"Korean Identity?" in Philosophy and Reality

Korea in Asian Context

(Image from Wikipedia)

At the request of a Korean friend of mine, Yoon Pyung-joong (윤평중), who teaches philosophy at Hanshin University (where I once taught English), I've recently written a somewhat general article on "Korean Identity" ("한국인은 누가 될 것인가?") and had it printed in the quarterly journal Philosophy and Reality (철학과 현실), a publication issued by the Research Institute of Philosophy and Culture (철학문화연구소), which has put out three other articles on Korean identity in the same volume, each of these three having been written by Koreans.

Some will note that the article's title in Korean differs: ("한국인은 누가 될 것인가?" = "What is a Korean to be?" (rather than "Korean Identity"). That was an editorial choice on the part of the journal. Anyone who might go to the trouble to read both the English and the Korean versions of the article itself might also notice that the former is longer. The shortened Korean version is also an 'editorial' decision -- by my wife. In translating, she shortened the parts that would be obvious to Koreans . . . so as to preclude my appearing like a fool (which might or might not have succeeded). I don't expect anyone to be greatly impressed by my views anyway, for I state what is fairly well known and offer no fine-grained analysis.

At any rate, the article follows below, and regular readers will recognize some passages from blog entries in which I worked through my thoughts.


Korean Identity?

Horace Jeffery Hodges

Ewha Womans University


1. Introduction

In his insightful book Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization (Europe, la voie romaine), a fascinating analysis of European cultural identity, the French philosopher Rémi Brague relates an anecdote about Ortega y Gasset. The latter had recently returned from America and was asked the reason for his return. He answered with a pun of ambiguity:

"Europa es el único continente que tiene un contenido."

The Spanish word "continente" means both "continent" and "container," permitting either of two translations for Ortega's reply: "Europe is the only continent that has a content" and "Europe is the only container that has a content." He meant both, and one sees what he meant. Europe has a cultural unity that other continents lack.

Perhaps Europe's cultural unity is less impressive as a unique fact when one reflects that this continent is the artifact of an arbitrary line drawn to separate what is considered 'Europe' from what is considered 'Asia.' Looked down upon from above, Europe seems merely an Asian peninsula.

But the imaginary line exists in everyone's mind. To its west, Europe. To its east, Asia. West of the line, we find a civilization that integrated Athens and Jerusalem. East of the line, however, we find many civilizations. To be identified as "Asian" is therefore only a geographical distinction and implies nothing about one's cultural identity. Whereas a German might casually remark, "I am a European," and thereby make a recognizable statement of cultural identity, a Korean would not formulate a corresponding remark in stating, "I am an Asian."

For a Korean to offer a parallel statement of cultural identity, the formulation would have to be, "I am a Korean."

But what does that mean -- what is a Korean?


2. Eccentric Inclusions

Perhaps a contra-Braguean turn can help us approach an answer to this question. Brague begins his analysis of European cultural identity geographically by drawing a pair of cartographical dichotomies, a north-south axis to separate West from East and an east-west axis to separate North from South. These axes have shifted over time -- east or west and north or south -- with the vicissitudes of history, but they are understood as lines of cultural exclusion. Yet, let us initially approach the question of Korean identity in an opposite manner, as a series of inclusions, a procedure that entails surveying some rather familiar territory.

First would perhaps be Buddhism, which arrived on the Korean peninsula as early as the fourth century AD, with the monk Sundo entering the Kingdom of Goguryeo in 372 and the monk Marananta entering the Kingdom of Baekje in 384. Buddhism was slower to enter the Kingdom of Silla, where it was resisted by the upper classes until 527, when the court official Ichadon announced that he had become a Buddhist and was promptly beheaded. Legend says that Ichadon's head flew off into the distance and that milk rather than blood streamed from the body as the earth quaked, the sun grew dark, and glorious flowers rained down from the heavens. Whatever might actually have occurred that day, Ichadon's martyrdom led to acceptance of Buddhism as Silla's official religion. By the sixth century, therefore, Buddhism was well established on the peninsula, and it continued to grow in power and influence during the Unified Silla period (668-918) and the Goryeo period (918-1392). Although Buddhism explicitly encourages its adherents to seek individual enlightenment on a path toward nirvana, which can be characterized as its vertical dimension, it has also an implicitly egalitarian horizontal dimension in which Buddhists are exhorted to identify with all sentient beings, who are suffering in this illusory world of desires, and to instruct all beings in renouncing desire, which is responsible for suffering. As an otherworldly religion with implications for moral action in the temporal world, Buddhism shaped Korean metaphysics and infused Korean ethics with what the writer Lee Gwang-su (이광수) articulates as "the Buddhist philosophy of sacrificial service, treating everyone as likewise benevolent and interconnected" (The Soil). Understood in terms of its cultural influence, Buddhism brought to Korea the ethical-meditative aspect of Indian identity, albeit mediated by its passage through Central Asia and China.

Despite its longstanding power and influence, Buddhism and Buddhist values and ethics were partially eclipsed by a surgent Confucianism pressing its countervailing values and ethics with the rise of a new unified state under the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). This shift may have come suddenly, as Joseon abruptly superceded Goryeo, but Confucianism's presence on the peninsula actually went back several centuries. It seems to have entered by way of Goguryeo, but Baekje more thoroughly integrated Confucianism into its administrative system, thereby ensuring its influence on the culture. As was the case with Buddhism, Silla was last to adopt Confucianism for administrative purposes, and Goryeo inherited its use of Confucianism from Silla, but only in the Joseon period was Confucianism established as an all-encompassing system intended to displace Buddhism. For over 500 years, the Joseon government encouraged Koreans to internalize Confucian teachings on establishing harmonious relationships through the three cardinal principles and the five ethical norms (samgang-oryun). The three cardinal principles (samgang) comprise: 1) loyalty to the ruler, 2) filial piety to parents, and 3) a wife's fidelity to her husband. The five ethical norms (oryun) govern human relationships and may be listed as: 1) love between parents and children, 2) faith between rulers and people, 3) distinction between husband and wife, 4) order between elders and juniors, and 5) trust between friends. Three additional rules informed women on the obedience due to men in their lives (samjongjido): 1) obeying her father before marriage, 2) obeying her husband after marriage, and 3) obeying her sons after her husband's death. All of these principles and rules pertain without exception to relationships. All apply to direct, personal relationships -- except for the limiting case of faith and loyalty to the ruler, which can be distant and abstract. All of these direct, personal relationships are understood in hierarchical terms -- except for the limiting case of close friendships, which can offer the possibility of equality. A society organized by these Confucian duties will thus be strong in vertical obligations but weak in extended horizontal relations. Because strangers in such a society lack personal relationships, they will seek to ascertain their relative status for proper hierarchical interaction, and the at times attendant jostling for position can foster disharmonious relations. Moreover, the explicit emphasis upon maintaining harmony by observing hierarchy does not encourage a culture of open discussion despite Confucianism's admirable emphasis upon education, the latter of which has left its indelible mark upon Korean culture. Understood in terms of its cultural influence, therefore, Confucianism has brought to Korea the hierarchical aspect of Chinese identity, with its emphasis upon learning the Confucian classics and applying them toward governing the state and society.

Both Buddhism and Confucianism have profoundly shaped Korean identity, and despite their obvious differences, both agree upon at least one crucial thing: the intrinsic goodness of the human being. For Buddhism, the goodness is to be uncovered by stripping away desires. For Confucianism, the goodness is to be drawn out by encouraging proper obligations. A third great external influence upon Korean identity has come to Korea with a more negative view of human nature: Christianity. This religion initially entered Korea with the Japanese invasions of the 1590s through the Catholic commander Konishi Yukinaga, but Catholicism had no impact upon Korea at that time because the priests were not allowed to proselytize. In the early 1600s, however, Korean diplomats began returning from China with Jesuit material on Catholic theology that gained the interest of some scholars, and Christian ideas obtained an indigenous foothold without the direct influence of foreign missionaries. By 1784, Catholicism had grown enough for the diplomat Yi Sung-hun, who had been baptized in Beijing, to establish a prayer-house in Pyongyang. But the new religion of Christianity was resisted by most Confucians and even persecuted by the state and thus did not begin to make mass converts until the late nineteenth century when the Korean government began to allow Protestant missionaries into Korea in the hope of gaining Western protection. Christianity in both its Catholic and Protestant forms was associated with Western science and technology, for the early Jesuit treatises also brought the fruits of the scientific revolution and the later Protestant missions brought Western medicine and education. In Korea, therefore, Christianity was perceived as inseparable from Westernization. Not even the 35-year-long period of Japanese colonization diminished this impression despite the fact that the Japanese suppressed Christianity in favor of Shintoism and continued the 'Westernization' of Korea without the attendant Christian ideology. Perhaps Japan's policies even encouraged the opposite result, for in the post-liberation period, Christianity began its truly phenomenal growth and now accounts for roughly one-third or more of the South Korean population. The percentage of Christians in North Korea is not known, but the number is perhaps quite low -- despite the extensive Christian population prior to the Korean War -- because the North's totalitarian government has ruthlessly suppressed Christianity there. The issue of North Korea will have to be returned to later in this discussion, for the Christian influence on Korean identity mostly concerns South Korea. As already noted, Christianity holds to a more negative view of human nature than does Buddhism or Confucianism. But there is nuance here. For Christians, human nature may be fallen, but the individual person is nevertheless formed in God's image and is oriented in a vertical dimension toward God. The horizontal dimension of Christian ethics thus makes high demands but anticipates human failure unless the effort is sustained by God's hand. One particularly steep ethical expectation is that of universal love, what Lee Gwang-su describes in The Soil as the "Christian love for humanity," a love extended even to one's enemies. In social terms, this means that Christianity contributes to a society in which strangers have obligations to one another based upon an ethic of service that treats as equal every person, whether possible enemy or potential friend. The exemplar is Christ, understood as having come to serve others, even his enemies, and draw followers into a community oriented not exclusively upon its members but also outwards toward others, as if they too belonged. Understood in terms of its cultural influence, Christianity has brought to Korea an egalitarian aspect of Western identity, with an emphasis upon the responsibility -- both collective and individual -- to treat as equals the others that one encounters, even if they be strangers.


3. Ethnocentric Exclusions

In the longer run, Christianity tends to reshape society from a shame culture to a guilt culture, for the real value of an individual is found not in what others think but in what God knows. Christian influence in Korea, however, has been of significance for only a very brief time, and Confucian values continue to predominate, maintaining a society where that which matters most of all is one's hierarchical status, undergirded by honor and threatened by shame. Confucianism would thus seem to be the dominate quality in Korean identity, though the long Buddhist presence on the peninsula has left an underlying substratum, and Christianity is growing in its significance. Korean identity would therefore appear to be what Brague calls "eccentric," centered on places that -- to its own geo-cultural sphere -- are external, namely China, India, and the West. But not all is as it appears. Koreans experienced thirty-five years of Japanese colonialism, and the post-liberation period has seen an exponential rise in Korean nationalism, a surge of feeling that pervades society and infuses the political right, left, and middle. Especially North Korea has emphasized Korean nationalism of an extreme form, for what is the North's ideology of juche other than a radically nationalistic elaboration of exclusively Korean identity? Hostility to the US and Japan, and distrust toward Russia and even China characterize the North's ethnically based ideology. The North Korean case is extreme, of course, but South Korea shares some degree of the North's ethnic nationalism and still claims Korean purity of blood as the basis for this nationalism. Koreans therefore appeal to an indigenous Korean identity that would predate Western Christianity, Chinese Confucianism, and Indian Buddhism, thereby centering Korean identity in nativist ethnocentrism.

From a thirteenth-century history book by the Buddhist monk Iryeon, Samgukyusa (삼국유사), comes a story that supposedly pushes the date of Korean origins back to 2333 BC. According to this story, the Emperor of Heaven had a son, Hwanung, who requested the right to rule what would eventually be called the Korean peninsula. The request was granted, and coincident with this request, a tiger and a bear were fasting in a cave not far from where Hwanung had descended from heaven to earth and were praying to become human beings. The tiger gave up too soon, but after 100 days patiently enduring weariness and hunger, the bear became a beautiful woman whom Hwanung made his queen. This royal couple produced the child Dangun, who engendered the Korean 'race' and became the first King of Korea, ruling from his throne in what is now Pyongyang, North Korea. Probably very few modern-day Koreans accept this story literally, but most perhaps take it as figurative of actual events. Anthropologically considered, the story might plausibly be interpreted as relating the invasion of the Korean peninsula by an advanced tribe that made an alliance with a tribe whose totem animal was a bear against a tribe whose totem animal was a tiger. Even if the story is entirely invented and purely mythological, it serves as a foundational myth for the Korean people and has been interpreted by Koreans as justifying an ethnic nationalism based on purity of blood. Understood in this manner, the myth offers a vertical dimension in the descent of all Koreans from Dangun and a horizontal dimension oriented toward exclusive inclusion of all Koreans in a tightly bound society of kin.


4. Excursus: The Guest

This use of the Dangun myth might at times be extended from purity of blood to purity of thought and thereby serve as ideological counter to outside influence. As such, only a pure Korean shamanism would be truly and entirely Korean, all other ideological systems being rejected as foreign. Koreans seldom go quite so far, but an interesting case of radical exclusiveness can be found in Hwang Sok-yong's recent novel The Guest. In this novel, the character Big Grandma holds to Korea's traditional shamanistic beliefs despite her own son's conversion to Christianity, and she demands that her great-grandson accept shamanism along with other indigenous Korean beliefs, explaining:

Our ancestor, the founding father of our race, was Tan'gun. He came down from the heavens a long, long time ago. (page 40)

Concerning her son's conversion to Christianity, Big Grandma angrily explains that smallpox -- which was called "the Guest" by Koreans and was believed to have its home to the west, in the southern part of China -- is a spirit identical with the Holy Spirit of Christianity:

Ever since we were children we have known that the Guest is a western disease. A barbarian disease, they call it, from a country to the west, so it's certain that it came from the land where they believe in the Western Spirit, you see? I had to send away two sons, your grandpa's two older brothers, with the Guest. So would I be overjoyed, would I be ready to believe in the Western Spirit like my one surviving son -- or would I be angry at it -- angry forever? (page 44, changes in translation mine)

Big Grandma refers to the Holy Spirit as the Western Spirit and identifies it as the same spirit from the direction west of Korea that has always been known to bring smallpox. Let us look closely at Big Grandma's reasoning. Note that she calls smallpox a "western disease" (서쪽 병: seojok byeong), indicating the direction west, because it comes from a "country to the west" (서쪽 나라: seojok nara). However, when she refers to the "Western Spirit," she uses the Korean expression yanggushin (양구신 [양 (洋) + 구신]), where yang (양 [洋]) is an abbreviation of seoyang, "The West" (서양) -- and gushin (구신) is dialect for guishin (귀신), meaning "spirit" or "ghost." Thus does Big Grandma succeed in identifying the direction "west" (서쪽) with the place "The West" (서양). In giving such voice to the character Big Grandma, Hwang Sok-yong would seem to be presenting views with which he strongly identifies, for the intense ideological fervor of the Christian characters in this novel expresses itself in cruel massacres during the Korean War, as though the old smallpox spirit had returned with vengeance in a new form to infect the very minds of Koreans.

But Hwang's critique may go even deeper by playing further on the direction "west" (서쪽) and the place "The West" (서양). Anything that had come from a western direction might be understood as suspect because not indigenously Korean. Hence, Catholicism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which like smallpox all arrived in Korea by way of China, the country to the west, would implicitly count as western diseases (서쪽 병: seojok byeong). And Protestantism, which arrived in Korea from the West (서양: seoyang), would therefore be a Western disease. By extension, Westernization itself would amount to a Western disease, whether in the guise of Japan's colonization of Korea, which accelerated Korea's pre-colonial Westernization, or even in the guise of Marxism, another Westernizing ideology. Rather than accepting all these things western (서쪽) and Western (서양), Koreans should "Believe in the God of Chosŏn," as Hwang's non-Christian character Pak Illang exhorts the Christians who are leading him off to his execution (page 195). To believe in the God of Chosŏn (조선으 하나님: chosŏn u hananim, dialect for chosŏn ui hananim) -- the God of Korea -- would apparently mean to believe in Korea's traditional God. The term hananim (하나님) for "God" in Pak's exhortation is also the term used by Protestants, but in Pak's usage, it would seem to mean the same as Big Grandma's reference to hanunim (하느님) in her insistence on remaining faithful to Korean religion:

"Here in our Chosŏn, we say the son of God is Tan'gun." (page 42)

For "son of God," she uses hanunim adeol (하느님 아덜). Both terms, hananim and hanunim, appear to be longstanding Korean expressions for God and have been explained as dialectical variants. At any rate, Hwang seems to have identified them for the purpose of his central theme, the call for a return to what is traditionally, exclusively, and authentically Korean.


5. Mixed-Up Koreans

Most Koreans do not go so far as Pak Illang urges or Big Grandma demands in terms of Korean exclusiveness, though many, perhaps a majority, do still appear to hold to the purity of blood ascribed to the Dangun myth. But does this myth in fact teach 'racial' purity? The assumption seems to be that Koreans have all descended through Dangun from that original pair, Hwanung and his queen, and never mixed with other groups. Yet even if one were to grant that Koreans have not mixed with Chinese, Japanese, Mongolians, or any other non-Korean tribes over Korea's putative 5000-year history, the Dangun story is itself a tale of mixing, as Korean anthropologists have recently begun to acknowledge. Whether one takes it literally or symbolically, mixing is presupposed, for Hwanung and his queen have radically different origins -- either from a divine being and a bear-woman or from the son of an invading tribe and the daughter of an indigenous tribe. As such, Koreans are from the outset implicitly understood as a mixed people.

Broader recognition of this mixed Korean identity implicit in the Dangun story might well be needed these days because of the precipitous rise in the percentage of international marriages or gukjaegyulhon (국제결혼). Already by 2005, international couples accounted for 10 percent of all marriages for that year in South Korea, according to official government statistics, and the numbers have been rising every year due to more foreigners settling in Korea and to many Korean men seeking foreign wives, especially from such countries as China and Vietnam, but also from Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, the United States, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and Russia, among others. Foreign men residing in South Korea and marrying Korean women come from such countries as Japan, China, the United States, the Philippines, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, but also from other places. As these mixed marriages bear fruit, a new, undeniably mixed population will begin to emerge, generally differing in appearance from previous generations of Koreans. This process of mixing is often called "multiculturalism" by Koreans. Multiculturalism, however, exists in Korea only as a term, not as a clear and distinct concept, for it is commonly conflated with multiethnicity, as though the two terms meant the same thing. Admittedly, an ethnic group usually does carry its own culture, but no necessary connection binds ethnicity to a particular culture. This is not especially difficult to grasp, and the Korean language does have different terms for multiculturalism, damunhwajui (다문화주의), and multiethnicity, dainjong (다인종), but the latter term rarely gets used in Korea because it sounds pejorative among a people long accustomed to the assumption of Korea's blood-based ethnic superiority. Multiethnicity can hardly be a positive thing in a country that still celebrates the purity of its Korean blood. Koreans therefore prefer to use the term "multiculturalism" even when they are talking about "multiethnicity." The children of international marriages are thus referred to as multicultural children even when these children are growing up in Korea, attending Korean schools, and becoming culturally and linguistically Korean. Such children are not multicultural, but could more accurately be called multiethnic, in the limiting sense of mixed ethnicity. Korea may therefore be developing into a multiethnic society if we mean by this the ethnically mixed children who are becoming ever more numerous, but such a process will not invariably lead to multiculturalism in Korea. For a multicultural Korea to develop, large-scale immigration of entire communities settling into self-isolating enclaves and maintaining their own cultural values would have to take place, and that does not yet seem to be happening. Nor would that be a good thing for Korea if it were to happen, for the result would likely be an unworkable radical multiculturalism of the sort that currently looms in Europe.


6. Conclusion

Perhaps we should now finally return to the question with which we began our inquiry: "What is a Korean?" One is tempted to respond with platitudes. For example: a true Korean combines the universal sympathy of the Buddha and the all-encompassing love of Christ with the solemn dignity of Confucius, the teachings of all three having been grafted onto the ancient trunk of the sandalwood tree under which Dangun sat and taught. Such a nation of eccentrically centered individuals would be an imagined community indeed! Granted, these four great teachers have had profound pedagogical influence in Korea, and Korea is a land that respects teachers, but their teachings do not mutually cohere. Conflict is therefore inescapable, even in a nation that highly extols harmony. Moreover, the teachings of a particular tradition are not always well-learned. We thus too often meet with the indifferent Buddhist, the hateful Christian, the arrogant Confucian, and the exclusivist 'Dangunian'. But whether we encounter the good or the bad, we begin to recognize that for better or for worse, Korea itself is rapidly changing into an even more complex, increasingly multiethnic society that contains the world.

The question is therefore not so much "What is a Korean?" as "What is a Korean to be?"

Hwang Sok-yong on what is traditionally, exclusively, and authentically Korean

Hwang Sok-yong

(Image from Marmot's Hole)

About a week ago, I posted a series of entries on Hwang Sok-yong's novel The Guest as part of my attempt to understand why he refers to smallpox in Korea as a Western disease. Part of my difficulty was due to an insufficiency in the translation, so when my wife helped me with the original Korean, I came to see that Hwang is playing upon two senses: west as direction and West as place. He cleverly uses this wordplay in his criticism of Christianity's effect on Koreans.

I've continued my reflections on Hwang's novel and am currently integrating my analysis of his critical theme in an article on Korean identity that I've been asked to write. Here is part of what I've done with Hwang's wordplay:

But Hwang's critique may go even deeper by playing further on the direction "west" (서쪽) and the place "The West" (서양). Anything that had come from a western direction might be understood as suspect because not indigenously Korean. Hence, Catholicism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which like smallpox all arrived in Korea by way of China, the country to the west, would implicitly count as western diseases (서쪽 병: seojok byeong). And Protestantism, which arrived in Korea from the West (서양: seoyang), would therefore be a Western disease. By extension, Westernization itself would amount to a Western disease, whether in the guise of Japan's colonization of Korea, which accelerated Korea's pre-colonial Westernization, or even in the guise of Marxism, another Westernizing ideology. Rather than all these things western (서쪽) and Western (서양), one should "Believe in the God of Chosŏn," as Hwang's non-Christian character Pak Illang exhorts the Christians who are leading him off to his execution (page 195). To believe in the God of Chosŏn (조선으 하나님: chosŏn u hananim, dialect for chosŏn ui hananim) -- the God of Korea -- would apparently mean to believe in Korea's traditional God. The term hananim (하나님) for "God" in Pak's exhortation is also the term used by Protestants, but in Pak's usage, it would seem to mean the same as Big Grandma's reference to hanunim (하느님) in her insistence on Korean religion:

"Here in our Chosŏn, we say the son of God is Tan'gun." (page 42)

For "son of God," she uses hanunim adeol (하느님 아덜). Both terms, hananim and hanunim, appear to be longstanding Korean expressions for God and have been explained as dialectical variants. At any rate, Hwang seems to have identified them for the purpose of his central theme, the call for a return to what is traditionally, exclusively, and authentically Korean.

Or so it seems to me, but I could be mistaken since I lack expertise. Experts are therefore welcome to comment on what one astute commenter has described as my "oily undergraduate pretensions."

Hwang Sok-yong: "The ghosts of North and South Korea"

'Nabi'

(Image from Open Democracy)

Two days ago, I posted a blog entry on Hwang Sok-yong's "Author's Note" to The Guest, in which I quoted the opening words:

When smallpox was first identified as a Western disease that needed to be warded off, the Korean people referred to it as "mama" or "sonnim," the second of which translates to "guest." With this in mind, I settled upon The Guest as a fitting title for a novel that explores the arrival and effects of Christianity and Marxism in a country where both were initially as foreign as smallpox.

I then questioned this point, noting that smallpox was believed to have come from the south of China, not from The West, but I noted that China stands to the west of Korea, and I openly asked if Hwang were conflating "west" as direction and "West" as location:

Since both Christianity and Marxism arrived from "The West" (though the process of their 'entry' is actually more complicated than this), then Hwang would appear to be interpreting the direction seo (서) for "west" in the term seobyeong (서병) to mean the place seoyang (서양), "The West," as it would mean in the more precise seoyangbyeong (서양병).

Did Hwang thus misunderstand the Korean expression seobyeong (서병) to mean "Western disease" . . . or was he knowingly punning on seoyangbyeong (서양병), as though seobyeong were shorthand for that? Since Hwang is Korean, then a misunderstanding would seem unlikely, which leaves a pun as the more likely, but if so, why did the translators render seobyeong as "Western disease"? A pun would have better been conveyed by "western disease" instead, which retains the ambiguity between "western" as a direction and "Western" as a place.

Well, yesterday, I may have found part of the answer in "The ghosts of North and South Korea," an article that Hwang published in Open Democracy on December 16, 2005:

In the 17th century, when smallpox was first identified as a western disease that needed to be warded off, the Korean people referred to it as mama or sonnim, the second of which translates to "guest." With this in mind, I settled upon The Guest as a fitting title for a novel that explores the arrival and effects of Christianity and Marxism in a country where both were initially as foreign as smallpox.

This slightly longer online version of Hwang's note specifies "the 17th century" and thereby identifies the date for the naming of smallpox as being more than 300 years ago, in the 1600s, which fits better with what I've read elsewhere. Note also that "western" is not capitalized here, better according with direction than with place. As for Christianity, it only first came to Korea after 1784, when the Korean Lee Seung-hoon became a Catholic while in China and returned to Korea to propagate the faith, which Hwang doesn't deal with at all anyway. By "Christianity," he seems to mean "Protestantism," which came toward the end of the 19th century, and I have to wonder if he's using the term "Christianity" to mean "Protestantism," as is so often the case here in Korea. At any rate, Hwang is clearly aware that smallpox preceded Westerners and Western ideas to Korea, so he must be consciously punning on seobyeong (서병) as "western direction" with seoyangbyeong (서양병) as "Western place."

More on that tomorrow. For now, let's look again at the book version for Hwang's penultimate paragraph in his "Author's Note":

As it turns out, the atrocities were committed by none other than ourselves, and the inner sense of guilt and fear sparked by this incident helped form the roots of the frantic hatred that thrives to this day. Less than five years ago, when I completed The Guest, I received fierce attacks from both Southern and Northern statists. (page 9)

Now, compare this to the online version:

As it turns out, the atrocities were committed by none other than ourselves, and the inner sense of guilt and fear sparked by this incident helped form the roots of frantic hatred that thrives to this day. Less than five years ago, when I completed The Guest, I received fierce attacks from both Southern and Northern nationalists. In the South I was targeted by conservative Christian groups particularly, and in the North people were against the book as it admits this massacre was an internal war.

Even though the differences are not profound, the online version uses the term "nationalists" rather than "statists" to identify Hwang's critics -- though this raises another problem since practically every Korean is nationalistic by Western standards. Why not just say that Hwang's book was criticized by both the left and the right?

There's also that informative extra sentence about "conservative Christian groups," i.e., Protestants. Now that I've read the entire book, I can see why they didn't like it, for it depicts the Protestants in the North as having descended into utter barbarity in their struggle against the Communists. Granted, Hwang states that the Communists committed many of the same kind of brutal massacres, and he does serve as truth-teller to the North in honestly identifying Koreans rather than Americans as those really responsible for massacres that the North attributes to the Americans. However, he depicts in concrete detail those massacres carried out by Protestants and only reports more generally about similar massacres carried out by Communists, leaving the book unbalanced in its effect on the reader.

He seems to have held Protestants to a higher standard here, as I noted in a comment yesterday, for when the main character, a Protestant minister, remarks that the Communists slaughtered Christians, too, he receives this response:

"Well, as you people put it, they weren't believers, were they?"

The one who delivers this retort is himself a Protestant Christian, albeit also a Communist Party member, and he's about the only fully admirable character in the novel (though the main character is also admirable), and the point seems to be that since the Protestants had always been so sure that they would act in a morally superior manner, their descent into barbaric depravity was therefore worse because more culpable.

Enough for now. I will post again on Hwang Sok-yong tomorrow, for I have some more to say on smallpox as a 'Western' disease.

Hwang Sok-yong "anti-American pro North Korean toady"?

Hwang Sok-yong

(Image from UCLA International Institute)

On a recent post concerning Hwang Sok-yong's reference to smallpox as a 'Western' disease, an anonymous poster left the following comment:

It is well known that Hwang Sok-yong is an anti-American pro North [K]orean toady.

I replied with perhaps more detail than necessary since no evidence was cited, but this point about his putative pro North Korean views is something that I wanted to follow up anyway:

Anonymous, I suppose that I'll find out when I read the book, but my impression is that he's more complex than that, for The Guest was criticized in North Korea -- or, at least, Hwang makes the claim that it was. I'll try to find out for sure, but this sounds plausible since the quote that I noted sounds rather critical of Marxism (as another 'Western' disease).

Here's more precisely what Hwang states in his "Author's Note" to The Guest:

Today, in a district known as Sinch'ŏn in Hwanghae Province, there stands a museum that indicts the American military for the massacre of innocents. The literal translation of the museum's name is "The American Imperialist Massacre Remembrance Museum." Many years ago, when I visited the North, I was given a tour of this museum as a matter of course.

Later on, during my stay in New York, I met a Korean minister named Ryu and heard the eyewitness account of his childhood in Hwanghae Province. Not too long afterwards, in Los Angeles, I was lucky enough to meet another survivor who shared with me her detailed firsthand account of the actual wartime incident that led to the founding of the aforementioned museum.

As it turns out, the atrocities were committed by none other than ourselves, and the inner sense of guilt and fear sparked by this incident helped form the roots of the frantic hatred that thrives to this day. Less than five years ago, when I completed The Guest, I received fierce attacks from both Southern and Northern statists. (pages 8-9)

The term "statists" is a bit odd, especially in connection with South Korea, where I'm unsure what it means, but this hardly sounds like the writing of "an anti-American pro North [K]orean toady." Neither does this passage in the novel itself as the Christian minister Ryu Yosŏp listens to 'witnesses' of the 'American Imperialist Massacre':

Their words flitted past, like short sentences typed out on a keyboard, typing away Yosŏp's past and future. They all said "the American troops," but Yosŏp knew for a fact that the troops had simply been passing through. They were never stationed in Sinch'ŏn; they were in a rush to get further north. Both Yosŏp and his brother Yohan knew for a fact that during those forty-five days, before the arrival of the U.S. troops and after their departure, most of the military strength in the area had consisted of the security forces and the Youth Corps -- all Korean. (page 99)

With passages like these -- clearly contradicting the North's propaganda on the Hwanghae Province 'massacre' -- Hwang Sok-yong can hardly be called a "pro North [K]orean toady."

Perhaps this point was never in serious doubt, but since I've looking into Hwang's reference to smallpox as a Western/western disease, then I felt the point about Hwang's politics needed to be firmly established.

Hwang Sok-yong: Smallpox as a 'Western' Disease?

Hwang Sok-yong

황석영

(Image from Changbi Publishers)

Yesterday, I posted on my puzzlement over Hwang Sok-yong's opening remark about smallpox "as a Western disease," and I'll have more to say about that further below, but I'd first like to quote a couple of passages on smallpox in Korea written by a couple of Westerners around 1900.

First is a passage from Reverend Daniel L. Gifford's 1898 book, Everyday Life in Korea: A Collection of Studies and Stories (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company):

Smallpox creates great ravages among the little folks of Korea, and parents never count their infants among the number of their children until they have had that disease. They believe there is a smallpox devil, to whom the name of Mama has been given, and whose home they say is in the south of China. The well-known symptoms break out upon a baby. At once a mutang is called, and under her direction they proceed to do the spirit reverence. The parents bow low before the sick child and address it continually in terms of the liveliest respect. If the child survives, at the turn of the disease the mutang is called again, a feast is prepared and the smallpox devil is bidden adieu, with many polite wishes for a prosperous journey to his native land. (pages 109-110)

The second, rather longer passage comes from the pen of "Mrs Bishop" -- better known as Isabella Bird -- borrowed from her 1905 book (first edition, 1898), Korea and Her Neighbours: A Narrative of Travel, with an Account of the Vicissitudes and Position of the Country, Volume 2 (London: John Murray):

The mu-tang rites are specially linked with the house daemon and with Mama the smallpox daemon. The house daemon is on the whole a good one, being supposed to bring health and happiness, and if invited with due ceremony he is willing to take up his abode under every roof. He cannot always keep off disease, and in the case of contagious fevers, etc., he disappears until the rite of purification has been accomplished and he has been asked to return. The ceremonies attending his recall deserve notice. On this great occasion the mu-tang in office ties a large sheet of paper round a rod of oak, holds it upright, and goes out to hunt him. She may find him near, as if waiting to be invited back, or at a considerable distance, but in either case he makes his presence known by shaking the rod so violently that several men cannot hold it stiil, and then returns with the mu-tang to the house, where he is received with lively demonstrations of joy. The paper which was round the stick is folded, a few fish are put into it, it is soaked in wine, and is then thrown up gainst a beam in the house to which it sticks, and is followed by some rice which adheres to it. That special spot is the abiding place of the daemon. This ceremony involves a family in very considerable expense.

The universal belief that illness is the work of daemons renders the services of a Pan-su or mu-tang necessary wherever it enters a house, and in the case of smallpox, the universal scourge of Korean childhood, the daemon, instead of being exorcised, bottled, or buried, is treated with the utmost respect. The name by which the disease is called, " Mama," is the daemon's name. It is said that he came from South China, and has infested Korea for only 1000 years. On the disease appearing, the mu-tung is called in to honour the arrival of the spirit with a feast and fitting ceremonial. Little or no work is done, and if there are neighbours whose children have not had the malady, they rest likewise, lest, displeased with their want of respect, he should deal hardly with them. The parents do obeisance (worship) to the suffering child, and address it at all times in honorific terms. Danger is supposed to be over after the 12th day, when the mu-tang is again summoned, and a farewell banquet is given. A miniature wooden horse is prepared, and is loaded for the spirit's journey with small bags of food and money, fervent and respectful adieus are spoken, and he receives hearty good wishes for his prosperous return to his own place! (pages 239-240)

Both Reverend Gifford and Isabella Bird note that the smallpox demon is 'known' by Koreans to have come from China, certainly not "The West," despite Hwang Sok-yong's opening lines to his "Author's Note," from his novel, The Guest, which I posted yesterday:

When smallpox was first identified as a Western disease that needed to be warded off, the Korean people referred to it as "mama" or "sonnim," the second of which translates to "guest." (page 7)

After noting this 'error' yesterday, I closed my post with these words:

But this all has little bearing, of course, on the literary quality of Hwang's novel.

One long-time resident of Korea who goes by the pseudonym "Sperwer" commented:

Interesting, I would have thought that it did [have bearing on the literary quality of Hwang's novel], insofar as literature purports to say something "true".

I replied with a concession and a promissory note:

Good point, Sperwer, if we're speaking of more than the aesthetics of style, and over breakfast with my wife this morning, I was already reconsidering my words (which were a bit hedged, anyway, you may have noted).

I might raise the point in my next post, which will have a bit more to say.

Consider today's post as raising the point. It's tricky issue, for we're dealing with fiction, which makes up stories to say something 'true', so what ought we to say about an 'error' in a novelist's work? The issue is complicated by the fact that this 'error' about smallpox occurs in the "Author's Note," which is presumably not part of the fictional world created by Hwang but a framing device to enable readers to make better sense of what he's trying to say in the novel.

Yet . . . what did Hwang actually say in his "Note"?

I had cited him in the English translation by Kyung-Ja Chun and Maya West, but Hwang wrote the original in Korean, so I checked with my wife, who tells me that the term actually used by Hwang is seobyeong (서병 [西病]), which literally means "west disease," i.e., a disease from the west, which would ordinarily just imply that smallpox came from a place to the west of Korea. That would most likely be China, the country directly west. If one wanted to specify "The West" as the source of smallpox in Korea, my wife explained, then the term seoyangbyeong (서양병 [西洋病]) would have been used, for it literally means "Western Disease," a disease from The West.

Why, then, did the translators render seobyeong (서병 [西病]) as "Western disease"? Note the capitalized "W" of "Western," indicating a place rather than a direction. Let's look again at the fuller passage posted yesterday:

When smallpox was first identified as a Western disease that needed to be warded off, the Korean people referred to it as "mama" or "sonnim," the second of which translates to "guest." With this in mind, I settled upon The Guest as a fitting title for a novel that explores the arrival and effects of Christianity and Marxism in a country where both were initially as foreign as smallpox.

As smallpox reached epidemic proportions and began sweeping across the nation, shamanic rituals called "guest exorcisms" were often performed to fight against the foreign intruder. The Guest is essentially a shamanistic exorcism designed to relieve the agony of those who survived and appease the spirits of those who were sacrificed on the altar of cultural imperialism half a century ago. (page 7)

Since both Christianity and Marxism arrived from "The West" (though the process of their 'entry' is actually more complicated than this), then Hwang would appear to be interpreting the direction seo (서) for "west" in the term seobyeong (서병) to mean the place seoyang (서양), "The West," as it would mean in the more precise seoyangbyeong (서양병).

Did Hwang thus misunderstand the Korean expression seobyeong (서병) to mean "Western disease" . . . or was he knowingly punning on seoyangbyeong (서양병), as though seobyeong were shorthand for that? Since Hwang is Korean, then a misunderstanding would seem unlikely, which leaves a pun as the more likely, but if so, why did the translators render seobyeong as "Western disease"? A pun would have better been conveyed by "western disease" instead, which retains the ambiguity between "western" as a direction and "Western" as a place.

Experts are welcome to comment on various aspects of this conundrum.

Hwang Sok-yong and smallpox as 'Guest' in Korea

The Guest

Hwang Sok-yong

(Image from Seven Stories Press)

I'm reading a lot of Korean literature in English translation these days for some committee work that I've gotten myself engaged in. Actually, I got engaged in it for God knows what misperception -- on the part of those who invited me -- that I might in some way be qualified to judge the quality of literature in translation.

This work has turned out to be rather time-consuming, but the upside to the task is that I've been given several free copies of very good literature to read.

Anyway, I was looking over my copy of Hwang Sok-yong's novel, The Guest (translated by Kyung-Ja Chun and Maya West), and I found myself puzzled by the opening lines to the "Author's Note":

When smallpox was first identified as a Western disease that needed to be warded off, the Korean people referred to it as "mama" or "sonnim," the second of which translates to "guest." (page 7)

In fact, I was not merely puzzled but entirely surprised. For the American Indians, smallpox was a Western disease that wiped out entire populations lacking even the smallest degree of inherited immunity. But smallpox brought to Asia, or at least Korea, by Westerners? That seemed unlikely, so I did some checking around and came upon Robert Neff's article "Korea's Unwanted Guest: The Child Killer," published in OhmyNews (2007-04-09). Of smallpox in Korea, Neff writes:

Unlike the Americas, Asia was more than familiar with the disease, and the arrival of Westerners was not associated with the disease. In fact, unlike the American Indians, Koreans had long suffered under the disease.

As Neff further explains:

Depending on the historical source, smallpox was introduced into Korea from China in 583 or 586 and two years later made its appearance in Japan. It was for this reason that many of the Korean people believed smallpox was the work of a Chinese demon -- a demon they named "mama," but treated as an honored guest. Because smallpox was the work of a demon, there was no need to see a doctor. Instead, mudangs (Korean shamans) were summoned to convince the "guest" to depart.

Smallpox is thus in the historical record some 1300 years before many Westerners began to enter Korea. According to Fenner et al., in the 1988 WHO report Smallpox and its Eradication, smallpox was already in Korea by the 6th century AD, for the disease had appeared in Japan by then by way of Korea:

There were . . . repeated introductions [of smallpox] from China and Korea. As early as the 6th century, cultural and trading contacts were increasing between China and Japan, both directly and via Korea. Buddhism was first introduced into Japan from Korea in AD 552, and further contacts were made later that century. Smallpox was introduced at about the same time, and the Japanese were perplexed to know whether to ascribe the pestilence to their indigenous Shinto gods or to the new Buddha. (page 216)

Note that smallpox was apparently spread by Koreans to Japan along with Buddhism, which makes Hwang Sok-yong's words above particularly ironic, especially when quoted in their fullness:

When smallpox was first identified as a Western disease that needed to be warded off, the Korean people referred to it as "mama" or "sonnim," the second of which translates to "guest." With this in mind, I settled upon The Guest as a fitting title for a novel that explores the arrival and effects of Christianity and Marxism in a country where both were initially as foreign as smallpox.

As smallpox reached epidemic proportions and began sweeping across the nation, shamanic rituals called "guest exorcisms" were often performed to fight against the foreign intruder. The Guest is essentially a shamanistic exorcism designed to relieve the agony of those who survived and appease the spirits of those who were sacrificed on the altar of cultural imperialism half a century ago. (page 7)

A Japanese author might well write a novel about the cultural imperialism bringing a new religion and a new disease from Korea and come closer to the historical reality than Hwang does in his "Author's Note."

But this all has little bearing, of course, on the literary quality of Hwang's novel.