If you end up staying in Korea for a while, eventually those people back home who threatened you with, “Oh, we’d love to visit!” unexpectedly actually do so.  What was once a very far off, misty idea ends up being a very real challenge to your daily life.  Suddenly, your family pops up at the airport, expecting you to drop everything and play master tour guide.  

If you were leading a Confucian dynasty called the Joseon, and it was 1394, and you built a palace called Gyeongbok that housed kings and queens and princes, and hosted foreign envoys and government meetings and royal weddings, and at its peak grew to a sprawling complex of 330 buildings that comprised Korea’s power structure, you might want to consider hiring a few dudes lik ...