S. Koreans See Supernatural in President’s Rise

The old man in the gray felt hat walks purposefully around to the back of the house, through the yard with the malodorous mesh-wire chicken coop and past the mangy dog yelping at visitors, and casts his eyes upward to the mountain that looms just beyond.

“Yes, yes,” he murmurs with approval, pointing with his cane toward the crest of the mountain. “You can feel the energy.”

Kim Im Sul, 81, is one of thousands of visitors who have come to the boyhood home of Roh Moo Hyun, South Korea’s newly installed president.

The humble farmhouse where he was born in 1946 has become an improbable tourist attraction not only for the usual curiosity seekers but for those who want to probe deeper into the meaning of life and the secret of success.

More specifically, they want to learn how a poor boy reared in a home without an indoor toilet or electric lights managed to become a respected lawyer and then president. The answer, some believe, must lie in the topography of the mountains around Bongha, an otherwise ordinary village 20 miles northwest of Pusan in South Gyeongsang province.

Even if they are loath to admit it publicly, there are many who believe in geomancy, the study of how one’s destiny is shaped by natural elements in the surroundings. The Koreans call it poongsu, which like the better-known Chinese term feng shui literally means “wind and water.” Where you’re born and where your ancestors are buried can make the difference between success and failure.

Hence the extraordinary interest in Bongha, a village with a population of 120 in a verdant valley whose only previous claim to fame was its abundance of persimmon trees.

“There is something about this mountain that is different from the others. There were five people who grew up in the shadow of this mountain who passed the bar examination and four of them became successful politicians. Can that be coincidence?” said Kim Hyong Su, a photographer who snaps pictures of tourists in the village -- like many other locals, cashing in on the phenomenon.

On weekends, up to 3,000 people a day come to visit, so many that villagers had to widen the one-lane road that is their only access and raze a persimmon orchard near the entrance to build a parking lot. A publicity balloon advertising the birthplace of Roh floats above, beckoning visitors.

Enterprising villagers have set up stalls in the lot to sell snacks and souvenirs: Roh Moo Hyun’s likeness on coffee mugs, T-shirts, clocks and on a particular favorite in Korea -- small dolls that attach to one’s mobile telephone.

Visitors quickly find their way down a path to the courtyard of Roh’s childhood house, a squat three-room building constructed in the peasant style with mud walls covered in cement. A tile roof has replaced the original made of rice stalks that covered the house during Roh’s childhood.

The elderly couple who now own the house have opened one room to the public, a tiny living room furnished sparsely with a lacquer chest of drawers and a television set. A queue forms outside as visitors wait to pose their children for photographs in front of the television set as though it were a shrine.

A disproportionate number of visitors seem to be parents with young children or pregnant women -- all of whom apparently hope the special energy of the place will rub off on their offspring.

“There is a certain power around this house and that is something you cannot ignore. I do believe in it,” said Lee Yong Sook, a middle-aged woman who was expensively dressed in a suede jacket and gold jewelry. Lee said that it was her second trip to the house and that on both occasions she made a deliberate effort to drink water from the house and to use the toilet, in a shed near the barn, to get the most of the energy.

“I tried to lie down on the floor too, but a guard stopped me the first time. That’s why I came back for a second visit,” Lee added. “My son enters university this year, so I’ll come back another time with him.”

Another visitor, a 21-year-old university student named Kim Key Hwan, was brought by his parents to see the house and the grave of Roh’s parents, perched on a mountain on the outskirts of the village.

“I don’t know if I believe in geomancy, but I’m willing to accept that there is something here that I don’t understand,” Kim said.

Many of the visitors to the house are geomancers, professional and amateur. They often carry compasses to calculate the angles of the sun and mountains and study the landscape with experienced eyes.

Kim Im Sul, the old man in the felt hat, for example, is a retired farmer and part-time geomancy student. He was particularly interested in the ridge of mountains that runs to the north of the village and the small stream in the valley to the south.

“Look at that rock,” he instructed his daughter, who had followed him to the backyard of the Roh house. “The rock is like the forehead of a great man. This whole mountain is beautiful, with no roads running through it to impair the energy. It forms almost a protective screen around the village. Everything is in perfect harmony.”

As in China, Korea has its professional geomancers who earn their keep by advising real estate developers. But in Korea, with its strong adherence to Confucian tradition, special attention is paid to the tombs of ancestors and how the resting place of the dead will shape the destiny of the living.

At least three former presidents of South Korea are believed to have moved the tombs of their parents to improve their political fortunes: Roh Tae Woo, Kim Young Sam and most recently Kim Dae Jung, Roh’s predecessor and a former dissident. A well-known story says that the late dictator Park Chung Hee tried to end Kim Dae Jung’s political career by ordering the demolition of a small, uninhabited island that lay offshore from the seaside village where Kim was born. Reportedly, a famous geomancer had told Park that the island was the source of Kim’s power.

Korean folklore says that after the Japanese annexed Korea in 1910, they put iron stakes in the ground in key locations to disrupt the flow of energy between the Korean people and their land.

In the mid-1990s, a civic group was formed of volunteers who spent their weekends rummaging around the countryside pulling out stakes. Kim Du Gyu, the author of a book published last year called “Geomancy and Power,” says that many more Koreans believe in geomancy than publicly admit it.

“People here are very easily hypnotized by a rumor that so-and-so had a good site for his parents’ grave,” Kim said. “They want to believe that there is some divine power behind their leaders. Politicians use that psychologically to gain power.”

There is no indication that Roh, who became president Feb. 25, is a believer in geomancy or that he has used it for political gain. But certainly his unusual rags-to-riches story has inspired speculation.

Although Roh came of age when almost all Koreans were poor, his family was said to be especially destitute -- so poor that villagers recall they didn’t even have persimmon trees, only a small patch of vegetables.

With no money for higher education, Roh nonetheless studied at night by lantern in a small shack in the mountains, educating himself so successfully that he passed the bar exam without having attended college or law school.

“People come by here and look at the tombs and want to find some explanation for how he became president,” scoffed Noh Kyong Ho, 69, a villager who was working on a vegetable field on the hillside next to the tomb of Roh’s parents.

“Few geomancers predicted such a thing in the past, so now they want to upgrade their theories.”

Leaning back on his rake, Noh remarked that his own father is buried on the same hill, only about 20 yards from the tomb of the president’s family.

“If it’s all about geomancy, why is it that he’s president and I’m here?” Noh demanded. Then he turned back to the parsnips that he was pulling out of the field.

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Chi Jung Nam in The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.