[Heritage BottoBo] Four Ways I Encounter Cultural Heritage

Chan-hee Park (BottoBo)

My nickname is BottoBo, a shortened form of the Korean phrase meaning “to see again and again.” People often ask what it is that I keep returning to. The answer is Korea’s cultural heritage.

From artifacts displayed in museums to royal palaces, royal tombs, and Buddhist temples, the treasures I revisit are countless. Since childhood, wandering among cultural heritage sites and spending time with them has always been a source of excitement and wonder for me.

People also ask what I gain from seeing the same places over and over again. As I keep seeing, there comes a moment when a heritage site seems to talk to me. I never know when that moment would arrive or how long it would take. But I know with certainty that it comes. When it does, it feels as if just the heritage site and I exist in the world. Drawn into the era it once belonged to, I find myself slipping into the flow of history that it quietly preserves. In those moments, an indescribable sense of joy and exhilaration washes over me.

“Seeing again and again” is just one of the four ways in which I encounter cultural heritage.

Another is “walking again and again.”

I often use this approach in expansive places such as palaces and temples. The first walk is light and unhurried, as though sketching the outline of a landscape. The second is careful and attentive, lingering over details that might otherwise be overlooked. The third is entirely free, allowing my footsteps to wander wherever they wish. Walking itself is a pleasure, but with each return I feel a deeper connection with the place. At such times, it is as if a hidden passage suddenly opens before me, inviting me into the innermost world of the heritage site.

Sometimes people tilt their heads in curiosity and ask why I keep going back to the same places. Yet cultural heritage reveals something new each time it is encountered. Details that escaped my notice during the first visit often emerge during the second, while questions that once lingered in my mind may find their answers by the third. This is why I return again and again. Every visit feels like meeting a familiar place anew.

Finally, I encounter cultural heritage through all five senses. I close my eyes and listen to the sounds around me, focusing on the sensations that touch my skin.

I read poetry and prose, listen to songs that harmonize with the atmosphere of the place, or softly hum a melody as I wander nearby. Sometimes I stand still and simply gaze; at other times, I move my fingers gently and imagine the texture of an artifact beneath them.

As I engage these many senses, cultural heritage begins to feel less like an object of the past and more like a living presence. A deep bond forms between us, and the assumptions I once held about it crumble away. The joy of such moments is beyond measure.

Today, once again, I set out in search of cultural heritage. I make my way to these places and quietly knock on their doors in my own way, waiting patiently until they choose to open. And when a heritage site finally shares a fragment of its hidden story with me, I feel as though I could drift effortlessly into the blue sky.

Gathering those precious fragments of story, I pass them on to others through my writing and through the journeys of discovery that I share.