested in modern products of civilization while traveling in Seoul.

Korea Trade Fair, Jungang railway, Kim Jae-kook, Ilyeongdae, Kim Dahm Changgyeongwon, geomancy, express train, Yeongju