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Lyman Museum presents ‘Grandfather’s House’

 

 
Lyman Museum presents ‘Grandfather’s House’
MEDIA RELEASE
Grandfather’s House is a special exhibit now on display at Hilo’s Lyman Museum. 
The exhibit is completely immersive, allowing visitors to step back in time to life in rural Korea during the 1930s. 
The house, featuring period furnishings and décor, represents a traditional single-story Korean home complete with tile-roof, courtyard, and a hands-on kitchen. The home’s layout reflects the gender separation of work and life that was typical of the period with separate areas for men and women. 
Visitors are invited to try on traditional Korean clothing while exploring the exhibit.
Visitors take a journey as they explore the daily lifestyle of a Korean family in Grandfather’s time. 
Upon passing through the gateway into the courtyard area, visitors can explore the home’s exterior before going inside the various rooms of the house. Areas of the home often served many purposes. Korean winters can be wet and cold so weather dictated building materials and ingenious function such as the central heating system called ondol. 
For centuries Koreans heated their homes with ondol floors: brick floors with a built-in network of ducts and flues leading from the kitchen hearth. It is little wonder that Koreans took their meals, entertained guests, and slept directly on the warmth of their floors.
As with other Korean houses of this style and scale, Grandfather’s House is enclosed by a gated wall that would have separated it from neighboring houses and formed a courtyard.  
A single room in a Korean home might function as a dining room, living room, playroom, and study. Cushions and mats made of cotton, silk, and plant fiber made sitting on the floor comfortable. Floors were kept immaculately clean, and of course shoes were taken off before entering these interior rooms.
Korea’s late Choson period (1392-1910) was marked by a conservatism that fostered a strict separation of roles and activities for men and women. This extended even to the level of individual family homes. 
In households such as Grandfather’s House, the sarangbang, or receiving room, often served as the public men’s quarters, while the anbang, or inner room, made up the more protected women’s quarters. 
In Grandfather’s House, the sarangbang and anbang are separated by a wood-floored section called the maru. This area is covered by the roof, or at least by the overhanging eaves of the roof, but is without outside walls, as was typical. The maru sometimes served as a storage space.
As in Grandfather’s House,the kitchen of a traditional Korean house stood at the far end next to the anbang, so that those within the inner room could enjoy the warmest benefits of its hearth through the ondol floors. Unlike other portions of the house, the kitchen was floored only with packed earth. 
In the kitchen of Grandfather’s House are shelves holding ceramic bowls and plates, fiber mats and baskets, gourd dippers and scoops, a millstone, and a mortar and pestle. 
An extension of the kitchen stretches outside to a place reserved for food storage jars. This area, sometimes called a condiment bay, is one of the most familiar sights in Korean households, whether in the yards of older country homes or on rooftops and balconies in downtown Seoul. 
“Within the bay in Grandfather’s House one can easily imagine crocks of pickled radishes and cabbages, soybean paste and soy sauce, red pepper paste, sesame seed oil, and many other seasonings and sauces that give Korean food its trademark flavor,” museum President and Executive Director M. Dolly Strazar said. “These clusters of large earthenware jars represent one of the most distinctive aspects of Korean culture, one that people around the world have come to recognize and enjoy; Korean food!”
The Newark Museum in New Jersey first created the exhibition in 1995. It traveled to the Seattle Asian Art Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and now finds its home at the Lyman Museum.
Lyman Museum and Mission House are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. until 4:30 pm. Cost is $10 for adults and youth 6 to 17 are $3. Family, senior and student rates are also available.
— Find out more:
Lyman Museum: www.LymanMuseum.org, 935-5021
The Korean-style house includes several rooms and courtyard area. (Photo courtesy of Lyman Museum)

The 1930s Korean-style house includes several rooms and courtyard area. (Photo courtesy of Lyman Museum)

MEDIA RELEASE
Grandfather’s House is a special exhibit now on display at Hilo’s Lyman Museum. 
The exhibit is completely immersive, allowing visitors to step back in time to life in rural Korea during the 1930s. 
The house, featuring period furnishings and décor, represents a traditional single-story Korean home complete with tile-roof, courtyard, and a hands-on kitchen. The home’s layout reflects the gender separation of work and life that was typical of the period with separate areas for men and women. 
Visitors are invited to try on traditional Korean clothing while exploring the exhibit.
Visitors take a journey as they explore the daily lifestyle of a Korean family in Grandfather’s time. 
Upon passing through the gateway into the courtyard area, visitors can explore the home’s exterior before going inside the various rooms of the house. Areas of the home often served many purposes. Korean winters can be wet and cold so weather dictated building materials and ingenious function such as the central heating system called ondol. 
For centuries Koreans heated their homes with ondol floors: brick floors with a built-in network of ducts and flues leading from the kitchen hearth. It is little wonder that Koreans took their meals, entertained guests, and slept directly on the warmth of their floors.
As with other Korean houses of this style and scale, Grandfather’s House is enclosed by a gated wall that would have separated it from neighboring houses and formed a courtyard.  
A single room in a Korean home might function as a dining room, living room, playroom, and study. Cushions and mats made of cotton, silk, and plant fiber made sitting on the floor comfortable. Floors were kept immaculately clean, and of course shoes were taken off before entering these interior rooms.
Korea’s late Choson period (1392-1910) was marked by a conservatism that fostered a strict separation of roles and activities for men and women. This extended even to the level of individual family homes. 
In households such as Grandfather’s House, the sarangbang, or receiving room, often served as the public men’s quarters, while the anbang, or inner room, made up the more protected women’s quarters. 
In Grandfather’s House, the sarangbang and anbang are separated by a wood-floored section called the maru. This area is covered by the roof, or at least by the overhanging eaves of the roof, but is without outside walls, as was typical. The maru sometimes served as a storage space.
As in Grandfather’s House,the kitchen of a traditional Korean house stood at the far end next to the anbang, so that those within the inner room could enjoy the warmest benefits of its hearth through the ondol floors. Unlike other portions of the house, the kitchen was floored only with packed earth. 
In the kitchen of Grandfather’s House are shelves holding ceramic bowls and plates, fiber mats and baskets, gourd dippers and scoops, a millstone, and a mortar and pestle. 
An extension of the kitchen stretches outside to a place reserved for food storage jars. This area, sometimes called a condiment bay, is one of the most familiar sights in Korean households, whether in the yards of older country homes or on rooftops and balconies in downtown Seoul. 
“Within the bay in Grandfather’s House one can easily imagine crocks of pickled radishes and cabbages, soybean paste and soy sauce, red pepper paste, sesame seed oil, and many other seasonings and sauces that give Korean food its trademark flavor,” museum President and Executive Director M. Dolly Strazar said. “These clusters of large earthenware jars represent one of the most distinctive aspects of Korean culture, one that people around the world have come to recognize and enjoy; Korean food!”
The Newark Museum in New Jersey first created the exhibition in 1995. It traveled to Seattle Asian Art Museum, Honolulu Academy of Arts, and now finds its home at Lyman Museum.
Lyman Museum and Mission House are open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4:30 pm. Cost is $10 for adults and youth 6 to 17 are $3. Family, senior and student rates are available.
— Find out more:
Lyman Museum: www.LymanMuseum.org, 935-5021
The exhibit allows visitors to step back in time to the rural Korea of the 1930s. (Photo courtesy of Lyman Museum)

The exhibit allows visitors to step back in time to the rural Korea of the 1930s. (Photo courtesy of Lyman Museum)

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