Entries categorized as ‘Korean Studies’
13 February 2009 · 1 Comment
Korean Minorities in the Age of Globalization
Between Defector and Migrant: Identities and Strategies of North Koreans in South Korea
Byung-Ho Chung, 1
This article examines the structural conditions and the individual strategies of North Koreans in South Korea. It provides a historical account on the changing social definitions of and policies toward North Korean border-crossers and how the changing conditions have affected their identities and lives. It also gives an ethnographic account of the difficulties and risks of individuals whose identities are caught between ‘‘defector’’ and ‘‘migrant.’’ The problems they face in capitalist South Korea are examined in the major areas of social transition—arrival, orientation, residence, consumption, work, education, and ideology—focusing on individual strategies that negotiate cultural differences between the two Koreas.
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Categories: Korean Studies
Azalea is a new annual journal of Korean literature and culture published by the Korea Institute at Harvard University and distributed by the University of Hawai‘i Press. Volume 1 is now available.
Azalea aims to promote Korean literature among English-language readers. The first volume includes works of several contemporary Korean writers and poets, as well as essays and book reviews by Korean studies professors in the United States. Azalea will introduce to the world new writers and also promising translators. The journal will provide the academic community of Korean studies with well-translated texts for college classes. Writers from elsewhere in the world will also share their experience of Korean literature or culture with wider audiences.
David R. McCann
Editor’s Note, 7
“Azalea is about Korean literature and literary culture, and therefore about writing, publishing, translating, and reading. The writing has already happened, the translation too, but now for the reading! We have looked at original works, wondering who might best translate a gem. Or we have discovered a strong translation and asked, ‘Can we publish it?’ And how might artwork of various kinds, or perhaps photographs of Korea contemporaneous with the literary works, be added to the mix? The occasional hortatory note, such as my own in this issue about the 1953 short story ‘Cranes’ by Hwang Sunwŏn, may add another edge, perhaps, to the reader’s framing and reframing of the piece.” —from the Editor’s Note
Categories: Azalea · Korean Studies
Guest Editor: Kenneth R. Robinson
ARTICLES
Guest Editor’s Introduction
Kenneth R. Robinson, 1
Economic Growth in P’yŏngan Province and the Development of Pyongyang in the Late Chosŏn Period
Soo-chang Oh, 3
Pyongyang, one Korea’s oldest cities, was considered an important defense site during the Koryŏ dynasty, but did not develop significantly until the Chosŏn dynasty in the seventeenth century. This was partly because of its border location and unsuitability for farming but most of all because of discrimination by the central government. After the eighteenth century, however, Pyongyang led in the social development of Chosŏn. With stability in the relationship with Qing China, the area was free from the threat of war. The accumulated money and grains were used to entertain foreign diplomats and prepare for war while also providing commercial capital. The fact that the traditional ruling order and ideology were not strong was an advantage for the development of commerce. On the other hand, the government tried to induce Pyongyang’s development within the system, as by, for example, holding a special civil service examination and recruiting members for the Royal Guard. During that time, Pyongyang progressed and continued to develop as the new urban cultural center of the region.
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Categories: Korean Studies
ARTICLES
Yayoi Wave, Kofun Wave, and Timing: The Formation of the Japanese People and Japanese Language, p. 1
Wontack Hong
A sudden change in climate, such as the commencement of a Little Ice Age, may have prompted the southern peninsular rice farmers to cross the Korea Strait ca. 300 B.C.E. in search of warmer and moister land. This may answer the timing of the “Yayoi Wave.” Evidence confirms the seminal role played by peninsular peoples in the formation of Middle and Late Tomb culture and the inadequacy of the “evolutionary” thesis, restoring our attention to the “event” thesis. Around 300–400 C.E., a drought may well have forced the Paekche farmers around the Han River basin to search for a new territory. This may answer the timing of the “Kofun Wave.”
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Categories: Korean Studies
ARTICLES
An Introduction to the Samguk Sagi, p. 1
Edward J. Shultz
Korea’s oldest extant historical source is the Samguk sagi, which was compiled by Kim Pusik (1075–1151) and others during Injong’s reign (1122–1146) in the Koryo kingdom. This history and its compilers have been at the center of controversy as critics have challenged the work’s accuracy and its omissions. Despite its failings, this history is a reaffirmation of Koryo’s identity, which had been seriously challenged by events of the early twelfth century and is an excellent expression of that society’s values and historical understanding.
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Categories: Korean Studies
ARTICLES
Prince Misahun: Silla’s Hostage to Wa from the Late Fourth Century, p. 1
Chizuko T. Allen
Three of the oldest extant chronicles of Korea and Japan, the Samguk sagi, the Samguk yusa, and the Nihon shoki, recount the story of the Silla prince Misahun’s escape from extended captivity in Wa. Regarding Wa as the early Yamato confederacy based in western Japan, this article clarifies the chronology and characteristics of the Misahun incident in reference to the series of related events described by the inscription on the Koguryo king Kwanggaet’o’s stele. Between 391 and 399, Silla succumbed to Wa’s military attacks and sent Misahun to Wa as a means of appeasement. Silla, however, soon chose to return to Koguryo’s sphere of influence to ward off further Wa assaults. After Koguryo annihilated the Wa forces, Silla managed to retrieve the prince from Wa with a clever scheme. Unlike Paekche’s reciprocal relationship with Wa, Silla’s relationship with Wa was unilateral, based on the latter’s incessant demands.
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Categories: Korean Studies
ARTICLES
Buddhism and Polity in Early Sixth-Century Paekche
Jonathan W. Best, 165
Using written and material evidence to criticize the Samguk sagi’s relatively static depiction of the Paekche political structure and court culture, this article examines the importance of Buddhism in the early sixth-century political and cultural transformation of the kingdom, which passes virtually unnoticed in the Samguk sagi. Prior to the end of the fifth century, court life in Paekche was similar in notable respects to that of contemporary Koguryo, which, in turn, was partly influenced by earlier Chinese forms. At this early time, Buddhism was acknowledged by Paekche’s kings but neither held a prominent place in the court nor played a significant role in policies of state. This changed after the loss of the Han River valley to Koguryo in 475. Paekche’s early sixth-century kings Muryong and Song evidently recognized that if the dynasty was to survive, a fundamental restructuring of the kingdom had to occur. The court intensified diplomatic and cultural ties to China. The ardently Buddhist Liang emperor Wu Di evidently inspired Paekche to enhance its patronage of Buddhism and to use it to centralize and strengthen royal authority.
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Categories: Korean Studies
ARTICLES
Creating New Paradigms of Womanhood in Modern Korean Literature: Na Hye-sok’s ‘‘Kyonghui’’
Yung-Hee Kim, 1
Na Hye-sok (1896–1948) lived a pioneering life as an individual woman, artist, and writer during the turbulent period of Japanese colonial rule in Korea. A beneficiary of progressive education in Korea, Japan, and Europe, rarely available to average Koreans of her time, Na enjoyed high social visibility and reputation. She broke new ground in Western oil painting as the first Korean woman professional painter and also had an indelible impact on modern Korean literature and culture as a reform-minded writer and critic. Her life and creative activities, often iconoclastic and audacious, were rarely free of press attention and controversy because they challenged the conventional thinking and status quo of her own society. Her major work, ‘‘Kyonghui,’’ polemicizes some of the urgent and thorny issues of Korean society in the throes of modernization, focusing on gender and patriarchal relations, Confucian family and marriage institutions, and women’s identity and autonomy. Na’s most accomplished work of fiction, ‘‘Kyonghui’’ qualifies itself as the first full-blown, feminist short story in Korean literature, marked by its heroine’s successful completion of self-discovery and her difficult quest for meaning in life as a ‘‘new woman.’’ As such, the story represents one of the towering points in the intellectual annals of modern Korea as well as in modern Korean women’s writing traditions.
Kyonghui
Na Hye-Sok, 61
Full text of Kyonghui’s story, translated by Yung-Hee Kim
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Categories: Korean Studies
David R. McCann
