Eerie Tales from Old Korea

"In the good old days, before the skirts of Joseon were defiled by contact with the outer world and before the bird-twittering voice of the foreigner was heard in the land"... these lines were not written in pre-Twitter-IPO 2013, but in pre-Japanese-Occupation 1903-1905.

The author? Homer Bezaleel Hulbert, a Missionary from Vermont who defended the cause of Korea and Emperor Gojong against Japanese colonialism, and a man with a weakness for ghost stories. A weakness he shared with his friend James Scarth Gale, a Missionary from Ontario who (on his Dr Jekyll side?) translated the Bible into Korean; the pair collected gems from a genre long considered as taboo in Korea, Gale publishing his own "Korean folk tales" in 1913.

100 years later, another man of faith / champion of Korean culture / Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch leader decided to compile a selection of their stories. If this time, Brother Anthony of Taize doesn't have to do by himself the translation from old or modern texts to help us fathom a side of the Korean psyche, he does mark an important chapter in the encounter of Korean culture through foreign eyes.

Eerie Tales from Old Korea

"Eerie Tales from Old Korea" are a fun read. You'll meet spirits, ghosts, monsters, living dead, or shapeshifting beauties, but also - and above all else - humans with weak spots. No wonder these tales were not politically correct in Confucian, Joseon times: heroes can be shamelessly cunning and greedy, and references to Shamanism and Buddhism abound. Hell (!): even today, many Koreans refuse to recognize the existence of monsters in the closet of their national culture. Besides, the authors are having fun themselves: you're not reading academic translations of Yangban materials, but listening to good friends telling folk tales by the fireplace. And to ease your immersion into Korea's popular culture, Hulbert and Gale don't hesitate and summon when needed references to its Western counterparts.

Granted: the original tales were less fundamental for Korea than - say - "The Canterbury Tales" for England (before becoming the Korean citizen known as An Sonjae, Brother Anthony from Cornwall studied Geoffrey Chaucer up close), and literary-wise as well as plot-wise, this ain't no Nobel material, but that's what folk tales are all about, and if you've read such stories as the "Tale of Hong Gildong", you're used to the local dei ex machina. So just hop in, enjoy, and jog along in rhythm.

Speaking of rhythm and Hong Gildong: on November 30, Charles Montgomery will be 'moderating' (figure of speech - remember "Korean Literature Rocks"? ^^) the 10 Magazine Book Club featuring Brother Anthony. To join the event: facebook.com/events/640704215939993.

Brother Anthony of Taize, a.k.a. AN Sonjae: A Theologian? A Teaologist? A Taleologist? All of the above!

And speaking of RAS KB: on November 12, Robert J. Fouser will talk about - among others - Homer B. Hulbert and James S. Gale in his lecture "Early Western Learners of Korean: What Can They Teach Us?". 




"Eerie Tales from Old Korea"
Compiled by Brother Anthony of Taize
Seoul Selection 2013 - 176 pages
ASIN B00D71FV9Y
Paperback & Kindle Editions

Brother Anthony's website: hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony

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The Voices of Heaven (Maija Rhee Devine)

Unfair, absurd, overwhelming, and devastating, the war is about to break out. But for the personal tragedies we're witnessing here, we can only blame unfair, absurd, overwhelming, and devastating traditions.

Eum-chun's family should be the portrait of happiness, and the loving couple she forms with Gui-yong, her complicity with her mother in law, or her pure joy of having a girl like Mi-na, should set positive examples for the rest of a Korean society gangrened by archaic habits and customs... yet gangrene has already set its teeth in this model family.

If Mi-na happens to be an adopted child, she ignores that fact. What she does know - and what the whole neighborhood makes sure she knows - is that she's not a boy, and that her father is supposed to have one. Of course, the monstrous thing is not this absence, but the kind of "solutions" this society comes up with: an unofficial "little mommy" will move in to bear Gui-yong's male heir...

After meeting the author, I knew that reading "The Voices of Heaven" would be an emotional moment, and not in the 'fabricated drama' sense. The immersion is complete; impossible to put the book down as the personal tragedies unfold and the war looms; countless Korean expressions make me slow down to taste them and fully appreciate their freshness or bitterness, but that projects me even better in time; I'm not only feeling through the characters' senses, but also hearing their uncensored thoughts say the unsayable, expose the daily abomination of a choking society, beg for love, laugh at their own brazenness...

Don't get me wrong: it may sound like walking hip-high through pretty heavy and thick stuff, but by the grace of a poet, you're in for an uplifting experience.

Maija Rhee Devine grew up in Seoul during the Korean War, and writing such a delicate and strong, personal and universal first novel that stretches all the way to modern day Korea must have been really draining. Her next project promises to be another emotional Everest - I have no idea how long it will take her to see her "Journals of Comfort Women" through to the end, but I can't wait to read them.




"The Voices of Heaven"
Maija RHEE DEVINE
Seoul Selection USA 2013, 316 p

NB: Maija will be presenting her book this Sunday, October 27, at Barry Welsh's 10 Magazine Book Club in Myeong-dong (details on the Facebook event page: facebook.com/events/151128225080808). And while you're at it, join Barry's new radio program on TBS eFM (on Saturdays and Sundays), "The Bookend": facebook.com/thebookendefm.




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Time travel: "Letters from Joseon"

Robert Neff is sick.

Don't get me wrong: he truly seems a good and decent man. I simply mean that he was feverish today. But this historian is so enthusiastic about his subject that he managed, in spite of that, to deliver a powerful and very entertaining lecture for the 10 Magazine Book Club. That's about his latest book: "Letters from Joseon - 19th Century Korea through the Eyes of an American Ambassador's Wife".




"Letters from Joseon" - Seoul Selection 2013
Robert Neff's previously wrote "Korea Through Western Eyes" and "Westerner's life in Joseon"

Robert Neff is sick.

Of reading about recurrent seasicknesses, rashes, or digestion troubles in John Mahelm Berry Sill's small family. Of decyphering this woman's scrawl. Of following John along pages and pages of dull descriptions of spiders and plants. But that's part of the job when you do your research on this kind of material: unfortunately, not all letters are written by Mark Twain or Jane Austen, and someone has to skim off the relevant bits, the hidden gems, and what is left unsaid to make it a pleasant journey for the readers. Mercifully, that's only part of the job, which certainly involves other painstaking processes, but also other rewarding moments. Also, that's a good alibi to look for and into more pictures of the past, and Robert Neff is a great collector of photos from late XIXth- early XXth Century Korea.

Robert Neff is sick.

Come to think of it, this man may have a twisted mind, after all: he does have a weakness for wicked characters. But no, that's totally normal. Put yourself into his shoes: you don't want to stay all the time with a tranquil constipated arachnophiliac stuck in his garden when there's a naughty gossiper, an incestuous felon, or a chain-beheader in the neighborhood! Not to mention "devils" at large (learn that Korean ponies are not as cute as they look). Beyond the story of an American Minister to Korea (1894-1897), there are tens of stories and portraits, hillarious anecdotes, new insights about Jeong-dong*, Seoul, Incheon-Chemulpo, Korea, King Gojong and Empress Myeongseong, the flight to the Russian Legation, and a dynasty on the verge of collapse.

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* reminded me of the recent expo Jeongdong 1900 at the Seoul Museum of History (see "A thousand villages, a thousand memories - Seoul Photo Festival 2012").

Am I My Hanok's Keeper? Peter E. Bartholomew's Defense and Illustration of Korean Architecture

Like many Westerners appalled by the hanok genocide in Korea, I'm often playing God blaming Cain ("Where's your hanok?" - "I don't know, am I my hanok's keeper?" - "What have you done? Listen! Your cultural heritage’s blood cries out to your lineage from the ground"). Of course, this gallic brat cockily ranting around is not only useless but undermining the cause.

Hopefully, the cause of hanok preservation did progress dramatically, thanks to voices that carried much more than sterile criticism: true love for Korean architecture only actual hanok's keepers could manifest. And "The Guardian of The Hanok" managed to bring change because he could reach both Korean authorities and the general public.

Last Tuesday, Peter E. Bartholomew faced a large and already won-over audience for his lecture organized by the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch: "Catastrophic Losses of Korea's Architectural Heritage from 1910 and Continuing Today". He could have continued for days and much more this vibrant defense and illustration of Korean architecture.



Peter E. Bartholomew, a.k.a. The Guardian of Hanok


The "Guardian of the Hanok" started his love affair with Korea's traditional architecture in 1968, when he arrived from the States in Gangneung, Gangwon-do. For five years, Bartholomew stayed in Seongyojang, an amazing three-century-old residence which, still today, belongs to a former royal family. Emerging from a sea of lotus, here's the pavillion where a younger (and, judging by his own pictures, a hairier) Peter had his first experience of hanok restoration:

 

Bartholomew illustrated his exciting presentation of the science, aesthetics, philosophy, and poetry of hanok with hundreds of pictures covering all periods, styles, and regions, including from his own hanok in Dongsomun-dong, Seongbuk-gu, where he's been living for more than 30 years.

I will simply add this spectacular view over Ikseon-dong, Jongno-gu for three reasons:




- First, it shows a key yet little known element of hanok architecture mentioned by Peter: the reddish layer of dense clay under the roof tiles, which are here about to be rearranged.
- Second, that's the opportunity to say hello to Robert J. Fouser: another great hanok keeper (just finishing his lovely home in Seochon), Robert recently wrote about this most charming but endangered neighborhood in Seoul Magazine (see "Seoul's Hanok Island: Unhyeongung Royal Residence and Ikseon-dong" and Robert Koehler's photographs)
- Third, it exposes at the same time the beauty, the strength, and the fragility of Korean architecture, as it is in the nude. Note the tile 'backbones' marking the roof lines, and the roof at the lower corner of the picture ("georgeous curves", would probably say "The Guardian of the Hanok").

Peter E. Bartholomew painted an impressive census of the 15 to 20,000 architectural treasures directly controlled by Korean administrations in 1910, from royal palaces to local governments or military compounds. He then told the sad story of annihilation. Not even one percent survived after three man-made tragedies: the Japanese occupation, the Korean war, and of course, the architectural and urban genocide that followed and still today continues.

This story became even more personal for him when he had to lead the resistance against the planned destruction of his neighborhood's last traditional houses. Bartholomew showed us the 2004 official document proving how hanoks were specifically targeted to pave the way for a major development across Dongsomun-dong. The group of hanok keepers managed to save the neighborhood - making many speculators unhappy -, and eventually won in court against the Seoul Metropolitan Government (an episode mentioned in "The Empress's Last Bang").

This decision of justice (and the media coverage it caused) was a defining moment in the fight for preservation: being associated to the destruction of hanok clearly became politically incorrect, and really bad PR at the international level, particularly following the global outcry over the mass destruction of hutongs ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics*. Sign of the times: Seoul mayor named the "Guardian of the Hanok" a honorary citizen the year following the battle in court.

If much pedagogy remains to be done to change mindsets, mainstream media are now more and more often documenting cases, serving the cause, and the perceived value of hanok has clearly evolved, even if that's not always a good thing (see "Stop The Hanok Genocide... And Stop Revival As Reenactment" or more recently "Build a hanok and they will come - Marketing impostures and genuine slow urbanism"). Maybe recurrent programs could help: in France, for instance, such TV programs as "Chefs d'oeuvres en peril" (1960s) or "La France defiguree" (1970s) helped raised public awareness. Preservation movements gained momentum, architectural treasures got saved, and ultimately more sustainable policies emerged.

Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration (cha.go.kr) and other organizations are already doing a lot for the architectural heritage, but there's an emergency to save treasures that are neither in protected areas nor under the spotlights.

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* NB: I'm pretty sure similar architectural tragedies are happening across Asia. Keepers of the world, unite?

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ADDENDUM 20130331 - RASKB video of the conference: