About Me
& This Project
This project reflects my belief that history becomes most meaningful when it is humanized. When we widen the lens to include not just kings and generals, but cooks, servants, and guardians of tradition.
Who Am I
My name is Hyunseo (Anthony) Kim, a rising senior at Korea International School Jeju.
Since childhood, I have been deeply fascinated by my Korean heritage—particularly the Chosŏn Dynasty, which predates the Republic of Korea.
This interest has guided much of my academic and extracurricular exploration.
In 8th grade, I became a government-licensed English tour guide at Gyeongbokgung Palace, and since high school, I have led over 40 tours (100+ hours) through the Korea History Explanation Promotion Agency (KHEPA).
KHEPA is a nonprofit licensed by the Cultural Heritage Administration of the Korean government. It runs the Youth Cultural Heritage Interpreter Program (청소년 문화유산해설사), training student guides to obtain the Government licenses to tour at cultural heritage destinations—especially at Gyeongbokgung Palace, where over 20 interpreters host weekly tours for 80+ international visitors. You can visit them here.
During these tours, I noticed a lack of centralized, accessible, and historically nuanced information—especially content that goes beyond the lives of the royal family.
Through this work, I’ve become passionate about imagining life inside Gyeongbokgung not only from the king’s perspective but from that of the many overlooked individuals—palace ladies, eunuchs, concubines, and soldiers—the real nuts and bolts behind palace operations.
I aim to understand how their designated spaces, given tasks, and power shaped their lives within the palace, and how those legacies echo in modern Korean culture.
What is this project?
This website is my independent initiative to create the first centralized, chronologically organized, and role-based digital archive of Gyeongbokgung Palace’s history. Unlike surface-level summaries that focus mainly on kings and major events, this project dives deeper — mapping not only what happened when and where, but also to whom.
It highlights the often-overlooked lives of those who served in the palace: court ladies, eunuchs, concubines, stable keepers, guards, and more. By organizing the palace’s architecture, daily routines, and historical records by social role and physical space, this platform allows users to experience the palace as a living ecosystem—not just a royal monument, but a 500-year home of complex human stories.
Goals
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Provide a comprehensive, Wikipedia-style reference of major events that took place within Gyeongbokgung Palace.
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Organize all existing and lost buildings (especially from Gojong’s late-19th century reconstruction) by function and user group—soldiers, court ladies, concubines, eunuchs, and others.
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Integrate unofficial or lesser-known historical anecdotes alongside personal interpretations of primary sources (marked with *), to help others engage deeply with palace life.
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Preserve attention to the forgotten: while only ~25% of the original palace remains today due to destruction during Japanese occupation, I aim to reconstruct a fuller picture of the lives that once animated these walls.
1
Research on Korean Confucianism and Reciprocity in Chosŏn society—examining how norms of exchange and duty structured both familial rites and civic obligations.
2
Application of Thing Theory to Korean Ancestral Rites, viewing shrines (사당) and ritual practices as “things” that mediate generational debt, value, and loyalty.
3
A Publication-ongoing behavioral economics study on how reciprocity-based framing and social desirability bias affect engagement with nonprofit marketing—modeled on tour programs like those run at Gyeongbokgung.
Academic Interests
Related Project: theKhepaDigest
In addition to leading the Gungpedia initiative, I’m also the founder of The KHEPA Digest (est. April 2024), a nationwide newsletter bringing authentic Korean insight to tourists.
As a licensed Gyeongbokgung guide under KHEPA, I founded The KHEPA Digest to meet a real need: the lack of post-tour engagement with travelers after they leave the palace (an After-Service per se). What began as a simple outreach project has since evolved into a vibrant platform offering cultural commentary, recommendations, and storytelling beyond the palace gates. We've focused on transfusion by three main outlets: our website, Instagram, and our email newsletters.
Since our website launch in , The KHEPA Digest has grown into a 42-member editorial team with contributors from across Korea(from 11 different schools) and from Korean diaspora abroad. Our newsletter has collected over 120 subscribers, and our Instagram amassed over 200 followers before facing unjustified removal by Instagram. To date, we’ve published over 150 original articles across four signature categories:
- Monthly Gyeongbokgung: Fun facts & insights into Chosun history that goes beyond tours received by visitors.
- Seoul Spotlight: Writers from Seoul explore the charm of each gu(district)—from trendy hotspots to hidden gems. All pinpointed on a custom map of Seoul.
- Beauty Outside Seoul: Highlighting under-traveled regions of Korea. Personal stories and local flair from beyond the capital—Jeju to Jinju. All pinpointed on a map of Korea.
- Korea Quarterly: Monthly themes meet creativity. Cross-club stories dive into Korea's STEM, arts, and humanities—from space tech to cultural traditions.
