The Pavilion of Han Myeong-hoe

Apgujeong-ro runs through one of Seoul's wealthiest and most image-conscious districts—Apgujeong-dong in Gangnam-gu, home to luxury boutiques, cosmetic surgery clinics, and the storied Rodeo Street. The name, however, reaches back 500 years to a man whose private ambitions were wrapped in the language of humility.

Han Myeong-hoe (1415–1487) was the most powerful political operator of early Joseon. He engineered the Gyeyujeong Coup of 1453, which placed the future King Sejo on the throne, and was rewarded with a position at the center of power he never relinquished. He served as Chief State Councillor (Yeongeuijeong) four separate times, married his daughters to two different kings, and accumulated wealth and influence that made him the de facto second ruler of Joseon for decades.

On a prime stretch of Han River bank, Han Myeong-hoe built himself a pleasure pavilion and named it Apgujeong (狎鷗亭)—"the pavilion where one befriends seagulls." The name evokes a Chinese classical idiom about a hermit who lives so simply and purely that wild birds lose their fear of him. It implies renunciation of worldly concerns and a life in harmony with nature. For a man who spent every waking hour accumulating power, it was a name of spectacular irony. Contemporary accounts note that his pavilion was constantly crowded with favor-seekers—anything but a retreat from the world.

The pavilion was destroyed by flooding centuries ago. Today only a small marker stone remains, surrounded by the apartment complexes of modern Apgujeong-dong. The neighborhood's current identity—luxury consumption, Korean plastic surgery tourism, K-beauty and K-fashion flagship stores—carries its own version of the original irony: a place named after the rejection of material desire that became one of the most conspicuously materialistic addresses in Korea. History, in Apgujeong-ro, has a sense of humor.