Chinese Juniper of Songgokseowon Confucian Academy, Seosan

No records survive concerning this Chinese juniper standing on either side of the entrance to Songgokseowon Confucian Academy. According to popular legend, however, particularly as told within the Seoryeong Ryu clan, the scholar-recluse Mudong-cheosa, Ryu Yun (d. 1476), abandoned his ambition for office after King Danjong's abdication in 1455 and, retiring to the countryside, planted the tree in his garden. Where exactly he retired to is not specified. According to the entry on Ryu Yun in the Digital Seosan Cultural Encyclopedia, "When King Danjong was deposed, he gave up his official post and withdrew into seclusion at Mudong in Cheongju (present-day Yeonje-ri, Osong-eup, Heungdeok-gu, Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province). King Sejo repeatedly summoned him with offers of office, but he did not respond. The king then bestowed on him the royal calligraphy 'Mudong-cheosa' (Hermit of Mudong Valley), which became his pen name" — an account concerned entirely with matters unrelated to Seosan. Ryu Yun had a particular affinity with trees. In Mogwa Park in Yeonje-ri, Osong-eup, Heungdeok-gu, Cheongju, where he once lived, stands a quince tree designated a natural monument. Planted before Ryu Yun withdrew into seclusion, it is thought to be at least 600 years old. Although Ryu Yun's ancestral seat was Seoryeong, he never lived in Seosan. Rather, his descendants flourished mainly around Cheongju, where he had resided, to the extent that a branch of the clan, the Mudong-cheosa-gong branch, was later established with him as its founding ancestor. Nevertheless, he came to be enshrined at Songgokseowon in Seosan primarily because the Seoryeong Ryu clan regarded him as a loyal and righteous official whom they could proudly present to the wider world, and it appears that the legend concerning the juniper also stems from this. The Chinese junipers of Songgokseowon in Seosan were planted symmetrically on either side of the academy's entrance to express the ideas of taegeuk (the great absolute) and eumyang (yin and yang), an unusual arrangement, and as an old tree of great academic value it has been designated and protected as a natural monument.

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Where it is

Region

Seosan, Chungnam

Designation

Natural Monument · 천연기념물