Donam Seowon is a Confucian academy in the countryside near Nonsan, in South Chungcheong province, and it is one of nine seowon that UNESCO listed together in 2019. Seowon were private academies founded by scholars of the Joseon dynasty, where young men studied the Confucian classics and honoured the memory of great teachers through rituals. Donam was founded in the early seventeenth century to commemorate Kim Jang-saeng, a renowned scholar of rites, and his students, and it played an important role in the intellectual life of the period.
The academy consists of a group of wooden buildings with tiled roofs set on terraces in a quiet valley, with a lecture hall, dormitories and a shrine at the top of the site. The architecture is simple and elegant, designed to create an atmosphere of contemplation and study, and the surrounding trees and hills add to the sense of peace. Ceremonies to honour the scholars are still held here twice a year, and the academy hosts cultural programmes and events.
The area around Nonsan is mostly agricultural, with rice paddies, greenhouses and orchards, and the roads are flat and straight, with little to excite a rider. But Gyeryongsan National Park, about twenty kilometres to the northeast, offers mountain roads, forests and temples, including Gapsa and Donghaksa, and the old Baekje capitals of Gongju and Buyeo, with their fortresses and royal tombs, are within an hour's ride. Korean roads are generally in good condition, but traffic can be heavy near cities, and speed cameras are common. Motorcycles cannot use expressways, so plan on using national and provincial roads.
Nonsan is a city of about forty thousand people, with fuel, convenience stores and restaurants. It is known for its strawberries, celebrated with a festival in spring, and for the Gwanchoksa temple, home to the Eunjin Mireuk, a huge stone Buddha statue from the Goryeo period that is one of the largest in Korea. The Korea Army Training Center is also in Nonsan, which is why you might see many young men with shaved heads and their families in the city. Local food includes hearty stews, grilled meats and fresh vegetables.