Europe in Korea
Written and photographed by Bob Hughes
The Little Prince. Colorful wooden shutters over windows. Impressionist paintings. Giant multi-colored macaroons. It can only mean one place: Damyang.
Damyang’s local favorite, Juknokwon or the bamboo forest and Metasequoia Road are routinely used as the sumptuous natural backdrops to a host of films and Korean dramas. Tucked between these very Korean landmarks, however, is the small French village of Meta-Provence.
The village’s namesake is the southern French region known for its fine wines, writers such as Colette, and balmy weather blowing in from the Mediterranean Sea. Despite being thousands of miles away, its younger Korean sister, a small side road off a long stretch of sun-dappled, tree-lined avenues, wears its Francophilia with a truly Korean fervor: signs bedecked with French phrases; shops housed in light, airy maisons; tableaux of famous 19th and 20th century paintings surrounding a fountain with water encircling a faux-marble bust.
As you walk into the still-under-construction village, one of the first novelties to catch your attention is the homage paid to “The Little Prince,” Antoine St. Exupéry’s children’s classic and world favorite. Indeed, “The Little Prince” is the third most translated book in the world.
Across the intersection of two shops’ walls, the dreamy pastels of St. Exupéry’s world come to life: strange planets consisting only of trees that have over-run the land, the elfin Prince himself flanked by a small fox, and a watering can floating in midair as it tends to a small red rose. The viewer is invited to step into the scene and pretend to water the rose for a photo opportunity.
As you walk further past the gates, which suggest the entrance to a Gallic theme park, the extent of this area’s commitment to a vision of French life becomes more apparent. Large plastic macaroons in a paint box of colors invite visitors young and old to clamber over them, posing for pictures like pre-Bastille monarchs atop their confectionery thrones.
Wooden shutters, painted in a broad range of bright, sun-soaked colors, frame windows of mock-French houses. It does not matter that inside they are selling Korean “mandu” (dumplings), nor that you can find Chinese restaurants from whose windows you can gaze out over distant Korean hills. This is France, albeit one imagined through a Korean eye.
The small, French-themed café serves various pastries and cakes in the style of its culinary homeland, with small apricot plaits instantly satisfying a craving I had not realized I had.
Of course, these are flanked by an array of coffees and hot drinks, many of which are those one would find in any café in Korea, but the French romance lingers still.
Given the success of Paris Baguette, Tous Les Jours, and other French-style eateries and cafés in Korea, this is perhaps not surprising. Korea is among many other countries (my home of Britain included, albeit begrudgingly at times) in its lengthy love affair with France, its culture, and its cuisine.
You may wonder why I have chosen a place so decidedly un-Korean as my favorite place in the country. My selection is by no means a dismissal of Korea, its architecture, or its culture. In fact, it is Damyang’s absolute dedication to constructing a tiny French world, full of little Gallic touches frozen in time, which makes Meta-Provence such a lovely stop-off point and, oddly, such a Korean sight to behold.