The people of Chonghakdong strive to uphold traditional Korean values while they wait for the day when they achieve a state of paradise on earth. Christina Pfeiffer suspects they may have found it already

According to traditional South Korean folklore, the blue crane was a mythical bird that flew from mountain top to mountain top carrying immortals on its back. Hidden away at the southern base of Mount Jirisan’s Samsanbong Peak, 850m above sea level, is the Chonghakdong village. Named after the blue crane, this village is a time portal into the past, with a small group of inhabitants who continue to maintain an ancient way of life, while the industrial might and technology of 21st-century South Korea swirl around them.

South Korea has 33.9 million internet users, the highest number of broadband connections per capita in the world, and is a leader in Third Generation (3G) mobile technology. Its ports are home to the three largest shipbuilding companies in the world – Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, Samsung Heavy Industries, and Hyundai Heavy Industries. Evidence of its manufacturing boom can be found all over the country in the form of factories, warehouses and the haze that is the unavoidable result of such swift industrial expansion.

Yet, this small community – of 100-plus villagers – continues to defend traditional principles in order to escape from the turmoil of a hectically paced modern world. Dressed in traditional clothing, they spend their lives studying, meditating and gathering food.

At the Chonghakdong village, I stumble into 78-year-old Kim Deuk Jun’s front yard to find this sprightly septuagenarian sitting on a timber veranda in front of his mud hut. Dressed in a traditional white kaftan-like hanbok (the South Korean traditional dress), his long hair is twisted into a bun covered by a tall black cap.

‘In the end, we believe that the earth will become a paradise, and that our way of life will preserve us for when this day happens.’

Kim is not wearing fancy dress. His community strives to remain true to traditional South Korean values, where men wear their hair long in deference to their ancestors, youths sport pigtails and villagers go about their daily chores dressed in the plain white or grey hanbok, which these days are mostly found in museums throughout Korea. The only piece of clothing Kim puts on for our benefit is a black wide-brimmed horsehair hat that is fastened to his head by long beads clasped firmly under his chin. The hat sits neatly over his black head cap, with the beads dangling over the front of his crisp white hanbok.

‘We believe that our traditional clothing is in harmony with the nature that surrounds us,’ says Kim. The community ascribes to an unusual philosophy that is a fusion of Confucian, Buddhist and Christian teachings, with a strong underlying dose of Tonghak, a 19th-century religion that emerged at the time of Korean peasant liberation movement in the 1890s. The belief system is a mouthful for a Westerner to pronounce (yu bulsonhap ilgang jung yudo) and even more mysterious for them to comprehend.

Out on the veranda, we pore over charts with intricate astronomical markings that map the earth’s relationship to the wider universe. Kim points at various grids, using them as prompts to interpret the future. His snippets of wisdom range from views on current affairs to predictions about major global milestones. He speaks enigmatically about following the path to achieve a higher plane, of their belief that Jesus Christ will be resurrected somewhere within the mountains of Jirisan and of an earth that is about to head into a period of great suffering.

‘We are preparing ourselves for the coming of the New Age, but first we have to ride through the storm,’ he says. The community is battening down the hatches and preparing for years of war, famine, flood, disease and drought. ‘In the end, we believe that the earth will become a paradise, and that our way of life will preserve us for when this day happens,’ says Kim.

The charts Kim uses were handed down by his ancestors and reveal a philosophy that is based on what is referred to as a circle of development – a cycle that predicts world changes in seasonal blocks of 1,080 years at a time. For some, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and the good news, according to Kim, is that while there is a long wait for paradise on earth, the wheel is about to turn to bring some short-term prosperity to many countries in the Asia Pacific region.

Even though they cling on to their old belief systems, the villagers have not completely abandoned technological progress.

Modern conveniences, such as cars, television, internet and gas central heating, are approached with caution. ‘The secret is that we use only what’s needed to live and refrain from indulging in excess,’ says Kim.

The community dates back to the 16th century, when the spiritual force of Mount Jirisan drew like-minded people escaping the Japanese invasion. The village flourished and a way of life was born. In the 1950s, the war between North and South Korea broke out and the mountains became a hiding place for communists. The entire village was destroyed during the fighting, and the villagers fled into the mountains.

After the ceasefire, about 30 families moved back to the village to continue their peaceful way of life. It is a lifestyle that requires its believers to maintain a harmonious relationship with nature by forsaking materialistic comforts. Villagers make a living by growing their own crops and tending to livestock. They sell herbs, which they cultivate themselves, and keep bees to produce honey. Teaching is another acceptable means of income, and in recent years the village school has developed into a popular summer camp, where parents from all over South Korea send their children to learn about traditions and culture during their summer holidays.

Village teacher Seo Jae Ok Hoon Jang believes that the ills of modern society stem from the lack of basic education. ‘Children need to be taught to respect society and develop compassion for fellow beings,’ he says. His syllabus includes arduous sessions of Chinese calligraphy, as well as lessons on manners, cultivating good human relations and respecting elders. While such a curriculum may not sound like an appealing choice for a young person’s summer vacation, South Korean parents appear to like the idea, and places at Seo’s summer school are booked up well in advance. Local elementary school groups also support the village by booking organised field excursions for students in the standard national school system, so they can experience the wisdom of the village. In recent years, second-generation overseas Koreans have jumped on the bandwagon by sending their Westernised children to the school to be educated in the old ways.

Added to this strange potpourri of religious and philosophical beliefs is the villagers’ reverence for Tangun, the mythical half-god, half-bear father of all Koreans. A hike away from the village is the monastery of Samseonggung, a holy sanctuary in the forest, with over 1,500 stone towers where worship of Korea’s three mythical founders, the Hwanin, Hwanung and Tangun, is performed.

With the tide of progress seeping into their daily lives, the people of Chonghakdong are as passionate as ever about clinging to their traditional existence, because they believe emphatically that it is their route to paradise. But perhaps for them, paradise on earth is already here; in the form of an uncomplicated way of life, surrounded by the lush natural beauty of the Jirisan Mountains.