Koreana Summer 2014 (English)

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS

VOL. 28 NO. 2

SUM

MER 2014

SPECIAL FEATU

RE

ISSN 1016-0744

HA

ENYEO

OF JEJU

ISLAN

DHardy Divers Gather Seafood from

the Ocean Floor ; The Sea W

omen

of Our Time: How

Will They Survive?

Iconic Female Divers of Jeju

HAENYEO

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A House with No Doors or Walls, Only Moonlight Kim Hwa-young Literary Critic; Member of the Korean National Academy of ArtsKwanjo Photographer

The beauty of 16th-century Korean gardens is not found simply in the visual pleasure provided by the spatial layout, or the scenery of water, rocks, and well-tended plants and trees, as is the case with Western or Japanese gardens. The sense of sight objecti-fies what is perceived. Yet the Korean scholars of the 16th centu-ry, steeped in Taoist thought, wanted to live as part of the scenery rather than merely enjoying it. They did not build walls to establish their “ownership” over their gardens. They did not artificially com-partmentalize or embellish nature.

Instead, they found the most suitable spot in the midst of the mountains, bamboo groves, streams, and rocks of unblemished nature, and there they built their homes to relax in the generous bosom of nature. They did not build large houses, but homes with a heart that freely accepted, and was filled with, nature. Thus a poet sang:

Having managed my affairs for ten years, I build a small thatched-roof cottage;One room for me, one room for the moon, and one room for the cool breeze;Since there is no room for the mountains and streams, I wrap my cottage in them.

— Song Sun (1493-1583)

IMAGE OF KOREA

The summer house Soswaewon in Damyang, South Jeolla Prov-ince, is famed for its beautiful garden — probably the most cel-

ebrated one in all of Korea. The dazzling summer has opened all the doors into this little

house. The papered doors that separate the room from the porch, the inside from the outside, have been hung high to become part of the ceiling.

A house with no walls or doors, only columns.A room where the sights and sounds of nature, along with the

fragrance of the world, flood in.This rustic house does not objectify the trees, rocks, and the

stream as it looks out upon them.Here, inside is outside and outside is inside. Man and nature

harmonize and become one.

Publisher Yu Hyun-seokEditorial Director Cha Du-hyeognEditor-in-Chief Lee Kyong-heeEditorial Board Bae Bien-u

Choi Young-in Emmanuel Pastreich Han Kyung-koo Kim Hwa-young Kim Young-na Koh Mi-seok Song Hye-jin Song Young-man Werner Sasse

Copy Editor Dean Jiro AokiAssistant Editors Teresita M. Reed

Cho Yoon-jungCreative Director Jeong Hyo-jeongEditors Yi Sang-hyun

Won Young-in, Lee An-naArt Director Kim Kyung-bumDesigners Park Jong-pil, Kim Bo-bae

Yang Gi-eop, Kwak Hye-ji Kwon Kye-hyunPhotographers Cho Ji-young, Lim Hark-hyoun

Layout & DesignAhn Graphics Ltd. 2 Pyeongchang 44-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-848, Korea Tel: 82-2-763-2303 / Fax: 82-2-743-8065www.ag.co.kr

Translators Charles La Shure, Chung Myung-je, Hwang Sun-ae Min Eun-young, Suh Jung-ah

SubscriptionPrice for annual subscription: Korea W18,000, Asia by air US$33Elsewhere by air US$37Price per issue in Korea W4,500

SUBSCRIPTION/CIRCULATION CORRESPONDENCE

The U.S. and CanadaKoryo Book Company1368 Michelle Drive, St. Paul MN 55123-1459Tel: 1-651-454-1358 Fax: 1-651-454-3519

Other areas including KoreaThe Korea Foundation19F, West Tower, Mirae Asset Center1 Building, 67 Suha-dong, Jung-guSeoul 100-210, KoreaTel: 82-2-2151-6546Fax: 82-2-2151-6592

Printed in summer 2014Joongang Moonwha Printing Co.27 Shinchon 1-ro, Paju-si, Gyeonggi-do 413-170, KoreaTel: 82-31-906-9996

© The Korea Foundation 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior permission of the Korea Foundation. The opinions expressed by the authors do not necessarily represent those of the editors of Koreana or the Korea Foundation. Koreana, registered as a quarterly magazine with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Registration No. Ba-1033, August 8, 1987), is also published in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.

It all began with a simple idea. Koreana has pages devoted to individ-uals who walk their own path to uphold their personal values. Why don’t we interview a haenyeo for these pages? The female free-divers of Jeju Island are well known for their perseverance and fortitude. But so little is known about exactly what these women think about their work and how rigorous their lives are.

This idea has developed into the Special Feature of this issue: “Hae-nyeo: Iconic Female Divers of Jeju.” Scholars and writers who are well versed in the history of this unique profession and the lifestyle and cul-ture of the island’s divers have participated in this endeavor. Thanks to their insight and enthusiasm, much about the lives and thoughts of these women has been brought to light.

The haenyeo are truly formidable professionals. However, it is now apparent that without strategic efforts this age-old tradition is likely to vanish in the near future. As such, the ongoing efforts of the govern-ment and academia to place the haenyeo on UNESCO’s Representa-tive List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity are certainly encouraging. The inscription would be a well-deserved reward for these divers who have endured many hardships.

But there are also concerns about indiscreet publicity. “In any effort to promote the haenyeo, I hope people will look at the great value of their spirit,” says Heo Young-sun, a local journalist and poet. “Theirs is truly an awe-inspiring spirit of self-sacrifice. I hope this valuable spiritu-al legacy will not be overshadowed by any commercial propaganda.”

As the divers scour the ocean floor for the sea’s bounty placing their lives at risk, it can seem preposterous to call for their continued exist-ence. This is why well-thought-out policy measures are required to pre-serve the haenyeo’s heritage value and nurture this innate resource of Korea’s southernmost island.

Lee Kyong-hee Editor-in-Chief

Editor’s Letter

Enduring Value of the Sea Women

Published quarterly by The Korea Foundation

2558 Nambusunhwan-ro, Seocho-guSeoul 137-863, Korea

http://www.koreana.or.kr

“A Haenyeo’s Dream” (1984) Kang Dong-un, Ink and light color on paper, 162 x 130 cm. Born on Jeju Island in 1947, Kang has devoted his career to depicting the everyday life of people on his native island.

KOREAN CULTURE & ARTS Summer 2014

SPECIAL FEATURE

Haenyeo: Iconic Female Divers of JejuSPECIAL FEATURE 1

Ebb and Flow of Life in the Sea:Koh In-o, at 91, Still DivesHeo Young-sun

SPECIAL FEATURE 2

Hardy Divers Gather Seafood from the Ocean FloorYoo Chul-in

SPECIAL FEATURE 3

A Sad History Behind, Jeju Women Prove their Fortitude through DivingJoo Kang-hyun

SPECIAL FEATURE 4

The Sea Women of Our Time: How Will They Survive?Lee Jin-joo

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FOCUS

DDP: The New Landmark for a Forward-Looking SeoulGoo Bon-joon

GUARDIAN OF HERITAGE

Kansong Keeps Visual Prototypes of Korean ThoughtsKoh Mi-seok

INTERVIEW

Kim Young-taek’s Pen Drawings Give New Life to Korean Architecture Chung Jae-suk

MODERN LANDMARKS

Pfeiffer Hall: Symbol of Modern Higher EducationAhn Chang-mo

ART REVIEW

Taoist Culture in Korea: The Road to HappinessAn Kyung-suk

IN LOVE WITH KOREA

George Archibald Brings the Koreas Together through Crane ConservationBen Jackson

ON THE ROAD

Hadong: Shangri-la of Literature and TeaGwak Jae-gu

ALONG THEIR OWN PATH

Photographer Kim Nyung-man Documents Moments of HistoryYoon Se-young

BOOKS & MORE

“Arirang in Korean Culture and Beyond”Most Comprehensive Study of ‘Arirang’

Ever in English

Charles La Shure

“The Soil”First Modern Korean Novel Translated

for Global Readers

Charles La Shure

“Hello” / “Serendipity” / “Fall to Fly–Before”Spotlight on ‘Adult Contemporary,’

Pop Music for Adults

Kim Young-dae

ENTERTAINMENT

From Webtoon to Smartoon: Manhwa in Digital TransitionPark Seok-hwan

GOURMET’S DELIGHT

Craze for Bingsu, Dessert from an Emperor’s Sweet ToothYoon Duk-no

LIFESTYLE

‘Little Cinema’ for Rural ResidentsJeon Sung-won

JOURNEYS IN KOREAN LITERATURE

Bonds of Sympathy and Trivial MistakesChang Du-yeong

The Chef’s NailYun Ko-eun

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4 K o r e a n C u l t u r e & A r t s

SPECIAL FEATURE 1 Haenyeo: Iconic Female Divers of Jeju

Ebb and Flow of Life in the SeaKoh In-o, at 91, Still DivesFor the past 76 years, she has been diving off the coast of Saekdal-ri in Seogwipo. Jeju’s oldest haenyeo, or “sea woman,” Koh In-o still dives into the sea to gather seafood. The resilience and courage of the island’s iconic female divers can be witnessed in the three generations of her family, who all have been diving their entire lives.Heo Young-sun Poet; Lecturer, Jeju National University | Cho Ji-young Photographer

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1 Diving on the edge of life and death with a single breath, in the ocean the haenyeo learn as a matter of course how to hold back greed and be satisfied with today. 2 Koh In-o, the oldest haenyeo still diving, is happy that she can dive with her daughters and daughter-in-law, who will carry on the tradition. She says she is pleased when they catch a lot more than she does.

Koh may not harvest as much as she did in her prime, but the sea remains her life. She has spent her youth here, and she still entrusts her old body to the waves. Jungmun is Jeju’s leading tour-ist resort; she lives here in Saekdal-ri village, home of her ances-tors for generations, embraced by the sea. The motorbikes that the divers rode to the coast are lined up alongside bright yellow canola flowers. Atop the cliffs lining the shore, all sorts of trees grow in the salty air, twisted and bent by the sea winds, struggling to hold their small bodies upright. Koh’s colleagues, in their sixties and seven-ties, can only cluck their tongues in amazement at her skill. How could she still be doing this if she were not blessed with two lives?

“There are no words to describe this old lady. No one can keep up with her. She heads out before everyone else and lifts even heavy loads with ease. We just follow along behind her. There is no other Sea Mother like her in the country,” they say.

Koh can harvest double what the younger divers bring in. And in terms of diving ability, of course, no one can surpass her. Her fellow divers call her the “Daughter of the Sea Goddess.” She knows the ocean floor like the back of her hand. Even when the sun does not come out, that is not enough to keep her out of the water. But there are days when the wind blows so fiercely it is unsafe for diving.

Save Your Breath!After finishing her four-hour morning dive, Koh eats a piece of

bread, saying, “This is lunch.” She says she has yet to experience any serious danger in the ocean. Is this because she learned the secrets of the sea from early on? No. It is because she doesn’t let her greed get the better of her. On her days off she naps all day; you need to rest up when there’s time.

For Koh, diving is just an ordinary everyday job. She just does it. She harvests anything she sees. “If an octopus darts back into the rocks the moment I move in with my hoe, I can’t catch it. If I’m lucky, it might come out again when I go back the next day. I’ve gathered abalone bigger than the palm of my hand about 10 meters underwater,” she says. Koh used to be skilled at catching fish in fresh water, too, although she no longer does so because of her age. In her younger days, her skill with a harpoon was legendary. Her hearing is still sharp and her voice loud and clear; perhaps this “ordinariness” is the secret to her extraordinary health. There is also the food she eats: “I only eat the fresh food that I catch, so of course I am healthy.”

She dives on the edge of life and death as she holds her breath underwater. “You can only dive as long as you have breath, you can’t go beyond that. You need to save your breath. If you get greedy, you fail. When the ocean is rough, you shouldn’t go in. And you shouldn’t hold your breath longer than two minutes,” Koh says.

And yet, her body is not what it used to be. It is older now, and this veteran captain of the haenyeo feels her breath growing short-

Black flippers and round tewak floats bob about on the sea. From afar, they look like Buddhist prayer beads under the intense southern sunshine. After a while, a group of hae-

nyeo emerges from the water. Their net baskets are filled with horned turbans, sea cucumbers, and seaweed. But then, much later, like the last player off the field, she appears in her black wet-suit. With a net of seaweed slung over her shoulder, she stands tall and strong as she walks. She lifts up her diving mask and her face appears. It is impossible to guess her age from her vigorous appearance — this is Koh In-o, who is 91 this year. She has been diving in the waters off Saekdal-ri, Seogwipo for 76 years and is the oldest working woman on Jeju Island. “I was out collecting sea-weed. It took me a while to swim all the way back from that big rock over there. I was diving so far out that you can’t see the spot from here,” she says.

Daughter of the Sea GoddessWithout pausing for a moment’s rest, she takes out the sea-

weed, piece by piece, and spreads it out on the rocks. Before long, the basalt rocks become a natural drying rack. “Sea mustard that is soft and tender tastes the best.” She speaks in clipped phrases, while her well-worn hands shine in the sunlight. The seaweed will dry quickly in the clean ocean air and sun, and will then be pre-pared for sale. “The sea is good, but it has become harder to find things. There are fewer octopus and abalone now.”

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Her mother taught her the trick to holding her breath and letting it out again. Her innately healthy body and large lung capacity proved invaluable. She entrusted her body to a single float and began to roam about the underwater world as if it were her home. The women of Jeju, born by the sea, all learned diving this way, as if it were their destiny.

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er. She always tells the other divers: “Don’t use all your breath before coming back up. Even if you see abalone or octopus every-where, come back up for breath first, then go back down and gath-er them. Thirty seconds can mean life or death.” Though they lose their lives this way in other areas, such an accident has never hap-pened among the divers of Saekdal-ri. “If you go out to harvest alone, you end up going quite far away. Not even the person next to you can keep an eye on you,” Koh says. This is why these women are always skirting danger.

The Sea was Her Entire Life This matriarch haenyeo, on rare occasion, dives as deep as

20 meters below the surface without an air tank. She holds her breath for about two minutes. “When I go down it feels like scal-ing a cliff,” she says. “Even at 17 meters I feel like I am running out of breath. Like I am going to die! It’s not like breathing out of the water. The secret to holding your breath is the most important thing.” When her air is spent, she returns to the surface and gives out a tortured gasp. Then comes the deep, whistling sound. The fact that she was holding it back makes the sound more plaintive. The sight of the sky when emerging from the water — that is the most wonderful moment. This may be the allure that keeps calling her back to the sea.

When Koh was 15 and afraid of the waves, her mother would hold her head under the water every day to teach her: “You have

to dive to make a living. Don’t be afraid of diving.” Her mother taught her the trick to holding her breath and letting it out again. Her innately healthy body and large lung capacity proved invalu-able. She entrusted her body to a single float and began to roam about the underwater world as if it were her home. The women of Jeju, born by the sea, all learned diving this way, as if it were their destiny. Why else would they say, “Haenyeo give birth and are back in the water three days later”? Every day is lived breathlessly. Why else would they say, “Haenyeo live with their coffins on their backs”?

Koh is the tallest of all the divers in her village. She was tall as a child as well. “When I walked by, people would say, ‘Look at that big diving girl!’ I’ve always been healthy. My mother did not live long. She died around the age of 75. I thought I would die at that age, too, but I am still alive,” she says.

She used to use “small eyes” (goggles) but now she has a “big eye” (diving mask) that allows her to see more at a glance. She draws some mugwort from her ears. She says it prevents water from getting in your ear. You also have to wipe the big eye with mugwort to prevent it from steaming up. She wears a rubber wet-suit now, but in her youth she used to dive in her underwear. She wore only a light cotton shirt and her underpants. She strapped heavy lumps of lead to her waist and carried her equipment: float, net basket, knife, hoe, and bamboo harpoon. On cold and windy days, her body would turn red and shiver when she came up out of the water. She could not endure it for long. She would immediately head to the shelter on the hills to build a fire and warm her body. But these shelters of haenyeo have disappeared due to the con-struction of breakwaters. “Now we’re supplied with these rubber diving outfits, which make things easy. It’s great,” Koh beams.

From long ago, some women of Jeju Island dove in waters as far away as Japan, China, and even Vladivostok of the Russian Far East. Koh never went to dive in another country. But she did roam the seas off the mainland in places like Guryongpo and Gampo. “When I come to the sea I feel refreshed, and when I go into the water I can earn money. Anyone who learns to dive will benefit from it.” With the money she earned from diving she bought a house and fields. This is her reward.

Diving for a Livelihood and a Long LifeKoh married at the age of 17. When she was 23, the year she

gave birth to a daughter, her husband died in war. She wanted to die as well. After trials and tribulations, she eventually remarried. During the Jeju Uprising of 1948-1949, her husband was a police officer so her family was spared from the violence. She taught her teenage daughters, who were afraid of the water, how to dive. Just like her mother had taught her. “You need to learn this to earn money and live long and healthy lives. You will be able to send your

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1 Even on days when she does not dive, Kang Myeong-seon not only takes care of her diving tools, she also goes to the office of the Saekdal-ri Fishing Village Cooperative, where she keeps herself busy with everything from cleaning to planning dives. 2, 3 Tourists to Jeju Island often flock to the coast to taste the fresh seafood brought up by the haenyeo.

children to school, too. If you don’t learn this, you won’t be able to do anything. So learn to dive, I said. Learn to dive!”

Koh’s eldest daughter, Kang In-ja, 73, has no time to rest between diving and growing mandarins. She was a skilled diver, but when she married into a family with a mandarin farm, she relied more on farming than diving. Koh’s youngest daughter, Kang Myeong-seon, 62, is the head of the fishing village cooperative of Saekdal-ri. Her daughter-in-law is also a veteran diver with 36 years of experience. Koh is pleased to dive with her daughters and daughter-in-law, who are carrying on her family tradition. She is even more pleased when they bring up a big catch.

Kang Myeong-seon, Head of the Fishing Village CooperativeShe is stout in body, and though she claims to have no makeup

secrets her complexion is fair. Kang takes after her mother. She has a cheerful personality, looks younger than her age, and can deftly slice up raw fish, while being a skillful diver as well. Perhaps she was born with the lung capacity to dive down 15 meters below the surface.

This is Kang’s 11th year as head of the Saekdal-ri Fishing Vil-lage Cooperative, a job that requires active leadership and a strong sense of responsibility. Kang decides on such matters as who should clean up, and every morning she campaigns against litter-ing if she sees even a single chopstick lying about. Thanks to her diligence, the seas off Saekdal-ri are known for their cleanliness.

Kang also manages the cooperative’s restaurant. The divers went out to sea in the dim light of dawn and returned

at noon; their catch was quite good compared to other days. Of the 4,500 or so “sea women” who belong to the 19 fishing village coop-eratives on Jeju Island, the Saekdal-ri cooperative accounts for only 23. So they are like one big family. There used to be 31, but some are now in ill health or have quit diving. The divers leave the small horned turbans in the water, coming back for them after they have matured. Their community would not be able to handle such a dif-ficult job if they did not look out for each other. “I’m happy if I catch a single red sea cucumber, and I’m happy if I gather a single wild abalone,” Kang says. “There are days when I make good money, but there are also days when I come up empty.”

Most divers work 14 days out of the month for themselves, and 16 days as a group. They sell their personal harvests mainly to tourists. The profits are their own. Some make 300,000 won to 400,000 won a day, but others make far less than that. On group diving days they sell their catch as a group. If, for example, they make 15,000,000 won a month, each group member gets an equal share of about 700,000 won.

“We get stressed sometimes, but compared to other fishing vil-lage cooperatives we get along quite well,” Kang says. Whenever there is something to discuss they hold meetings. Order is impor-tant in the world of divers. There are diving regulations that are imposed by the coast guard authorities as well: avoid diving alone;

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dive in pairs so that you can get help if you are in danger; dive for a minute or less each time; dive for only four hours a day to avoid overworking; dive only eight days a month, and so forth. In particu-lar, the coast guard recommends that senior divers over the age of 70 work in only shallow waters for no more than two hours a day. Three divers of the island have lost their lives this year, perhaps because of their advanced age. Every time the divers hear of such a fatal incident, they grieve as if for one of their own.

Daughter-in-Law Also a Veteran Diver“I tell mother to stop diving, to not go out when it’s cold or snow-

ing or raining, but she says that if she stays home she’ll just sleep. So she goes out to the sea. Even after picking mandarins, she goes out to dive,” Kang says. Koh pities her two daughters and daughter-in-law, and they take pity on her because she continues to dive. And yet their mother is still their anchor, an eternal teacher of the ways of the sea.

Kang smiles brightly as she says that designation as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage would improve the haenyeo’s status. She has four daughters and one son. Yet none of her children have devoted themselves to this tough occupation. She feels sad when she realizes that her family’s haenyeo line will end with her.

Koh’s daughter-in-law points out that while the haenyeo are now provided with wetsuits, in terms of policy support they receive no essential benefits. “Rather than this UNESCO designation or

whatever, they need to give us actual welfare benefits.” After div-ing, the women are so drained of energy that they can barely lift a finger when they get home. Most suffer from chronic headaches. Both Koh and her daughter-in-law practically live on pain reliev-ers, and as a result their stomachs have suffered. But Koh, the No. 1 haenyeo, says that she owes her health to the sea: “I think I have become healthier through diving. When I’m at home I get bored, so I will work as long as I can still move.”

“Ieosana ieodona / Ieodo sana hei / Our boat goes well, ieodo sana / When my mother gave birth to me / On a day with no sun or moon / Ieodo sana, it goes well, it goes well / Our lives go well, ieosana....”

The sound of the haenyeo’s song rings cheerfully over the pris-tine sea of Jeju. Koh knows her time is coming to an end. Her 62-year-old daughter and 60-year-old daughter-in-law live in this sea and its wild waters. Whatever the twists and turns of life, their lives have flourished in the sea.

Is she drawn to the sea, or is it the sea being drawn to her? Born on the wondrous volcanic island of Jeju, the top haenyeo Koh In-o has lived her life in the sea, on the brink of life and death. She is the daughter of the volcanoes. She is the daughter and goddess of the sea.

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pricey, is best eaten raw. But savory abalone porridge (jeonbok juk) is an irresistible treat. First, finely chop up the innards of the abalone. Stir-fry in a spoonful of sesame oil and combine with soaked or dry rice rinsed several times and water, and boil. Soaked rice will take somewhat longer to cook. When the rice thickens, add the sliced abalone flesh. The key is to not boil the porridge for too long because the abalone will get tough.

Red sea cucumber (hong haesam) is also most tasty when eaten raw. On the mainland, people will boil the sea cucumber in salt water, dry it, and then eat it, but this is not the preferred style of Jeju locals. Horned turban (sora) does not have the rich flavor of abalone, but it can be used to make turban porridge or added to abalone porridge. After cracking the shell and extracting the flesh, stir-fry in oil and prepare the same way as abalone porridge. Or you can just eat the turban meat raw, or roast them in their shells. Horned turban can be boiled, sliced and seasoned to make an easy and tasty treat.

As for raw sea mustard (miyeok), it should be rinsed thoroughly, dried off, and blanched in boiling water until it turns green. Remove it from the boiling water and rinse several times in cold water, then remove moisture before seasoning with sesame oil, soy sauce, sliced scallions, and vinegar, and sugar if desired. There are several ways to use sea mustard. It can be added to fish soups, or combined with soybean paste to make a soup. In summer, you can prepare a cold soup made with sea mustard and soybean paste.

Then, suddenly taking a bottle from her bag, Koh says, “With this, you don’t have to worry about food.” It is whitish and looks like yogurt. It is Koh’s homemade shwindari. It is something the island’s ancestors of long ago enjoyed during the summer, a unique Jeju-style lactobacillus health drink. In the days before refrigeration, people could not afford to throw out spoiled rice, so they used it to make this beverage. They ground up rice malt (nuruk), added two spoons of this coarse powder to three bowls of cold rice, stirred it well and let it sit overnight, which would cause it to liquefy. Once froth formed on the surface, they added honey and sugar, and boiled it down. The reduced liquid would be placed in bottles and drunk, as Koh still does today. She gulps down a cup of her favorite drink. “When you don’t feel like eating, some of this does the trick.”

Jeju Seafood Prepared the Koh In-o Style

All seafood is good food.” Seafood is always found on Koh In-o’s table, whether

it be freshly caught octopus, abalone, sea cucumber, seaweed, or horned turban. But how does she prepare these fresh ingredients, which contribute to her healthy life? When you ask about her recipes, she scoffs: “What recipes? It’s simple!” Simple and light. Inland food is heavy on seasoning, but Koh loves the freshness of seafood.

She offers a tip for preparing octopus porridge (muneo juk), a year-round health food. The tentacles of a live octopus will writhe about, so slicing it can be quite tricky. After rinsing the octopus in water thoroughly, slice it quickly on a chopping board. Then stir-fry in sesame oil, add rice and water, and stir. Dry rice will work just as well as rice that has been soaked ahead of time. Finally, season lightly with salt and serve.

Abalone, not always available and often

“1 Koh In-o and Kang Myeong-seon, who cut imposing figures when they stand on the shore in their diving suits, present a warm image of mother and daughter, such as you might see in any country village, when they return to their everyday lives. 2 Koh In-o’s seafood dishes resemble her own personality: modest and straightforward with no excessive seasoning.

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Hardy Divers Gather Seafood from the Ocean Floor


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As Korea’s southernmost island, Jeju is home to a unique culture that has been passed down through the ages. At the heart of this culture are the female divers called haenyeo. We will take a glimpse into their lives to explore the way of life and values of the residents of this charming island, who have relied on the ocean for untold generations.Yoo Chul-in Professor, Department of Anthropology, Jeju National University | Kim Hung-ku, Ahn Hong-beom Photographers

The stride of the haenyeo is brisk and energetic as they head toward the ocean early in the morning, hoping for an abundant catch.


Haenyeo make their living diving for seafood with-out any breathing apparatus. Some 4,500 of

these divers remain active on Jeju Island, which was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007 under the name “Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes.” The practice of gathering seafood from the ocean floor without any equipment whatsoever can be found the world over, but it is only in Korea and Japan that divers still continue to earn a livelihood in this manner.

When did the people of Jeju first begin to free-dive into the ocean to gather seafood? Judging from the shell middens of Sangmo-ri village, where aba-lone, horned turbans, and other shellfish have been unearthed in great amounts, it appears that the gather-ing of shellfish on Jeju dates back to the third century B.C. But we have no way of knowing exactly how the shellfish were collected from the ocean.

Records about free-diving fishermen and women only began to appear in the 17th century, during the Joseon Dynasty. But were the free-diving women only found on Jeju at the time? Records from the Joseon period mention seaweed, horned turbans, and aba-lone, the primary marine products gathered by women divers as being the local specialties of various coastal regions, including Jeju Island. There is, however, no explanation about how these products were gathered. In coastal regions with a significant difference in tidal ranges, it is possible to gather abalone during low tide without diving, even though they typically inhabit deep waters. As such, it seems that the only female divers in Korea were those on Jeju Island.

Female Free-DiversUntil the end of the 17th century, there were free-

diving fishermen, known as pojak, on Jeju Island. These male divers mainly collected abalone from the deeper waters, while female divers would gather sea-weed, like sea mustard and green sea fingers, from shallower depths. Then, from the early 18th century, women took over the diving activities. Was this a grad-ual development arising from the notion that women are more physically suited to free-diving? Or did the men divers simply give up, unwilling to bear the exces-sive tributary burden, leaving the women to do this demanding task? Based on various accounts, the latter appears to be more likely.

It is generally believed today that Jeju’s free-diving women operated more in an entrepreneurial environ-

ment, rather than under a tributary system. This tran-sition arose from the seasonal diving that took them away from their home. In 1895, merchants from the mainland began coming to hire the island’s female divers, paying them wages to collect seaweed off Korea’s southern and eastern coasts. Bangeojin and Pohang in southeastern Korea had been the diving grounds of ama (Japanese counterparts of the hae-nyeo) from Ise, Japan, since around 1883. But once the Jeju divers entered the scene, the Japanese divers began to appear less frequently, and after 1929 they no longer turned up at all.

Why did this happen? The Japanese ama rode on boats out to sea and then used a rope with metal weights of about 13 kilograms to reach the ocean floor as quickly as possible. To return to the surface, boat-men (often their husbands) would pull up the rope. This rope is known in Japanese as inochitsuna, or “life-line.” But the Jeju divers swim far away from shore using only a float, called tewak (traditionally made from a gourd, but today made of Styrofoam), and then dive and surface under their own power. With no need for a boatman to pull up a rope, the Jeju divers were more productive than their Japanese counterparts.

Female free-divers can be found today in coastal vil-lages on the mainland and on a few other islands, but the vast majority of these women divers are on Jeju. The practice of diving in other areas was learned from the women divers from Jeju who had worked there seasonally.

The female divers of Jeju generally dive without any breathing apparatus to gather a variety of seafood from the ocean floor, usually about 10 meters below the sur-face. They remain underwater for one minute or so for each dive. During the summer they work about six to seven hours per day, while in the winter they cut back somewhat to four to five hours. They spend some 90 days out of each year in the water. They are not born with any special physical characteristics but become professional divers by learning the basics and then div-ing repeatedly over many years.

In the 1960s, when the number of female divers on Jeju was at its peak, it was natural to see young girls in the coastal villages learning how to dive in the shallow “baby ocean.” Most of the female divers started to work at around age 17, but they only became true haenyeo by managing to secure a place in the bulteok, the natu-ral shelters along the coast where the divers changed

1, 2 Jeju Island is home to the largest number of female free-divers by far. In particular, not only do younger women dive, but many older divers in their seventies are still active.

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into and out of their wetsuits and warmed themselves between dives.

These so-called shelters, essentially open-air areas on the seashore, symbolize the traditional commu-nity spirit of Jeju female divers. Literally, they are any places where bonfires can be built. The women divers of this island traditionally wore basic cotton or mus-lin outfits and spent a long time in the water, so they needed the bonfires to warm their near-frozen bodies. In some villages, the women went out to sea in boats, in which case fires were maintained on board. From the mid-1970s, the divers began to wear rubber wet-suits. It was about this time that the traditional open-air shelters began to disappear and changing rooms

were built instead.

Deep-Rooted Tradition of Communal LifeFrom the 1970s, becoming a professional diver was

no longer a destined path for Jeju women but a matter of personal choice. Since the fishing village coopera-tives controlled the fishing rights for the areas where the divers worked, women divers had to join a local cooperative. The women divers association, which exists in every fishing village, decides all sorts of things, from what kinds of seafood can be gathered to when and how much time the divers can take off for a funeral or wedding in the village. Although the women compete with each other, when they are in the water they must

These women have etched in their minds a detailed map of the world beneath the waves, including the locations of submerged rocks and habitats of the undersea flora and fauna. They also possess a wealth of knowledge about tidal currents and coastal winds.

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protect each other from danger, which means they are highly cooperative for everyone’s safety.

There is a saying popular among the women divers: “Working in the netherworld to live in this world.” This alludes to the risks inherent in diving. Every spring, they hold a shamanic rite to appeal to the Grandmother Goddess of the Sea for their safety in the water. During this ritual, all divers are descendants of the goddess and bond together as children of the same ancestor. They scatter millet on the waters and pray for a plenti-ful harvest.

Diving is not a skill that can be learned overnight but must be acquired through many years of experience. More important than physical factors such as lung capacity and the ability to endure cold water are those things learned naturally through experience. These women have etched in their minds a detailed map of the world beneath the waves, including the locations of submerged rocks and habitats of the undersea flora and fauna. They also possess a wealth of knowledge about tidal currents and coastal winds.

Traditionally, the haenyeo divide themselves into three groups based on the skill level of individual divers. The most highly skilled divers, who have honed their abilities through long years of experience, have extensive knowledge of submerged rocks and the prod-ucts of the sea. Their gut feelings are more trustwor-thy than the weather report when deciding whether the conditions are suitable for diving.

As one woman emphasized, diving is “learned by feel.” As with hunting and fishing, the practical knowl-edge required for diving can be learned through expe-rience alone. Learning means practice, and practice means learning. In the changing rooms before and after dives, beginners learn from the veterans not only the requisite knowledge for diving but their responsibil-ities as divers and how to treat their colleagues.

Eco-Friendly, Sustainable Way of LifeThe haenyeo are such an integral aspect of the Jeju

identity that few natives of the island do not have a mother or a grandmother who is or was a diver. The image of a woman diving fearlessly into the rough seas, with only a simple float to depend on, is a symbol of the islanders’ fortitude. Due to their island’s barren vol-canic soil, the women of Jeju were forced to earn a live-lihood by gathering the sea’s bounty. They also pooled the earnings of their labors to build schools or donated

funds for the needs of their village.The eco-friendly harvesting techniques of these

women are sustainable as well. Because there’s a limit to how long they can hold their breath underwater, any personal desire for an excessive harvest is naturally restrained. The fishing village cooperatives adminis-ter the local fishing grounds by regulating such mat-ters as harvest periods, diving time, and minimum size of marine products that can be collected, in addition to controlling diving techniques and the kind of tools that can be used. The divers regard the ocean as their “fields,” and two or three times a year they “weed” the coastal and tidal flats to remove unwanted plants. This allows the healthy growth of the seaweed that they har-vest and the shellfish feed on. They also participate in the seeding of the village fishing grounds with horned turbans and abalone. This is a cycle of life that coexists with nature.

Yet the number of female divers has been dwindling with each passing year, and their long-term survival is very much at risk. In 1965, there were some 23,000 female divers on Jeju but this number plummeted to some 8,400 by 1975, a two-thirds decline over 10 years and the most dramatic decrease ever. During that decade, the island’s development policies had been focused on the growth of mandarin farms and the tour-ism sector. As of 2012, the number of women divers stood at around 4,500.

Together with the decline in their numbers, the aging of existing divers is another serious issue. In 1970, 31 percent of all female divers were under the age of 30, but a 2012 survey found that no one was in that age bracket. Those in their 30s and 40s accounted for a mere 2 percent of the haenyeo population. But while it is a profession that few young women would choose today, diving has no retirement age, so they can work as long as their health allows, even when they are over 80.

In order for the haenyeo tradition to remain sus-tainable, support measures are needed to ensure they can earn a stable income and maintain their physical health. Above all, the divers need to take the initiative to reduce their working hours and number of diving days per year. Protective measures designed to ensure their health, safety, and stable income, when developed with the active participation and cooperation of the divers themselves, should increase the chances for a new generation to carry on their tradition.


A Sad History Behind, Jeju Women Prove their Fortitude through Diving Haenyeo take a deep breath, dive down to the ocean floor to gather shellfish, and then return briefly to the surface, letting out their breath with long, whistling sounds, as if to let the others know they are alright. The shrill whistles of these women echo across the waves with a vibrant yet plaintive resonance, a distinctive melody of Jeju.Joo Kang-hyun Chair Professor, Jeju National University; Director, Asia-Pacific Ocean and Culture Center | Lee Sung-eun Photographer


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Jeju Island is not the only place where residents free-dive to gather seafood for a living. Long before the advent of recrea-

tional scuba diving, people harvested resources from the oceans and rivers. As such, the practice of diving might be as old as the history of humanity. The exploits of pearl divers in such places as Japan, Indonesia, Australia, Sri Lanka, southern India, and Oman have long been legendary. Also well-known are the sponge divers of the Mediterranean and Caribbean, red coral harvesters of Italy, and black coral gatherers of the Red Sea and the seas of Hawaii. As far as seafood goes, the harvesting of mussels, abalone, and clams has a long history, too.

In addition to gathering precious coral, sponge, and mollusk, divers also help to catch fish. They dive into the water to set nets or to drive fish into nets or weirs, where they get trapped. They thus engage in cooperative fishing, since these activities call for group labor.

Divers the world over have long been jumping into the water and performing dangerous tasks underwater without special aids. Free-diving, without any equipment, is still common today. It has been less than one hundred years since goggles were introduced, and the rubber suits that keep divers warm have become wide-spread only quite recently.

Domain of Female DiversSince diving has traditionally been considered a man’s work,

Korea’s place in the history of diving is all the more noteworthy. The female divers of Jeju Island have a unique history and carry on their longstanding tradition to this day as tight-knit cooperative groups. They have attracted the keen attention of researchers for a variety of reasons, including the consistent and systematic nature of their occupation, strong communal spirit, and integration of work and ritual.

The haenyeo, or “sea women,” of Jeju also have a sad history. In the past, they had to offer the abalone they caught as a tax in kind to the government. Up through the mid-17th century Joseon period, diving was not the duty of women alone. But with a decline in the number of male divers who were willing to pay the tribute, diving was taken over by the women. That is, the men of Jeju, who refused to endure the government’s exploitation, fled to the mainland to start life anew, but the majority of them still wandered along the coasts and gathered seafood. The number of Jeju men who sought refuge on the mainland surpassed 10,000, and in the late 16th century women so greatly outnumbered men on the island that it became a serious problem.

The 16th-century poet Im Je visited Jeju and wrote a trav-elogue entitled “A Brief Journey to the Southern Seas,” in which he recorded: “The number of Jeju men who do not return to the island because their boats sink is some one hundred per year. For

this reason, the women are many but the men are few, and few women living in the countryside have husbands.” The widows had to take on the duties of their men, diving barely clothed into the cold winter seas. This painful history is a testament to the resil-ience of women divers; it explains why Jeju is often called “The Isle of Women.”

Crying Babies Wait on the ShoreHowever, the women divers were frequently the object of scorn.

On this island those who thought of themselves as being above the crowd would avoid working in the water whenever possible. Those who spent all their time in salt water could not but have rough skin, no matter how diligently they took care of themselves. At the end of the 18th century, the writer Shin Gwang-su provided the following description of the divers in his writings.

Pulled abruptly by the currents and cast here and there,They dive like ducks beneath the waves,Leaving only gourds bobbing on the water.Then blue waves crash high into the air,And they pull hastily on the lines leading to the gourds,At once letting out long rushes of air;The grim sound seeps deep into the palace beneath the sea.All work for a living, but why do they do this of all things?Do they risk their lives simply for a profit?

In the first half of the 15th century, a local magistrate named Gi Geon went out on patrol during a fierce blizzard driven by west-erly winds. To his amazement, he noticed a group of barely clothed women diving into the ocean in that bitter cold. He was so aghast at this sight that, it is said, his conscience never allowed him thereaf-ter to eat the abalone or horned turbans those women had brought up with their own hands.

The following appeal to the king, presented by the third state councilor Sim Sang-gyu in the eleventh month of 1824, is contained in “The Annals of King Sunjo.”

“In the cold of winter, men and women strip off their clothes and go shivering into the water to gather abalone and collect sea-weed; it is indeed fortunate that they are not swept away by the waves, but when they come up out of the water they build fires on the coast and roast themselves, and their skin becomes so chapped and wrinkled that they look as hideous as demons. Despite such great effort they manage to collect only a few aba-lone and a few handfuls of seaweed, yet they have no choice but to make ends meet with whatever they earn from this.”

Life in a typical fishing village was one of such extreme poverty


that many people were forced to wander about as beggars, yet this record shows in detail how the physical hardships of those who dove into the ocean were even more severe. Though they now wear wetsuits that keep them warm to some extent, in the past they dove into the frigid winter seas without such protection. Fabric was so scarce that it was difficult to have proper clothing for even every-day wear. Therefore, any protective outfit for divers was simply out of the question. Although they did not dive entirely naked, they wore only underpants and went bare-breasted. While they worked, their babies slept in baskets on the shore.

Doing Farming as well as DivingIn the past, the women of Jeju began to dive regularly at the age

of 16 or 17. As children, they practiced in shallow waters along the coast, collecting horned turban shells and agar. Diving techniques were handed down by word of mouth and learned through on-the-job experience. All the requisite knowledge — the basic means and methods of diving, things to be aware of, the etiquette and courtesy between colleagues, and how to gather and sell their catch — has been learned and handed down through experience. This knowl-edge forms a set of unwritten rules that all divers must comply with as members of a close-knit community. Above all, this code had to be upheld at all times for the sake of everyone’s safety.

To reach distant waters the divers go out in boats, while they swim to their dive sites closer to the shore. They primarily gather abalone, horned turban, clam, sea urchin, sea cucumber, seaweed, and agar; of these, abalone is the most prized. When spring comes, restrictions on harvesting are lifted. In summer, a type of seaweed called gamtae (Ecklonia cava) is dug up with hoes and used as ferti-lizer. It is said to be so enriching that the soil will need no other fer-tilization for another three years.

In general, the women divers of Jeju spent half their time diving and the other half farming. They all participated in farming to some extent. They enriched the unfertile volcanic soil with the fertilizer they brought up from the ocean, and then sowed seeds and raised crops. After returning home from diving, they tended to their fields until the waves became favorable for diving again. Their labor in the fields was quite intense. There are divers among Pacific Islanders who perform similar functions, but it is rare for them to undertake

high-intensity diving as well as farming. The women divers of Jeju engaged in eco-friendly agriculture, creating an organic ecological cycle by using seaweed from the ocean as natural fertilizer.

Community of Work and RitualTypically, haenyeo dive for some 10 to 12 days a month. They dive

when the tide is right. As the old saying goes: “They get by some-how or other at low tide, but at high tide they leap into the ocean and get to work.” Except at slack tide, when there is no move-ment in the water, they avoid diving particularly during the spring tides, when tidal currents are the strongest. When the waves are crashing around them, it can be unsafe to dive. In spring tides, two-meter waves can have the power of four-meter waves. When the swells are rough, the divers can be tossed about so much that even an abalone right in front of them cannot be caught.

Even in their diving wetsuits, deep underwater they might as well be wearing nothing, and sometimes fish peck off their flesh. Though not frequently, the divers even run into sharks. Some divers have thrust their knives to pry abalone shells loose only to have the cord wrapped around their hands get snagged, preventing them from returning to the surface. The specter of death always looms over them whenever they dive. Thus they conduct traditional sha-manic rites and trust the shaman deities with their lives. Every year, the divers hold a communal rite; in this way the work commu-nity also serves as a ritual community.

Haenyeo are known as astute managers of the household econ-omy. With great difficulty they earn money from diving in addition to doing their housekeeping chores and farm work, and with this money they pay for the education of their children and buy fields. This dangerous occupation naturally comes with its own hazards. Decompression sickness is commonplace. At the first sign of a headache they take pain relievers or cold medicine. The govern-ment’s welfare policy allows them to receive special treatment at hospitals, but few hope to be fully cured.

Some divers went to work in the seas off Busan and Ulleung-do, Dokdo, and Heuksando islands, as well as other areas of the country, and even traveled around Northeast Asia, to places like China, Russia, and Japan. There were divers who left for foreign lands when spring came, working for half the year abroad and then

All the requisite knowledge — the basic means and methods of diving, things to be aware of, the etiquette and courtesy between colleagues, and how to gather and sell their catch — has been learned and handed down through experience. This knowledge forms a set of unwritten rules that all divers must comply with as members of a close-knit community.

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returning in autumn. Some would row boats for days on end to reach Qingdao or Dalian, China.

The divers would go out in a boat, in a group of 15 to 20, to work in deeper waters. Those who left the waters of Jeju would travel to foreign lands, eating and sleeping on board the whole while. Moth-ers nursed their young between dives. Some even gave birth on board a boat.

In order to save the price of a single meal, they carried millet and other grains with them. With such thrift and frugality they were able to accumulate savings. There are records of how these women served with distinction as independence activists in the previous century.

The work of these women as they dig around on the ocean floor, sometimes as deep as 20 meters below the surface, clearly pushes the limits of human endurance. There can be no discussion of life on Jeju without mentioning these heroic women. It is because they are the alpha and the omega of the life on this island.

Every spring, the haenyeo of Jeju hold rites to pray for their safety and abundant catches in the sea. They range from small rites performed in the villages to large-scale rituals like the Jeju Chilmeoridang Yeongdeunggut, which has been inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.


The Sea Women of Our Time: How Will They Survive?In assessing the social status of a certain occupation, some questions can serve as useful indicators: “Are you willing to tell others what your parents do for a living?” or “Would you like your children to follow in your career footsteps?” For the women divers of Jeju as well as their families it could be somewhat awkward to answer these questions. But they can now take a measure of pride in their work as the Korean government is trying to have the haenyeo inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.Lee Jin-joo Freelance Writer | Cho Ji-young, Kim Hung-ku Photographers


An underwater performance by the haenyeo is presented four times a day in the gigantic fish tank at Aqua Planet, the largest aquarium in Asia, located in Seogwipo.

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For centuries, the “sea women” of Jeju Island have earned a liv-ing by free-diving into the sea to harvest seafood by hand. And

despite being the primary breadwinners, while their husbands did little to contribute to the family’s income, the divers did not receive much respect and were even frowned upon due to their revealing work outfits. Their children are reluctant to mention their mother’s job, and most divers do not want their daughters to follow in their footsteps. Kim Eun-sil, the 80-year-old haenyeo who was recently featured in The New York Times, raised her five children by working in the cold seas, but her only daughter does not even know how to swim.

Statistics also testify to this decline in the island’s indigenous female divers. According to the Jeju Provincial Government, the number of haenyeo has plunged from 23,000 in 1965 to less than 4,600 today, of whom 50 percent are aged 70 and older. With the annual death rate among the elderly divers averaging about 130, compared to the inflow of new divers at only about 15, their popu-lation is likely to fall below 1,000 in the foreseeable future. Without drastic measures to reverse the trend, this age-old occupation is bound to disappear sooner than later.

Recently, various policy proposals have been discussed to keep the tradition alive. Above all, the government could designate the female divers as cultural heritage title holders, just as it does for traditional artists and artisans, and also introduce measures to attract and train new recruits. The haenyeo could be seen in a new light by developing cultural contents based on their everyday lives and legendary tales, and promoting their images as “strong moth-ers,” “daughters of the sea,” or “living mermaids.” In addition, their diving skills could be applied to everyday sports and other leisure activities such as swimming and skin/scuba diving.

Efforts have been made to shed a new light on this rich tradi-tion and to boost its relevance in our time. The public and private sectors have worked together to nominate the haenyeo of Jeju for UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage. The provincial gov-ernment has offered courses to train amateur divers and organized festivals based on the “sea women” theme. Fishing villages around the island provide tourists with overnight lodging and shellfish gathering tours. A local animation studio has developed cute car-toon characters based on female divers, like “Little Diver Mongni” and “Island Kid Sojungi.”

Yi Han-yeong, who heads the nonprofit Association for the Pres-ervation of Haenyeo Culture, has recognized the potential of the sea women as a subject for cultural contents. He had been work-ing as a skin/scuba diving instructor on the mainland before vis-iting Jeju to learn about the skills of its women divers. He then enrolled at the Jeju Hansupul Haenyeo School, which changed the course of his life. He ended up moving to the island and opening a business involved in a wide range of activities: producing vitamin

tablets from the seaweed collected by women divers, populariz-ing recreational diving, planning aquatic events and performanc-es, and water tank cleaning. Among the events he has planned is the popular performance by female divers presented four times a day in the 20-meter-deep water tank at Aqua Planet, the largest aquarium in Asia.

Built by the Jeju Provincial Government and operated by Han-wha Hotels & Resorts, Aqua Planet is larger than the celebrated Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa, Japan. The divers performing there, over 70 years of age on average, are from the fishing village cooperative of Goseong and Sinyang. Their performances earn a rousing response, especially among viewers of the older genera-tion. The elderly performers are deeply moved by the audience’s enthusiasm. With tears in their eyes, they say, “I’ve never been so proud of my job before,” or “It seems my lifelong wishes have come true.” Some of the divers have become so well-known that they are featured in public media and are even invited to give lectures.

Yi Han-yeong explains that during Korea’s industrialization peri-od, the sea products gathered by these divers were exported to Japan, helping to earn much needed foreign currency. The women divers not only supported their own families but contributed to the wealth of the nation. Yi claims that this type of contribution is quite rare among workers in primary industries and believes that the unique narrative of these women has great potential for the devel-opment of cultural contents.

Starting Over at Haenyeo SchoolJeju Hansupul Haenyeo School, located in the fishing village of

Hallim, recently recruited students for its seventh class. Although a class is usually limited to 50 students (35 from the island, 10 from other parts of the country, and 5 from foreign countries), the school accepted 70 students out of 240 applicants this year. The number of applicants from the mainland has increased every year in line with growing interest in the island’s “slow life.” The school is not actually an institution to train professional haenyeo, but two or three women of every class enroll with the hope of joining their ranks, usually with recommendations from fishing village cooperatives. Among last year’s graduates, two women from the mainland are serious about their desire to become divers. They are best friends 12 years apart in age — Shin Dong-seon, 27, a web designer, and Chang Mi-ra, 39, a photographer.

Shin donated her talent by creating a website for the school. As the only daughter in her family, she had to persuade her parents to accept her decision by reminding them of the happy times they enjoyed on fishing trips to the sea or mountain streams when she was a young girl. Shin, who would be the youngest haenyeo, wants to open a fusion restaurant that serves seafood dishes made with the bounty freshly harvested from the sea every morning. She is


saving the money she earns working for an IT company in Jeju city in order to move to the fishing village of Aewol to realize her dream by the time she turns 30.

Chang, on the other hand, came to Jeju to take photos of hae-nyeo, not just as artistic subjects but to capture the vivid stories of their challenging lives. Eventually, she decided to become a diver herself. Living in the village of Seongsan, she joined an entertain-ment group of haenyeo performers as the only member with no diving background. Whenever help is needed to clean up the coast-al areas, as the youngest member of the group, Chang takes it upon herself to see the job through. Her dream is to one day open a photo studio for sea women.

Sea Women Festival and MuseumThe Haenyeo Festival, a regular autumn event on the island,

is sponsored by the provincial government and publicized as the only women-oriented folklore festival in Korea. It started out as a small community event of Gujwa village in 2007. As its popularity grew, the provincial government took over in 2011 and developed

the event into an island-wide festival. Divers from all villages of the island participate in the festivities, which include a parade, swim-ming and diving contests, and various other programs. Some peo-ple even call it the “Mini Haenyeo Olympics.” It’s a real celebration, with village residents served hot noodles at a separate booth, and gifts of seafood like abalone and croaker handed out to tourists and visitors.

For the parade, divers from different fishing village cooperatives vie to show off their originality, appearing in outlandish outfits and gear — for example, riding electric bikes, or waving oars high in the air. At last year’s festival, a divers’ choir from Hado village, named “Haenyeo Generation” [after the popular idol group “Girls’ Genera-tion”] was greeted with raucous cheering and applause. Instead of their melancholy work songs, they performed comical songs with lyrics in the regional dialect and other exciting pieces. Yang Bang-ean (also known as Kunihiko Ryo), a well-known Korean composer based in Japan, whose family is from Jeju Island, presented them an original song titled “The Daughters of the Sea.”

Apart from the annual festival, there are regular programs

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for tourists to enjoy year-round. The most popular are the vari-ous activities offered at the fishing villages of Sagye and Hado. For example, visitors can dive in shallow water under the guidance of local divers, and they can go on tours to gather conch, crab, sea urchin and other items. Hado village offers a program for tourists to visit bulteok, the traditional open-air shelters of women divers.

The Haenyeo Museum is another popular tourist attraction. On my visit, I was deeply moved upon seeing a black-and-white photo of a young diver breastfeeding her baby. Standing near her, with his back to the camera, was her son who looked to be six or seven years old. As a mother of young children myself, and having left behind my glamorous life on the mainland to live on the island, I felt a deep affinity with the young diver in the photo. During my first year on Jeju, my second child was less than a year old. Whenever my baby whined and fretted, I found a corner and breastfed him, no matter where I was — waiting for my son in the school corridor, socializing with other mothers in my neighborhood, or carrying out other tasks. When I saw the photo at the museum, my eyes welled up with tears as the life of the young diver, who had to go out to sea

with her baby lying in a basket on the beach, somehow overlapped with my difficult days of adapting to a new place away from my friends and my work.

The islanders call the divers the “mothers of the sea.” The time I spent at the museum, pondering the meaning and the power of motherhood, had a therapeutic effect on me. And it seems I was not alone. A woman who introduced herself as the mother of a 12-year-old child living in Gyeonggi Province posted a request on the museum’s website to upload a video clip of sumbi sori, the whistle-like sounds that the divers make letting out their breath when they come up to the surface after long minutes under the water. The woman came across the video at the museum but the sounds would not leave her mind even after she returned home. In her post, she said she wanted to listen to the sounds whenever she needed to lift her spirits. The museum heeded her request by uploading the video clip. In addition to displays and exhibitions, the museum also offers an experience program for children, called “The Little Haenyeo,” which provides a taste of what it’s like to be a sea woman.

According to the Jeju Provincial Government, the number of haenyeo has plunged from 23,000 in 1965 to less than 4,600 today, of whom 50 percent are aged 70 and older. With the annual death rate among the elderly divers averaging about 130, compared to the inflow of new divers at only about 15, their population is likely to fall below 1,000 in the foreseeable future.

1 Jeju Island seeks to create a culture centered on the haenyeo, introducing them to the public through murals and various character products. 2 The Haenyeo Museum, which showcases various materials and articles on women divers including diving equipment and an assortment of literature, draws 250,000 visitors annually. An installation work by Yi Seung-su is placed at the lobby of the museum.2


During the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), the city of Seoul, or Hanyang as it was

known then, was much smaller than what it is today, filled with charming hanok, or traditional Korean wooden houses with tiled roofs. Enclosed by mountains, the city’s most important structures included the walls that ran along its perimeter to provide protection against intruders. Eight gates stood along the walls, four of them aligned with the cardinal directions of north, south, east and west, to serve as the main entrances to the capital.

Dongdaemun, the Heart of SeoulOf these four main gates, the east-

ern gate is named Heunginjimun, mean-ing “Gate of Rising Benevolence,” but it is more commonly known as Dongdaemun, or “Great East Gate.” A longtime hub of commercial activity and transportation, the area around the gate quickly developed in the 1960s and 70s into a center of the textile industry, Korea’s major export sector at that time. A large market district soon emerged nearby to sell garments produced at the numerous factories in the area. The market rapidly expanded into a bustling town which today is home to tens of thousands of work-ers, merchants, and designers — the nerve center of Korea’s fashion industry. Indeed, “Dongdaemun fashion” is a familiar term that refers to the clothing and accessories manufactured in this style district.

As much as it is the heart of Korea’s fashion industry, the area was once the home for sporting events. During the period of Japanese colonial rule a large stadium was built there in 1925, which through the 1980s served as one of the country’s main sports venues. The former city gate, an icon-ic piece of traditional Korean architecture,

FOCUS

The Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Park (DDP), which recently opened amidst controversy as well as acclaim, is poised to become the new face of Seoul. The Dongdaemun district, where the park is situated, is full of historical remnants of Seoul, the capital of Korea with a population of some 10 million, and is also the center of its fashion industry. The DDP project is an ambitious and experimental endeavor to nurture new traditions in a place of special significance.Goo Bon-joon Architecture Columnist; Staff Reporter, The Hankyoreh

The New Landmark for a Forward-Looking Seoul

1 The outer surface of the DDP is formed with 45,133 aluminum panels of different sizes and curvatures. The building shines like a gigantic sculpture at night when illuminated from the inside. 2 The interior is no less a festivity of curvatures than the exterior. A white expanse shielded from the outside, the interior features intriguing shadows that are cast by the curved surfaces, creating an alien environment where time seems to have come to a full stop.

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The scenery highlights a seamless integration of architecture with the topography, forming the particular aspect in which the architect takes great pride. The very existence of such a broad expanse of horizontal space in the middle of Seoul, surrounded by high-rise buildings and shopping centers, creates a phenomenal visual impact.

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the concrete sports complex, and the bus-tling commercial district full of retail stores and shoppers — all made the area one of the most dynamic and vibrant hubs of eco-nomic and cultural activity in Korea.

Birth of a Mammoth Design ComplexTransformation of the Dongdaemun area

got underway in earnest when the Seoul Metropolitan Government tore down the sports stadiums in 2008 with the intention of creating a special landmark dedicated to design. Connected to the fashion district right across from where the stadiums had stood, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Park (DDP) would be the center of design, considered one of the keys to Korea’s future growth, and also a major tourist attraction. While specialization is a prevalent trend among the art museums and exhibition venues around the world, no other facility dedicated exclusively to design is as large and magnificent as the DDP. In fact, as far

as investment goes, the DDP is to date Korea’s largest public architecture project, which cost some 484 billion won (approxi-mately $450 million).

Given the project’s huge scale, the selec-tion of the architect was of great interest to many in and outside of Korea. Selected from among the several world-renowned architects who vied for the project was Zaha Hadid, known for her own brand of freeform architecture. Hadid proposed an architec-tural landscape that would be fully integrat-ed into the old stadium site.

Construction began in 2009, and as the futuristic design began to take shape, the DDP attracted much attention. Critics were quick to make scathing remarks about how the building would look out of place in the overall Seoul landscape, shining eerily like an alien spaceship. Supporters, on the other hand, believed that the unique work of architecture would breathe new vitality into the cityscape.

Zaha Hadid’s Architectural AestheticsThe most striking thing about the DDP is

of course Hadid’s design. The entire struc-ture, with a total floor area of 86,572 square meters, is free of straight lines and right angles, except for the floors. It is the world’s largest freeform building with its walls, ceilings, and corridors all flowing gently in asymmetrical curves. The metallic exte-rior is also stunningly unique: 45,133 alu-minum panels of different sizes and curva-tures form the outer surface of the building, which shines like a gigantic sculpture at night when illuminated from inside.

The interior is no less remarkable. A white expanse shielded from the outside, the inside is filled with intriguing shadows cast by the curved surfaces, creating an alien environment where the flow of time seems to have come to a full stop.

The irregular spaces created by the structure are also interesting to see. The streamlined mass rises and rolls, harbor-

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ing niches here and there. The narrow pas-sage between the silver columns leads out to an open space. A wide bridge-like cor-ridor passes over the center of the sunken plaza. The varying structure and ground levels, and the open space that connects the inside with the outside, offer a fascinat-ing spatial experience.

The DDP serves as an impressive venue for a variety of design exhibitions, product launches, design markets, and other cul-tural events. Most notably, the Kansong Art Museum, the oldest private museum for traditional art in Korea, has opened a per-manent exhibition hall here. The Kansong collection consists of treasures represent-ing the height of traditional Korean culture. These cultural gems of the past are placed in the inimitable setting of one of the most futuristic and state-of-the-art buildings in the world.

As its name denotes, the DDP is a park, not just a building in the conventional sense

of the word. It might be more accurately described as an “integrated landscape,” that is, a park with the features of a muse-um. The rooftop is an artificial mound cov-ered with green grass, a gently sloping ridge that reaches toward the ancient city walls and archaeological remains of urban infrastructure. The scenery highlights a seamless integration of architecture with the topography, forming the particular aspect in which the architect takes great pride. The very existence of such a broad expanse of horizontal space in the middle of Seoul, surrounded by high-rise buildings and shopping centers, creates a phenom-enal visual impact.

A Landmark for the PeopleWhat made Zaha Hadid one of the most

sought-after architects in the world today is the way her works express the character of our contemporary world. The uninterrupt-ed and varied flow of lines and the result-

ing fluidity of the space epitomize the free-dom and flexibility of modern society, while triggering our fantasies of state-of-the-art technology and the future it will bring. The undulating dunes of the deserts in Iraq, the architect’s homeland, have been recreated in cement and metal in Seoul.

As a “horizontal landmark,” the DDP reflects the trend of the 21st century in major cities around the world, where build-ings are being erected toward the pursuit of shared benefits and sites are designed for the enjoyment and relaxation of citizens. The DDP is a kind of small city on its own, such that a complete tour of all that it offers is no easy quest. While opinion is sharply divided on its striking appearance, the DDP undoubtedly reflects the dynamism and complexity of the city of Seoul and offers a diverse array of cultural activities and other things to see and do. The past, present and future of Seoul converge in this new land-mark.

1 A special exhibition of selected artworks and cultural artifacts from the Kansong Art Museum is underway at the Design Exhibition Hall. 2 Design Experience is an area for children to experience and imagine the future through design.

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GUARDIAN OF HERITAGE

Kansong Keeps Visual Prototypes of Korean ThoughtsChun Hyung-pil, better known by his pen name Kansong, used his astute aesthetic judgment to secure a comprehensive collection of Korean artworks and cultural artifacts, thereby preserving the visual prototypes of the thoughts shared by the Korean people. His descendants have dedicated themselves to safeguarding this treasure trove and sharing its riches with the world. Their love and respect for Korean culture, which has continued for three generations, is the greatest and most brilliant bequest left by the legendary collector.Koh Mi-seok Editorial Writer, The Dong-A Ilbo

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In July 1940, Kansong (Chun Hyung-pil, 1906-1962), an art col-lector extraordinaire, stopped by Hannam Bookstore in Gyeong-

seong (today’s Seoul). Korea was then under Japanese occupation, with the colonial authorities taking drastic steps to obliterate the Korean nation, such as mandating all schools to provide instruc-tion in only the Japanese language and all Koreans to use Japa-nese names. At the bookstore, Kansong saw a famous book dealer walking by in great haste, giving him a gut feeling that something important was astir. When he stopped the dealer to inquire, he was told that the man was in search of money to buy the original copy of Hunmin Jeongeum, which had reportedly surfaced in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province.

Upon hearing this, Kansong’s heart began to pound frantical-ly. The dealer said the book was priced at 1,000 won, a sufficient sum at the time to buy a decent tiled-roof house. Kansong handed him 10 times the amount, entreating him to obtain the book at all costs. He was anxious to save the ancient book expounding the fundamental principles behind the creation of Hangeul, the Kore-an writing system, because he was convinced that the Japanese authorities would try to destroy the book once its existence was known to them.

This anecdote explains how Kansong acquired Hunmin Jeong-eum haerye (1446), or “Explanations and Examples of the Proper Sounds to Instruct the People.” The book has been designated National Treasure No. 70 and was also inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 1997. Kansong kept the book in secret until Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule in 1945, when he finally revealed it to the public. His eldest son Chun Sung-woo, 80, president of the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation, counts the book as “the most important treasure of the Korean people, both historically and culturally,” and as his father’s most cherished object in the Kansong collection. He explains that Hangeul is the only alphabet in the world whose purpose, creator, and principles of creation are clearly known to posterity, with the book Hunmin Jeongeum remaining as evidence.

Protecting National Identity through Cultural PreservationBorn as the son of a wealthy landlord, Kansong took the path

less traveled. Collecting artworks, whether ceramics, or paintings, or other less popular artifacts, he always made well-reasoned deci-sions based on the work’s significance to Korea, regardless of its price. Thus he was able to acquire the “Celadon Vase with Inlaid Crane and Cloud Design,” at a price equivalent to the value of 20 houses, from a Japanese antique dealer in Gyeongseong in 1935. He was right in predicting that no finer work of celadon would ever be found in the future. Thanks to him, this celadon vase inlaid with many cranes flying up to the sky remains in Korea as National Treasure No. 68 and is recognized as the masterpiece of Goryeo

The most important criterion for the inclusion of any artwork in the Kansong Collection has been how well it reflects Korean aesthetics. At left is “Inner Mount Geumgang” from “Album of Mount Geumgang in Autumn” by Jeong Seon (1676-1759), 32.6 x 49.5 cm, ink and light color on silk. The painting is dated 1747.

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1 “Old Pond at Autumn Dawn,” a painting by Kansong. 2 Kansong in his twenties as a young heir to great wealth. 3 Kansong, fourth from right, hosts a meeting of art historians and connoisseurs at his house in the leap seventh month of 1938, the year he opened Bohwagak, the first private art museum in Korea. 4 Kansong built Bohwagak (Hall of Splendid Treasures) to keep his collection of Korean art objects and cultural artifacts in one place.

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celadon. Kansong flew to Japan in 1936 to purchase 20 pieces of fine Goryeo celadon from the British lawyer John Gadsby — another example of the many stories hidden behind his inimitable collection.

After inheriting vast wealth at the age of 24, Kansong spent most of his fortune in preventing the artworks and artifacts imbued with the spirit and soul of the Korean people from being taken away to Japan, and supporting Boseong College (today’s Korea University), the first private institution for higher learning established by Kore-ans. Above all, his collection was not simply a personal pursuit, but his way of protecting the nation’s cultural identity and his desperate struggle to preserve Korea’s spiritual and cultural heritage. After Korea’s liberation, he stopped collecting in the belief that cultural artifacts would remain in the country no matter who might acquire them.

In 1938, Kansong built a storehouse named Bohwagak (Hall of Splendid Treasures) at the foot of a mountain in Seongbuk-dong, northern Seoul, so that all his collected works could be kept in one place. This was the beginning of Korea’s first private art muse-um. After his sudden death in 1962, his family and some leading figures of the art community founded the Center for the Study of Korean Art in 1966, which began publishing research papers-cum-exhibition brochures entitled “Kansong Culture.” Bohwagak was renamed Kansong Art Museum in 1971, and its collection of mas-terpieces has enchanted the public ever since, through its famously popular semiannual exhibitions.

In the Name of the FatherThe Kansong Collection consists of approximately 5,000 works,

including 12 National Treasures. For over 40 years, the museum’s exhibitions were held in spring and autumn at its early modern style building. In March this year, however, selected works of the collection were taken out of the museum for the first time. Over 100 artifacts, including Buddhist sculptures, porcelain vessels, paint-ings, and calligraphic works, as well as Hunmin Jeongeum, are being showcased in the special exhibition “The Treasures of Kan-song,” running through September at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), the latest landmark of Seoul, designed by renowned archi-tect Zaha Hadid. Established in 2013, Kansong Art and Culture

Foundation entered into an agreement with Seoul Design Founda-tion to jointly sponsor special exhibitions for three years to enable more people to appreciate excellent works of traditional art in a well-equipped modern space.

The exhibition at DDP sheds new light on the lifelong contribu-tions that Kansong’s descendants have made to preserve the col-lection and support academic research on the artifacts. Living near each other on the hillside where the Kansong Art Museum is locat-ed, the eldest son Chun Sung-woo, his brother Chun Young-woo, 74, director of the art museum, and his own eldest son Chun In-keon, 43, executive secretary of the foundation, have strived to safe-guard and promote their father’s, or grandfather’s, life’s work to protect the roots of the nation’s culture.

Living as the son of a great man would not have been easy. Kan-song’s two sons are both artists, but they have always put their mission to uphold their father’s legacy ahead of their own careers. Looking back on their days devoted to this goal, they say, “It’s been both intensely rewarding and extremely difficult.” Chun Sung-woo, who calls himself “the keeper of my father’s warehouse,” defines the roles of each generation of his family by saying, “During the period of Japanese colonial rule, when our national culture was on the brink of collapse, my father, Kansong, collected and protected our cultural properties at the risk of losing everything he had. As his sons, my brother and I have worked to sort out and restore the collection, which was considerably damaged during the Korean War, and to make the artifacts available for academic research. The next generation will direct their efforts toward promoting the excel-lence of our culture and enhancing our cultural pride.”

When “The Painter of the Wind,” a period drama set in the late Joseon Dynasty, was aired in 2008, it sparked huge interest in paintings of the 18th-century masters and people crowded art museums to see their works. Since it became increasingly difficult to properly accommodate the surging numbers of visitors, Kansong Art and Culture Foundation was established last year to give more people the opportunity to see the beautiful artworks, said its presi-dent Chun Sung-woo.

As a young man, Chun Sung-woo studied art in the United States. There he was regarded as an up-and-coming artist, his

“Kansong devoted all his life and vast fortune to saving numerous national treasures from being turned over to Japanese collectors, or even being used as kindling in people’s furnaces. Thanks to him, those works were able to survive and remain in this country. As a result, Kansong Art Museum houses a comprehensive collection of precious cultural treasures that make Koreans proud of being Korean....”


works praised for fusing Asian spirituality with Western expres-sive techniques, and had even caught the eye of some prestigious galleries. When his father passed away, however, he returned to Korea, leaving behind his promising career in America. Later, he taught art at Seoul National University for a while, but gave that up as well to fulfill his late father’s will. “I have no regrets over the decision,” he said, “because I was always aware of my father’s love for our culture, which showed in everything that he did, and also because I know how important it is for me to carry on his legacy.”

His younger brother, Chun Young-woo, director of the art muse-um who has consolidated the foundation for its continuous develop-ment, also expressed his profound respect for his father. “Bohwa-gak, the name of the storehouse that my father built, means ‘a hall where the nation’s splendid treasures are housed.’ These treas-ures restore our collective memory from oblivion and remind us of who we are by keeping our spiritual heritage alive. This is what my father considered most important about his collection,” he said.

Kansong was a wise man who taught his children not with words but with actions. Never once did he tell them what to do or not to do,

or what was right or wrong. Just like their father, the two sons also go about their work with quiet persistence. Following the lead of his father and his uncle, Chun In-keon, the executive secretary of the foundation, has launched an ambitious drive to bring change into the organization. The Kansong Collection, which previously could not be viewed on the museum’s website, is now available online under a partnership with the web portal Naver, and the special exhibition at the state-of-the-art DDP is the outcome of his efforts.

The Past Paints the FutureHe is keenly interested in a creative succession of his grandfa-

ther’s legacy. “When my grandfather collected all these artworks, his purpose was entirely different from other collectors, who were generally driven by their personal tastes. Although he loved art and had his own preferences, his first and foremost standard was how well a certain work expressed the unique beauty of Korean art. As for Jeong Seon, who is renowned for his original expression of Korean aesthetics, my grandfather was so systematic as to col-lect the paintings of his teacher, students, father, and son as well,

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1 The original copy of Hunmin Jeongeum haerye (Explanations and Examples of the Proper Sounds to Instruct the People), published in 1446 to proclaim the creation of Hangeul, the Korean alphabet. It is National Treasure No. 70, and is included in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. 2 “Celadon Vase with Inlaid Crane and Cloud Design” is one of the greatest masterpieces of Goryeo celadon and National Treasure No. 68. 3 “A Scene from Dano Day” (28.2 x 35.2 cm, Ink and light color on paper) from Hyewon jeonsincheop, an album of genre paintings by Shin Yun-bok (1758-?), also known by his style name Hyewon. Kansong bought this painting from an antique dealer in Osaka, Japan, in 1936.

so that the painter and his works could be studied as thoroughly as possible. I hope to promote proper appreciation of the value of these works and others in the collection widely known at home and abroad,” said Chun In-keon.

Just as there is no tree without roots, the present and future come from the past. The future can only be painted based on the past, and that is why Kansong’s grandson set aside his dream of becoming a historian and joined the foundation. “In our family, we have no such thing as a family motto. At home we were taught only to observe what the adults do, follow their example, and learn their value systems. But what is acquired through experience is more powerful than what is just preached to you. Just as my grandfather did, I also hope to create a link connecting the past, present, and future of our culture.”

Kansong believed that the atrocity of Japanese rule would even-tually come to an end, and that he should preserve masterpieces of Korean art that attest to the value and identity of Korean culture in order to help restore national spirit. Had it not been for this far-sighted collector and connoisseur, the treasures so beloved and

prized by Koreans nowadays might have been lost forever. In a col-umn written by Choe Chung-ho, a former Yonsei University profes-sor, Kansong’s achievements are summed up as follows:

“Since we had Kansong, we now have the original copy of Hun-min Jeongeum and the album of genre paintings by Hyewon [Shin Yun-bok]. Since we had Kansong, we now have so many priceless paintings by Gyeomjae [Jeong Seon] and Danwon [Kim Hong-do]; calligraphic works by Chusa [Kim Jeong-hui]; and masterpieces of white porcelain and celadon, which are Korea’s national treasures. Kansong devoted all his life and vast fortune to saving numerous national treasures from being turned over to Japanese collectors, or even being used as kindling in people’s furnaces. Thanks to him, those works were able to survive and remain in this country. As a result, Kansong Art Museum houses a comprehensive collection of precious cultural treasures that make Koreans proud of being Korean, and the importance of its collection is no less than that of the National Museum of Korea. When the nation was occupied by its colonizers and powerless to do anything, all this was achieved by a single individual.”

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INTERVIEW

The miracle of lines. These words immediately come to mind upon seeing the work of the pen artist Kim Young-taek. One wispy line drawn with the pen is hardly noticeable, but tens of thousands of these lines together become a powerful image. Over many days and nights he labors to create a single work, rendering a mass of lines on the paper. What eventually emerges is a house, a temple, or a bridge. In this way Kim restores the great legacy of traditional architecture.Chung Jae-suk Editorial Writer, The JoongAng Ilbo | Ahn Hong-beom Photographer

Kim Young-taek’s Pen Drawings Give New Life to Korean Architecture

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Kim Young-taek is known as a master of pen art, whose tra-dition has been cut short in the West due to a lack of artists

dedicated to it. He has kept the genre alive with a distinctly Korean sense of aesthetics, earning a peerless reputation for re-creat-ing traditional Korean architecture and cultural artifacts with his meticulous pen strokes. He makes a point of making sketches on site whenever possible, applying at least 500,000 touches to com-plete a single drawing. Such an intensity of effort results in works that have an overwhelming visual impact.

“Capturing the Spirit of Korean Architecture with Pen Drawings” (Seoul Selection, 2013) is a catalogue of drawings of traditional Korean architecture that Kim has created over a decade, traveling all over the country to insure the accuracy of his depictions. A total of 91 exquisite pen drawings are divided into three chapters: “Archi-tecture Embraces History,” “Architecture Embraces Culture,” and “Architecture Embraces Religion.” From Gwanghwamun, the main gate of Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, to the three-story wooden pavil-ion of Botap Temple in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province, the objects of his artistry come alive with a remarkable sense of real-ism. With each drawing accompanied by a brief background and anecdotal notes, the book is an enchanting travelogue.

When I visited Kim at his studio in Gyeonji-dong, Jongno-gu, central Seoul, he was sharpening the tip of his pen with sandpaper. The interior looked like a small antiques shop as a result of Kim’s propensity for collecting all manner of objects from earlier times. Among the thousands of artifacts piled up in the room, his pen jars caught my eye. Around him stood several of them, each holding dozens of pens.

World’s Finest Pen TipChung Jae-suk: I see rows of jars filled with pens. They are your

weapons, I suppose.Kim Young-taek: Each drawing is a different world all on its

own. The finest pen tip in the world is 0.1mm. I use sandpaper to sharpen the tip to 0.05mm or 0.03mm. Using such a fine point pen I can draw 5 lines within 1mm. Each drawing takes a minimum of 500,000 to a maximum of 800,000 strokes. I draw lines and lines on end at the borderline between the visible and the invisible until my mind is free of all thoughts and ideas. Sometimes, I can only sigh, overcome by the task before me. But I labor on, line by line, like a Buddhist monk manually copying ancient scriptures as a part of his ascetic practice.

CJ: From 2002 to 2012, you contributed your drawings to the JoongAng Ilbo, in a regular column titled “Kim Young-taek’s Jour-ney of Pen Art.” That was one of the longest-run columns in the history of Korean newspapers.

KY: My sole motivation was to have the whole world know how beautiful our traditional architecture is. I was determined to per-

Pen artist Kim Young-taek at work in his studio located in Gyeonji-dong, Jongno-gu, central Seoul. It has the ambience of a small antiques shop due to the rows of jars filled with pens as well as numerous artifacts he has collected over the years.


form to perfection so that people could see, feel, appreciate, and learn about our heritage. Many a time, I worked an entire day and only a tenth of my intended work was done, that is how hard I tried. At one point, I actually had to discontinue the column for a while due to shoulder pain.

CJ: You studied design at the College of Fine Arts in Hongik University and worked as a successful designer. You gave up your design career and a more comfortable life to dedicate yourself to this work. That must have taken some courage.

KY: In 1993, I was among the 54 graphic designers in the world to be awarded the “Design Ambassador” title by the Trademark Center in Brussels. In the following year, I was invited to exhibit my work at its first international logo biennale. But, I had a sense that something was lacking. Design to me seemed like making the

cover for someone else’s work. It didn’t feel like I was doing some-thing of my own, and my heart burned with a passion to be creative.

CJ: But why pen art?KY: Even as a child in primary school I was fascinated with

detailed drawing. And in junior high school, I had a keen interest in spatial structures, so much so that I attempted my own architec-tural designs. I also enjoyed doing hyperrealist artwork as a hobby. And I remember how, one day, I drew a Korean won bill in water-color and handed it to a shop owner. He tried to give me change! I also loved collecting old photos, documents, and objects, and often found myself captivated by pen drawings in antique European cal-endars and old books. And then in the mid-90s, when I went to Europe on vacation, I found that the beautiful tradition of pen art had disappeared. So I got to thinking that perhaps I could create

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pen drawings and sell them to European buyers. As soon as the idea hit me, I quit my job and picked up a pen.

The Kim Young-taek PerspectiveCJ: Of the various themes or subjects you could have chosen,

you decided to draw traditional architecture. Why?KY: Traditional Korean architecture is defined by an unassuming

beauty. Each structure is at one with nature. They are simple and modest, graceful and orderly. Our ancestors had a very advanced technology and tradition of architecture, and yet they were careful to restrain any urge to show off. And what’s more, they did not have the greed or desire to claim ownership of their own work. That I think is the spirit of a true master, and that precisely is the spirit of pen art.

CJ: I have heard that you take special measures to ensure the accuracy of your depiction.

KY: When building a house, our master architects of old viewed the land and nature as one whole living organism. Large rocks and old trees were respected and left in place rather than removed. It was forbidden to cut off or divert the flow of what they believed were the arteries and veins of the land and mountain ridges. Nature was not something to overcome but our companion to live with. I have endeavored to embody this spirit and make it appar-ent in my pen drawings. I wanted to show the intangible as tangible by making it alive and visible. Unlike the Western concept of per-spective, Koreans made sure that the more important objects are more clearly visible, regardless of their distance from the viewer. I have adopted this as my very own Kim Young-taek Perspective, and

“Sukjeong Gate and Seoul Fortress” (2005), 24 x 60 cm, India ink on paper.


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based on this point of view, objects that are farther away may actu-ally be made larger if necessary.

CJ: That sounds very much like the idea behind Asian conceptu-al painting. Perhaps that’s why critics often say that your drawings are like the white porcelain of the Joseon Dynasty, or that your drawings follow the traditions of Korean painting.

KY: Western pen drawings are graphically precise, much like architectural blueprints. I seek to create pen drawings with a dis-tinctively Korean sensibility, with rich stories contained in every grain of wood as in our ancient wooden architecture.

CJ: During the past two decades, you have portrayed, with your pen and paper, some 160 works of architecture including those designated as Korea’s National Treasures and UNESCO World Heritage sites. What is next?

KY: I do hope that I would earn some recognition in the places where pen art originated and prospered. Also, I wish to contrib-ute my art to improving the worsening relations between Korea and Japan. If a political solution is out of reach then perhaps a cul-tural one can be an alternative. In this light, I wish to expand on my existing work by having the chance to make drawings of Japan’s 16 state-level architectural treasures, and perhaps hold a show of my works in Japan.

CJ: You have quite a collection of your works now, enough to start a private art museum.

KY: I was born in 1945, and I’m nearing 70. My goal is to finish at least 200 more drawings so long as my health holds up. If someone

builds an art museum for me, I will gladly donate all my works and collection of antiques.

CJ: You have dedicated yourself to the drawing of traditional architecture thus far. Do you have any interest in expanding your subject area?

KY: I often take time to meditate these days about what the world is made of, and what extra-terrestrial civilizations must be like, and about the mysteries of the universe and humanity. I hope to do a series of drawings about these thoughts. With my pen draw-ings and photographic images, I could perhaps put forth my own account of the history of civilizations.

An Everlasting Spring of Clear Water Kim Young-taek’s pen name is Neulsaem in Korean and Shang-

chuan in Chinese. Both are expressions of his resolve to live his life like an everlasting spring of clear water. This pen name, which was given to him by the Venerable Seokjeong of Tongdo Temple, has a deeper message of reminding him that he should always maintain an open mind and accept the world around him without preconcep-tion. In his drawing of Mandaeru, the front pavilion of Byeongsan Confucian Academy in Andong, he wrote: “When you ascend onto Mandaeru, first look above you at the beams. Each beam connect-ing the pillars is distinctively shaped. Together, the natural curves of the beams are so beautiful, like undulating tides. Such beauty lay in the hearts of ancient Korean woodworkers.”

1 “Dabotap (Pagoda of Many Treasures) at Bulguk Temple in Gyeongju” (2011), 41 x 58 cm, India ink on paper. 2 “Seungseon Bridge at Seonam Temple in Suncheon” (2010), 41 x 58 cm, India ink on paper. 3 “Heavenly Deer on the Bridge on the Forbidden Stream, Gyeongbok Palace” (2004), 36 x 48 cm, India ink on paper. 4 For accuracy in his research of architectural heritage, Kim Young-taek makes a point of drawing sketches on site.

“Each drawing takes a minimum of 500,000 to a maximum of 800,000 strokes. I draw lines and lines on end at the borderline between the visible and the invisible until my mind is free of all thoughts and ideas.”

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MODERN LANDMARKS

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Pfeiffer Hall stands as a major landmark of the early history of modern higher education in Korea.

Its construction was made possible by four years of fund-raising efforts capped off in March 1935 with a large cash donation from the American philanthropist Annie Merner Pfeiffer, who was dedicated to Chris-tian missionary work and education. The building was named after her as a tribute to her generosity.

The building was designed by William Merrell Vories, an American architect who was working in Japan. He graduated from the University of Colorado in 1904, and began missionary work as an English teacher in Japan. After participating in the construction of the YMCA building in Kyoto in 1908, he started his own archi-tectural design firm. Through his ties with the YMCA in Japan, he was commissioned to design numerous structures, including churches and hospitals. He also designed many buildings in Korea, the most notable example being Pfeiffer Hall.

American Missionary and ArchitectVories traveled to Busan, Seoul, and Pyongyang in

1908, before Korea lost its sovereignty to Japan. Since he visited Korea more frequently than other Western architects who designed buildings in Korea, Vories acquired extensive knowledge about Korea’s church-es, social customs, and traditional architecture. In 1917, he was commissioned to design the dormitory of the Pierson Bible School (today’s Pyeongtaek Uni-versity) and Hyeopseong Theological Seminary for

Women (today’s Methodist Theological University). And thus began his full-fledged activities as an archi-tect in Korea.

The Korean Methodist Church launched a church development movement, entitled “The Century Advance,” in September 1918, with Vories as its archi-tectural director. Later, also as part of the campaign, he visited Seoul many times and designed schools and hospitals in major bases of missionary work, such as Kaesong, Pyongyang, Haeju, Chuncheon, and Gongju. His career in Korea culminated when he was commis-sioned to design the campus of Ewha College, with Pfeiffer Hall as a key feature of the project. After his successful completion of this ambitious project, Vories opened a branch office of his architecture firm in Seoul. He designed 146 buildings, of which 20 are known to have been actually constructed.

Pfeiffer Hall is a Tudor Gothic structure with three levels above ground and one below. Its style, which was in vogue during the Tudor era in England, combines the traditional Gothic style with Renaissance embel-lishments. The main buildings of Yonsei University and Korea University were also constructed in similar styles around this time. However, Pfeiffer Hall is distinguished for its handsome walls of ashlar masonry, which con-sists of precisely cut rectangular blocks laid with fine bed and end joints. It does not have high steeples and pointed arches decorated with elaborate tracery works that characterize Gothic cathedrals. Since the pointed arches, one of the major structural and ornamental features of Gothic style architecture, were applied to a school building with stories of low height, the front entrance came to have a recessed arch with the win-dows on the façade made rectangular rather than arched.

Timeless EleganceDelicate stone tracery adorns the arched windows

on the façade’s central pediment at the third floor level. These windows look out from the Ada Prayer Cham-ber, the gem of the building. Whereas the back of a

Pfeiffer HallSymbol of Modern Higher EducationThe college division installed at Ewha Haktang in 1910 marked the beginning of higher education for Korean women. This school was originally located in Jeong-dong, central Seoul, but a new campus was built in Sinchon, then on Seoul’s western periphery, in 1932. On this expansive site the school grew into Ewha Womans University, and at its heart was Pfeiffer Hall.Ahn Chang-mo Director, Historic Preservation Program; Professor of Architectural Design, Kyonggi

University Graduate School of Architecture | Cho Ji-young Photographer

Pfeiffer Hall, the main building of Ewha Womans University, is a Tudor Gothic structure with one level below ground and three levels above ground. It is a beautiful example of ashlar masonry, a unique architectural feature brought to Korea by the building’s designer.


The main buildings of most major private universities established during the Japanese rule are stone structures, and the same is true for many others built after liberation. Among these buildings, Pfeiffer Hall may deservedly claim the highest level of architectural refinement. The stone bench bearing a tribute to an early benefactor is also a unique modern relic not found anywhere else in Korea.

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building is usually unremarkable, the rear of Pfeiffer Hall is especially attractive with its oriel windows (a form of bay window that opens outward) and the Tudor arch (low and wide, with a pointed apex) of the back entrance.

In its early days, Pfeiffer Hall housed offices, class-rooms, laboratories, a library, and a dining room. On the third floor of its left wing, there was a small audito-rium that could accommodate some 300 people, which has been remodeled into office space. In terms of its function, one can easily assume that the building’s inte-rior, except for the auditorium, would be no different today from an ordinary administrative building. But that is not the case for this early modern building as all of its doors and windows are exactly the same as origi-nally built, and its staircase also shows the traces of time that it has gone through. This is one building that has escaped ruin from imprudent hands that simply tear down old things to replace them with something new. The beautiful patterns created by the irregular pentagonal tiles, as well as the pink terrazzo base tiles laid where the walls meet the floor, remain intact, their original appearance marked here and there only by the wear and tear of the years. The office of the dean of academic affairs on the first floor has a door with a graceful, low wide arch, which has never been altered from the time of its construction.

Resonant with the tumult and exhilaration of Korea’s history of the past 80 years that it has come through, every corner of the building reflects the architect’s attention to detail. The crowning glory of the building, the Ada Prayer Chamber on the third floor is a small prayer room for those who seek quiet consolation, but any visitor may feel an urge to sit down and pray.

The Gem of Pfeiffer HallThe beautiful windows decorated with stone trac-

ery on the façade of the building are front and center; a small altar keeps vigil below the windows. The point-ed arches of the pew ends echo the soaring wooden trusses that support the ceiling, a characteristic fea-ture of Gothic structures. The third floor, which had been destroyed by fire during the Korean War, was later restored.

On the campus grounds around the building, there are various memorials to the individuals who contribut-ed to the education of Korean women in its early years. They include a stone bench to the west of Pfeiffer Hall, which is engraved with the tribute: “In grateful recog-nition of Mrs. Philip Hayward Gray of Detroit, Michigan who made possible the dedication of these hills and valleys to the Christian education of Korean women. May 31, 1935.”

The main buildings of most major private universi-ties established during the Japanese rule are stone structures, and the same is true for many others built after liberation. Among these buildings, Pfeiffer Hall may deservedly claim the highest level of architec-tural refinement. The stone bench bearing a tribute to an early benefactor is also a unique modern relic not found anywhere else in Korea.

Pfeiffer Hall has been officially recognized as Reg-istered Cultural Property No. 14 since May 31, 2002. In view of its architectural excellence as well as the his-torical significance of Ewha Womans University as one of the nation’s first institutions of higher learning, this hall should be designated as one of Korea’s historic sites so that it can be managed and preserved more carefully and systematically.

1 William Merrell Vories, far left, and school staff attend the cornerstone laying ceremony in 1933. 2 A small auditorium, which was on the third floor of the left wing, has been remodeled into office space. 3 The stone bench to the west of Pfeiffer Hall is inscribed with a tribute to Mrs. Philip Hayward Gray for her contribution to the education of Korean women. 4, 5 Ada Prayer Chamber is the gem of the building. Gothic wooden trusses supporting the ceiling and pointed arches of the pew ends create an atmosphere of austere elegance and hushed solemnity.

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ART REVIEW

Taoist Culture in Korea

The Road to Happiness

The special exhibition “Taoist Culture in Korea: The Road to Happiness” was held from December 2, 2013 to March 2, 2014 at the National Museum of Korea. A number of exhibitions on the themes of Confucianism, Buddhism, and native folk religions in Korea have been held, but this was the first to

provide an in-depth view of Korea’s Taoist culture.An Kyung-suk Curator, Archaeology and History Department, National Museum of Korea

Traditional Korean culture is often said to have been significantly influenced by Confu-

cianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. As such, Tao-ism has been an integral part of Korea’s cultural roots and still continues to affect our lives today through rituals, religious faith, art, popular cul-ture, and even physical exercise. The exhibition “Taoist Culture in Korea: The Road to Happiness” was mean-ingful in that it highlighted, as a prominent feature of Korea’s spiritual culture, the traces of Taoism left behind by our ancestors on their journey in search of happiness.

The exhibition was organized in three parts. Part 1, titled “Taoist Gods and Rites,” showed how Koreans expressed their wishes to various Taoist deities through such themes as “Lao Tzu as God,” “Gods of Heaven, Earth and Water,” and “Taoist Rites Held by the State.” Part 2, titled “Never Age, Never Die,” offered a glimpse of people’s yearnings for the Taoist utopia under the themes of “Beautiful Scenic World of the Taoist Immor-tals,” “Dreaming of the World of the Immortals,” and “How to Become an Immortal.” Part 3, titled “Long and

Peaceful Life,” focused on Taoism’s interaction and coexistence with other religious beliefs and the ways people wished for good fortune through paintings and craft works, under the themes of “Taoism among the People,” “Wishing for Good Fortune,” and “Folk Religion and Taoism.”

Prayers to the DeitiesThe ultimate goal of Taoism was to lead a long and

happy life by taking elixirs of life, exercising, and pray-ing to various deities. As China’s indigenous religion, Taoism pursued well-being and worldly blessings, such as success, wealth, and fame. The Taoist doc-trines and organizations were established in the fourth century during the Northern Wei Dynasty, when the reformer Kou Qianzhi initiated a movement called the New Celestial Masters. Numerous sects emerged thereafter. Nonetheless, Taoism maintained at its core beliefs in immortals as patron saints and folk religious faiths, which were supplemented with theories of yin and yang and the five elements, divination, medicine, and philosophical Taoism, as well as elements of Bud-

“Brick with Land- scape Design,” Baekje Kingdom, Earthenware, 29 x 29 cm, National Treasure No. 343; Buyeo National Museum.

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“Boshan-shaped Incense Burner,” Baekje Kingdom, Gilt bronze, H. 61.8 cm, National Treasure No. 287; Buyeo National Museum. This gorgeous incense burner succeeds the style of ancient Chinese incense burners depicting the holy mountain inhabited by Taoist immortals, but also incorporates local religious and aesthetic elements.

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dhism and Confucianism.Taoism is known to have been officially introduced to

Korea during the seventh-century Goguryeo period, but Koreans had already embraced various Taoist cultur-al influences since long before that. However, Taoism failed to establish itself as an authentic religion with a visible presence like the Buddhist orders or Confu-cian scholars. Taoism’s role of invoking blessings was aligned with shaman-based native folk beliefs, while many intellectuals who identified with Taoism tended to concentrate on yangsheng, or the art of nourishing life.

From time immemorial, people regarded heaven, earth, and water as holy. This belief was incorporated into Taoism and the Taoist deities, such as the sun, the moon and the Heavenly Emperors; Houtu, the Earth Goddess; and Dragon Kings of the Four Seas.

Koreans’ worship of these deities can be seen in the fact that from the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392) through the mid-Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), the state con-ducted rites called jaecho to appease the gods of the

It is in human nature to seek solace when life treats us harshly. In this regard, it would not be appropriate to make a fuss about Taoism, believing that it can solve all our problems, or dismiss it altogether as superstition. Rather, our task is to reinterpret the meaning of Taoist culture in modern contexts.

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1 “Taoist Immortals” by Kim Hong-do, Joseon Dynasty, 1776, 132.8 x 575.8 cm, Ink and light color on paper, National Treasure No. 139; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art. 2 “Celadon Taoist Figure-shaped Ewer,” Goryeo Dynasty, Early 13th century, H. 28 cm, National Treasure No. 167; National Museum of Korea.

Furthermore, the Taoist deities and immortals, who neither grow old nor die, remained popular objects of worship. In late Joseon, portraits of the Eight Immor-tals and paintings of the banquet of Xi Wangmu, Queen Mother of the West, and longevity symbols gained widespread popularity. Other favorite motifs for paint-ings included Shoulaoren, the god of longevity; Dong-fang Shuo, another symbol of long life; Wenchang Dijun, the god of literature and learning; and Guan-sheng Dijun, the god of the martial arts.

The ten symbols of longevity included the peach, derived from the peaches of Xi Wangmu, and the lingzhi mushroom, both Taoist symbols of immortality, as well as deer, cranes, and turtles; these symbols were widely used as auspicious patterns on paintings and handi-craft works.

Doing Good Deeds to Become an ImmortalThe more avid Taoists studied ways to become an

immortal. In Taoism, there are two ways to achieve this aim; one is waidan, or external alchemy, which relies on the intake of elixirs; the other is neidan, or inter-nal alchemy, that involves the accumulation of internal energy through self-cultivation. The so-called Golden Elixir, made with such ingredients as mercuric sulfide and lead, resulted in instances of poisoning and death, leading to the demise of external alchemy during the Song Dynasty. In Korea, the tradition of internal alche-my dates back to the ninth century when Kim Ga-gi, Choe Seung-u, and Monk Jahye of Unified Silla studied in Tang, and reached a peak during the Joseon Dynasty, when its advocates included such prominent intellectu-als as Kim Si-seup and Jeong Ryeom. Like the famed Neo-Confucian philosopher Yi Hwang (1501-1570), there were many who were not devout Taoists but prac-ticed internal alchemy in order to maintain good health.

Taoism taught, however, that no amount of elixir or self-cultivation makes an immortal without the practice of good deeds based on proper morals and ethics. In Korea, Taoist books propounding universal morals and norms including Confucian and Buddhist virtues were widely distributed during later Joseon. These books were well received by the public as they were practical and relevant, and were easy to read.

Many Taoist deities who originated from indigenous Chinese religions overlapped with Korea’s native gods. From early on, Koreans revered the land, rivers, moun-tains, and trees, which formed their natural environ-

constellations, including the Big Dipper, and to pray for the well-being of the royal household and the country; that engravings of the sun, the moon, and the Big Dipper are found on stone coffins of the Goryeo period; that Houtu is invoked in the burial registry certificate found in the Tomb of King Muryeong of the Baekje Kingdom; and that rites were conducted to appease the Dragon God of the seas and rivers and to pray for rain and safe voyages.

During the Goryeo Dynasty, when Taoist rites were commonly held to pray for the welfare of the royal fam-ily and the nation, it was considered a virtue to know not only the ways of Confucianism and Buddhism but also Taoism and the Taoist way of life. Under the Joseon Dynasty, which adopted Neo-Confucianism as its ruling ideology, Taoism suffered a sharp decline in status but nonetheless retained its influence in litera-ture and painting.

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“Incense Box with Engravings of Taoist Immortals,” Goryeo Dynasty, 13th century, Gilt silver, D. 5.6 cm; National Museum of Korea.


ment, and they also believed in guardian spirits that watched over their villages, fortresses, and homes. As such, it was natural for Chinese Taoist gods to be accepted in Korea and combined with indigenous faiths to become part of Korean religion. Among them were Chilseong, or the Seven Star Spirit, which is related to the Big Dipper; Seonghwang, the protector of the for-tress or village; and Jowang, the kitchen god associ-ated with fire.

The open and embracing nature of Taoism allowed it to easily interact with Buddhism and folk religions, and even influence new thought like Donghak, or Eastern Learning. The Taoist hermit philosophy and lifestyle

exerted great influence on Korea’s literature, painting, and other art genres, while necromancy, or the secret magic arts of the Taoist immortals, inspired hero nov-els during later Joseon. The practice of self-cultivation among intellectuals became intertwined with tradition-al mountain worship and belief in the immortals to be handed down through generations of reclusive figures.

How Relevant is Taoism Today?The exhibition was planned with the hope that the

stories embedded in Taoist culture would be repro-duced by contemporary artists and the viewing public to take on new life as narratives of pursuing happiness

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in our time. Doing so would be an oppor-tunity to reexamine the Taoist culture as a vast treasure trove of cultural content. Hence a special attempt was made to display works by contemporary artists that reinterpret the meaning of Taoist culture in the modern context, thereby showing that Taoist culture is not something distant or irrelevant but very much related to our everyday lives.

It is in human nature to seek solace when life treats us harshly. In this regard, it would not be appropriate to make a fuss about Taoism, believing that it can solve all our problems, or dismiss it altogether as superstition. Rather, our task is to reinterpret the meaning of Taoist

culture in modern contexts. Taoism is an integral part of Korean history and culture, and it cannot be denied that Taoist culture can still be witnessed in today’s sea-sonal rites and folk religion, enriching our daily lives. In this sense, the exhibition served as a means to trace the origin of various things we still practice today in the name of tradition and to observe different ways of life within that tradition.

There can be no greater satisfaction for the organ-izers than to see the exhibition serve as an incubator for the various contexts of Taoist culture that have been handed down thus far to be turned into new cultural content through the eyes and hands of people today.

“Celadon Qilin-shaped Incense Burner,” Goryeo Dynasty, 12th century, H. 26.3 cm; National Museum of Korea.

1 “The Sun, the Moon, and Five Peaks,” Joseon Dynasty, acquired in 1909, 194.7 x 219.0 cm, Ink and color on silk. Most paintings of this genre from the 20th century were painted with Western pigments imported via China, but this was painted with traditional stone and mineral pigments. 2 “Heavenly Peaches,” Joseon Dynasty, 195.8 x 238.5 cm, Ink and color on paper; National Museum of Korea. Believed to have been painted by a court artist to wish for the longevity of the king, this is on the back of a panel painting of the sun, the moon, and five peaks, set up behind the throne.

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IN LOVE WITH KOREA

On a summer’s day in Wisconsin in 2006, Dr. George Archibald, sitting on a bench outside the visionary conservationist Aldo Leopold’s research cabin, received the news that he had been awarded the inaugural Indianapolis Prize, now one of the world’s most prestigious animal conservation awards. This message, delivered by Indianapolis Zoo president and the award’s creator Michael Crowther, surprised Archibald, as he believed that he merely represented a whole team of people who all deserved the prize as a group.Ben Jackson Journalist | Kim Yeon-soo Photographer

George Archibald Brings the Koreas Together through Crane Conservation

A young George Archibald spends time with a female whooping crane that he formed a close relationship with by its wooden shack.

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In 1973, Canadian-born ornithologist George Archibald and his Cornell University colleague Ronald Sauey decided to take action

to save the world’s remaining species of cranes from extinction. Together, they founded the International Crane Foundation (ICF). “Ron was from Baraboo, Wisconsin, where his parents had a small horse farm. They moved the horses to a large farm in Florida and leased the Baraboo property to us for one dollar a year,” explains Archibald. “That’s where we started.”

ICF Hatches, Takes WingThe ICF quickly began making history: in 1975, it successfully

hatched the first red-crowned cranes in the Western Hemisphere. This was followed by multiple other firsts, along with visits to Rus-sia and China, countries still off limits to most Westerners at the time, in the name of crane conservation. By 1985, the ICF had become the first facility in the world to house all 15 crane species, after receiving several black-necked cranes from these countries. By 1993, it had succeeded in breeding all 15 species successfully. Its collaboration with China, Russia, Vietnam, and a host of other countries continued to develop.

The ICF now supports crane conservation projects in over 20 countries, a global reach necessitated in part by the migratory

habits of cranes. Its stated mission is to “conserve cranes and the ecosystems, watersheds, and flyways on which they depend” and provide “experience, knowledge, and inspiration to involve peo-ple in resolving threats to these ecosystems.” Its work is far from done, emphasizes Archibald, despite the wide base of support it has built so far. “The ICF is supported by some 8,000 members and through grants from international agencies, governments, founda-tions, and corporations. We are always searching for and welcom-ing new partners. The needs are great and our financial resources are always limiting.”

But why cranes? In the words of Archibald himself: “Everything a crane does is graceful. They are huge birds — easy to observe, study, and appreciate. They have dramatic dances, and primeval calls that carry for miles. They are fascinating, charismatic crea-tures.” Archibald wrote his doctoral thesis in the 1970s on the behavioral displays of cranes, especially their so-called “unison call” duets, and the bearing of evolution on these phenomena. Together, the 15 species of crane engage in more than 100 behav-ioral acts, with each species performing at least 60.

In East Asia, cranes carry cultural and historical significance in addition to their ecological importance. Their graceful forms have long been used to signify longevity, peace, and purity, and are fea-


tured in numerous traditional paintings, pottery decorations, and modern New Year’s greeting cards. Ensuring the survival of these beautiful birds in places such as the Korean Peninsula, then, car-ries an added layer of cultural meaning as well as the hope that the adversarial relationship between humans and environments rendered so acute by modernization and rural poverty may not be entirely irreversible.

Man Courts CraneIn the 1970s, Archibald’s relationship with cranes expanded

from the scientific to the personal, when he spent time bonding with a female whooping crane called Tex. She arrived at the ICF headquarters in 1976, at a time when whooping crane numbers were dangerously low in the United States. Having been born in captivity, Tex imprinted herself on humans — and on Archibald in particular. The pair would take early morning walks together, with Archibald imitating Tex’s dances. Grainy video footage from the time shows a younger Archibald opening the door to Tex’s wooden shack in the morning and following her as she totters up the road,

turning to check if he is still behind. Later on, he squats down and flaps his arm-wings, emulating his companion.

When Tex became frisky, Archibald engaged her in a courtship ritual while two other ICF researchers artificially inseminated her. Ultimately, Tex laid an egg that hatched into a chick, christened Gee Whiz. More video from the 1970s shows Archibald appearing on “The Tonight Show” and delivering the shocking news to John-ny Carson and an audience of 22 million that Tex had been killed by a predator the night before the show — an event, he says, that may have played a greater role in drawing attention to the ICF than the birth of Gee Whiz itself. “My work with Tex is a metaphor for the ‘dance’ of crane conservationists worldwide as we try all means to provide a safe future for cranes,” says Archibald.

Korean Crane BreakthroughOften described as the most heavily fortified area on earth, the

Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea also harbors a rich variety of wildlife. With a width of 4 kilometers, this strip of “no man’s land” runs across the Korean Peninsula from

While political relations between North and South Korea have been frozen for the last five or six years and show no signs of thawing, the activities of people like George Archibald maintain vital strands of connection, albeit indirect, between the two halves of the divided nation.

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coast to coast and has largely escaped the depredations of rapid economic development and intensive agriculture. It was here, in the mid-1970s, that Archibald and his Korean colleagues unex-pectedly discovered large numbers of cranes.

“ICF received a grant from the then New York Zoological Society to support a Korean professor, Dr. Kim Hon-kyu of Ewha Womans University, to look for cranes in the Western portion of the DMZ near the truce village of Panmunjom,” recalls Archibald. “He found several families of red-crowned cranes and flocks of white-naped cranes. I studied these birds in subsequent years. In 1977, togeth-er with researchers from Kyung Hee University, we found a flock of some 120 red-crowned cranes in the Cheorwon Basin of the cen-tral highland area of the DMZ.” Forty years later, the ICF’s work in South Korea continues, especially in and around the DMZ.

Like a crane, Archibald is largely unconstrained by internation-al borders. When the number of cranes wintering in South Korea began increasing sharply in the late 1990s, scientists linked the phenomenon to problems with their previous wintering site: the Anbyon Plain, a riverside area some 80 kilometers north of Cheor-won. In other words, North Korea.

“The Anbyon Plain, before the 1990s, was a wintering site for some 240 red-crowned cranes,” Archibald explains. “Food short-ages for humans, and associated habitat loss and disturbances, caused the cranes to move to the Cheorwon Basin in the DMZ dur-ing the 1990s.” Eventually, the ICF began working north of the bor-der, too. “Since 2008, we have helped the farmers of the Anbyon Plain develop organic farming,” Archibald continues. “It has been a great success. Soils and crop production have improved. Cranes have been returning in November and December and then leav-ing for the DMZ. We hope to fence off the area used by the cranes to keep out humans and domestic animals. Reducing this distur-bance might induce the cranes to remain all winter.”

With regard to his activity at various levels of society in wider East Asia — Korea, China, Vietnam and Japan — from grassroots to government, Archibald emphasizes the need for close collabo-ration with local experts and decision makers. As to his experi-ences in Korea, Archibald is full of praise. “My North Korean col-leagues are outstanding professionals,” he says. “It is a total joy to work with them. My North Korean colleagues have a depth of feel-ing and connection that’s sometimes shadowed in those in South Korea by overfilled days. But they are all lovely Koreans with whom I resonate.”

The Art of PersuasionOne of the trickiest issues confronted by many conservationists

is persuading others of the value of what they seek to conserve. So how does Archibald go about this in countries where many people’s priorities lie elsewhere? “When I started my work on the Korean Demilitarized Zone, I was laughed at. The military wouldn’t think of letting me in there,” he says. “But once I had my foot in the door, and once I connected to the cranes, there was great interest in Korea at many levels and the whole thing took off.”

As well as persuading governments or military authorities, talking with local people who live alongside cranes has proved an indispensable part of the ICF’s work. “By first helping the people that live near the cranes, and sharing with them your knowledge of and interest in the cranes, the local people often see the cranes through new eyes and develop an interest in conservation,” says Archibald.

Looking back on his 40-year career, what does Archibald con-sider his highs and lows? “The greatest joy is having established an organization dedicated to helping creatures for which I have a great personal interest. A low point was in 2003 when we lost the population of Siberian cranes that wintered in India. Hunting along their migration route that traversed a continent was undoubtedly the reason for their demise, especially attributed to challenges in Afghanistan since 1979.”

While political relations between North and South Korea have been frozen for the last five or six years and show no signs of thawing, the activities of people like George Archibald maintain vital strands of connection, albeit indirect, between the two halves of the divided nation.

Cranes, meanwhile, provide a direct link, their graceful migra-tions taking them high above the land mines and fortified fences of the DMZ in the same evolutionarily-programmed movements that have persisted since long before the 60-year-long standoff or any of the ideologies behind it.

As long as Koreans on both sides of the DMZ maintain their love and respect for the common natural history and heritage that unites them, surely there is hope for reunification and beyond.

Dr. Archibald poses for the camera with North Korean ornithologists during his visit to Anbyon Plain, where he has helped local farmers develop organic farming since 2008 in order to bring the cranes back to their old wintering ground.


ON THE ROAD

At 20, I was walking leisurely along a river on an early summer day. Sunbeams were slanting into the water, river-green, and the wind was sweet-smelling. At the time, poetry was the topmost purpose of my life. I wanted to dedicate all 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds, of every day to thinking about and writing poetry. Then, I had a dream: I would visit all the villages across the country and stay overnight in each to gather inspiration for my poems.Gwak Jae-gu Poet | Lee Han-koo, Cho Ji-young Photographers

Shangri-la of Literature and Tea

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Mt. Jiri is famous for its mystical scenery that changes every season. Its frosted peaks at dawn look truly splendid. Mt. Jiri is a national park steeped in legend, sprawling over the southern edge of the country, with five counties in three provinces in its vast embrace — South Gyeongsang and North and South Jeolla provinces.

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The lower reaches of the Seomjin River are noted for mitten crabs and corbicula clams, crustaceans that live only in pristine waters, and for a ferryboat propelled by a boatman pulling on a rope that is tied to both sides of the river, instead of using oars.

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I wanted to see what kinds of flowers bloomed in each village; which village had the most beautiful night sky; what people chat-

ted about at the village well; and what songs the villagers sang on festive days. I believed that I could write poems, which I had dreamed of, only if I saw with my own eyes what I wanted to see, instead of merely hearing about it. I wanted to visit villages and smell their fragrances firsthand. Therefore, it was a natural choice for me to visit the Seomjin River, an area around Mt. Jiri, and Hadong in South Gyeongsang Province, on my first hiking trip. It is only about 40 kilometers from Suncheon, where I lived, to Hadong. Vivid memories of an earlier visit prompted me to go there again.

Along the Seomjin RiverIt was in the 1970s that I first visited Hadong. Vast stretches

of Mt. Jiri loomed along the Seomjin River shadowing me at the time, just like today. I walked on and on. When it got dark, I would pitch a tent on sandy beaches by the river. I lay down by the river and gazed at the stars in the sky. Lying down on the sand, upon which the moonlight fell, I wrote a letter to a friend: “The moon is so bright tonight that I can even read Rabindranath Tagore or Her-mann Hesse. The scent of briar roses wafting from the rambling ridges of thickets along the river is too overpowering for me to fall asleep.” To me, Hadong was almost a Utopia or a Shangri-la.

In the 1970s, Korean society in general was far from conveying the sense of warmth and peacefulness that I felt in Hadong. Korea was among Asia’s poorest countries and most people were groan-ing under an authoritarian military government. Checkpoints and barricades stood on every major street in the cities. Police offic-ers strode up and down the streets, walkie-talkies in hand, while plainclothesmen stopped and frisked pedestrians, inspecting bags for any reason. At the tender age of 20, I loved poetry and believed that writing poetry would be my life’s career. But I wasn’t sure if poetry could redeem our lives. Could I write poetry until the last moment? Why was I born in this country? A 20-year-old young man’s sojourn was probably bound to reflect life’s uphill struggle, steeped in a sense of frustration.

From Hwagae Marketplace to Ssanggye TempleI arrived at the Hwagae ferry marina five days after I started my

journey. There, I took a ferryboat, which the boatman operated by pulling on the rope that connected the two sides of the river. It was fascinating to see how the river served as a link, in more ways than one, between the Jeolla region on one side and Gyeongsang on the other. And it was truly heartwarming to see people from the two regions riding together in the same boat. I asked an old lady in the boat where she had been. She smiled good-naturedly, showing off her gums, as she said that she had been to her in-laws’. Leaving the ferry behind, I headed for Hwagae Marketplace, a much hyped

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tourist spot in Hadong.Although all of the old facilities and buildings are

long gone, I still have vivid memories of the old mar-ketplace. Shanty shops built with wooden planks daubed with coal tar lined both sides of the street. I felt comfortable walking between those sun-washed shanties. Is there anything more exciting than walk-ing around in a marketplace like this? There were linen and cotton fabric shops, rice shops, stores selling medicinal herbs, and stores for farm implements, as well as taverns, breweries, and old inns. In 1990, these dilapidated shanties were replaced by modern struc-tures. Hwagae’s preeminence as a traditional market-place would have been more authentic than now, if the old marketplace had been preserved and a new mod-ern market built nearby.

After a tour of Hwagae Marketplace, I reached Ssanggye Temple, located in Unsu-ri, Hwagae-myeon of Hadong County. Hwagae means “flowers in bloom” and Unsu “trees in the clouds.” Is there any other address more poetic than this temple’s? I was walk-ing around the temple compound, where Guelder roses were in bloom, when a young monk approached and struck up a conversation with me. He asked me what I was there for. I said I was there to write poetry. Perhaps, our brief Zen-like conversation might have

piqued his curiosity. He invited me to his room for a cup of tea. I nodded in acceptance. In his room, I care-fully watched him prepare the tea. He put a handful of tea leaves into an ivory-colored teakettle and then poured boiled water into it. The monk then asked me, “Why are you writing poems?” I had never encountered such an abstruse question, nor have I ever since.

The pale green tea, which the monk had poured for me, brought a sudden insight. I hesitated a little before I finally touched and lifted the cup, because the color of the tea was so surreally beautiful it caused me to pause. It was the first green tea I had ever tast-ed in my life. Much later, I came to learn that Korea’s first tea plants were grown nearby. On the way down from the temple, it occurred to me that I could live in a mountain all my life, intoxicated by the deep scent of green tea.

Village Steeped in the Scent of LiteraturePyeongsa-ri village in Hadong has gained celeb-

rity status since “Land,” an epic novel by Park Kyung-ni, was published. The novel is a sprawling saga about people’s obsession with land and love, following a large cast of characters through Korea’s turbulent his-tory into the turn of the 20th century. The story and the passions it brought to life still echo in the hearts

Hwagae Marketplace is a traditional market that opens every five days. A commercial hub that linked villages in the mountain for centuries, it has now emerged as a popular tourist attraction.

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The tea-growing area in Hadong is foggy and humid, as it is close to the Seomjin River. The tea grown here is excellent in flavor and quality thanks to its natural environment which is ideal for growing tea plants. Tea leaves picked by hand between late April and early May produce a mellow-tasting and flavorful tea.

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of many readers. When I visited Pyeongsa-ri 40 years ago for the first time, I found the smell of ripened barley wafting over the vil-lage. Then I found out what a house loft was. Most residents of this village, who used to till the fields in a valley, built lofts in their houses. From a pavilion-style loft, it was possible to take in sweep-ing views of the open fields and the Seomjin River beyond. At sun-set, after working in the fields, a family or two gathered around a dinner table in a loft with a floor of bamboo or rough-hewn logs, chatting away into the night. This heartwarming scene exuded a sense of peace and solace.

The house with the grandest loft in the village sat to the left of a hillside path. Its two-story loft, standing right beside the house’s front gate, gave off pure peaceful energy, adding luster to the beautiful scenery of the Seomjin River and the Agyang Plain. But sadly, when I visited this village again much later, I found this loft had been demolished. All things beautiful may be doomed to van-ish from our lives as time flows by.

Suddenly, village lights came into view. The glimmering lights looked just like pebbles shimmering in the water, almost within reach, like the single line of a poem that I once barely finished, weeping all night. Then a realization came to me: The most beau-tiful artwork that human beings have created on earth is a vision of the glimmering lights of a village in the evening. Picasso, van Gogh, and Chagall produced great paintings after getting fasci-nated by the glimmer of village lights. The same may be true for poetry. As long as poetry was born in the mundane world of ordi-nary people, it dawned on me that this world, in which people must keep living, is the most heavenly place that should be cherished by poets. No matter how deprived and painful our life might be, there must be an ideal place in this world, for all humans to dream of. I became free, little by little, on the road.

Pyeongsa-ri, famous as the setting of the epic novel “Land” (Toji) by Korea’s literary titan Park Kyung-ni, is a land favored by nature. This area is well-known as a literary village and for many scenic spots of great natural beauty. The House of Choe Champan, a re-creation of the eponymous house in the novel; and grains and fermented bean cakes drying outside the kitchen.

Seomjin RiverThe Seomjin River, 212.3 kilometers long, is the fourth largest river in South Korea. It meanders through three southern provinces, North and South Jeolla and South Gyeongsang. Seen from Hadong, the river serves as a boundary between the Gyeongsang and Jeolla regions. A walk on the footpath along the riverside takes one on a picturesque tour of surrounding mountains, fields, and hillside villages nearby.

Hwagae MarketplaceHwagae is a traditional marketplace that has long served people from Hadong, South Gyeongsang Province, and Gurye, South Jeolla Province. It is a relatively small market, just 50 meters in length and some 165 square meters in area. Back in the 1700s, this marketplace was the center of commerce that linked the hillside villages in the Mt. Jiri area. At that time, the Seomjin River was a major waterway, so people from the Gyeongsang and Jeolla regions came together and bartered forest and farm products of the inland areas

for seafood brought in from the South Sea. It is now a popular tourist attraction with historical significance and cultural value.

House of Choe Champan in Pyeongsa-riPark Kyung-ni’s “Land” is an epic novel set mainly in Pyeongsa-ri, Agyang-myeon, Hadong County. The House of Choe Champan [Vice Minister Choe] in this village is, in fact, a re-creation of the house in the novel, built for the shooting of a TV drama based on the novel. It is open to tourists. The house consists of 10 tile-roofed wooden structures built on an area of 508 square meters. It hosts various cultural events related to the novel, and also operates a variety of literary programs.

Ssanggye TempleSsanggyesa is located in the Mt. Jiri National Park, at the southern foot of the mountain. This temple is known to have been built by Ven. Sam-beop, a disciple of Ven. Uisang, in 722. As sug-gested by its name (“ssang” means two or double, and “gye” means valley), it sits where two valleys

are conjoined. In April every year, this area offers a magnificent view, with cherry blossoms in full bloom amidst clear streams, fantastic rock forma-tions, and old trees, all in breathtaking harmony. A memorial pagoda for Zen Master Jingam, built by King Jeonggang of Silla in recognition of the monk’s high virtue, is among prized cultural relics at the temple. It is National Treasure No. 47.

First Tea PlantationThe First Tea Plantation, located near Ssanggye Temple, has been preserved as South Gyeongsang’s Provincial Monument No. 61. With its history dating back to the ninth century, the sprawling tea plantation stretches about 12 kilometers. The wild and cultivated tea fields on the hills and flat land reward visitors with gorgeous landscapes and a chance to get close to the source of the highest quality green tea leaves that Hadong is celebrated for. Nowadays, people in Hadong and Gurye harvest tea leaves three times a year — in May, July, and August — from this historic plantation.

From a pavilion-style loft, it was possible to take in sweeping views of the open fields and the Seomjin River beyond. At sunset, after working in the fields, a family or two gathered around a dinner table in a loft with a floor of bamboo or rough-hewn logs, chatting away into the night.


ALONG THEIR OWN PATH

Photographer Kim Nyung-man Documents Moments of HistoryKim Nyung-man has been recording moments in Korea’s modern history with his camera for over 40 years. Taking photographs has been his own way of documenting historic incidents as well as expressing himself. The career photojournalist says he is happy because he has been able to do what he likes best and can do best.Yoon Se-young Senior Editor, Monthly Photo Art Magazine

It is said that history belongs to those who write it, because the past is remembered by records and reconstructed accordingly.

Thanks to the advent of photography, the most realistic and objec-tive medium for reconstructing bygone events, we have been able to look into the past with reasonable accuracy. Kim Nyung-man, born in 1949, is a prominent photographer who has recorded criti-cal moments of modern Korean history. Recognizing the power of photography early on, he has given full play to the innate character-istic of his chosen craft.

Inspired by Hometown HistoryThere are ruins of an ancient fortress wall in Gochang County,

Kim’s hometown in North Jeolla Province. Back in 1969, nobody knew when the fortress was built, so the county government offered an award to anyone who could find out the date of its con-struction. Kim, fresh out of high school then and thinking seriously about what to do for his livelihood, decided to take part in the con-test.

First, in search of clues he walked round the fortress wall doz-ens of times, examining it from all angles and photographing each of the stone inscriptions. Next he visited a public library where he pored over books from the Joseon Dynasty for any hint or clue that might match up with his photos. After such painstaking effort, he finally figured out that the fortress was built in 1453, the second year of the reign of Danjong, the sixth king of Joseon.

“It wouldn’t have been so difficult if there had been even a sin-gle reference in a history book that indicated when the fortress was built. That’s when I realized the importance of records. I also felt the

attraction of photography as I relied on photo images for verification of my research findings. So with my prize money, I came to Seoul to learn photography,” Kim recalls.

Kim went back to his hometown after learning basic photog-raphy skills at a private institute in Seoul. There he took photos of various aspects of the Saemaul (New Community) Movement, which had been launched in 1971. He recorded scenes of the coun-tryside, which had little changed for hundreds of years but was now undergoing rapid transformation. Two years later, he entered Chung-Ang University’s Department of Photography to study the art formally.

But whenever he returned home during vacation, he continued to take photographs of rural life, which made his friends jokingly call him a “country bumpkin.” He didn’t care, and kept photograph-ing his hometown, lamenting the many vanishing aspects of the countryside.

Upon graduation from college in 1978 he was hired as a pho-tographer by the Dong-A Ilbo, a leading national daily based in Seoul. For the next 23 years he worked as a photojournalist for the paper. He was at the scene to cover major moments and sites in modern Korean history, including the Gwangju Democratization Movement in May 1980 and the fierce pro-democracy demonstra-tions in downtown Seoul throughout the 1980s, the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, and the presidential office, Cheong Wa Dae.

Kim considers himself fortunate in that he has been able to develop both artistic and journalistic perspectives, having become a photojournalist after pursuing his personal interest in photography.

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1 Riot police officers take a break after demonstrations came to a lull. (Haengdang-dong, Seoul, 1982) 2 Between transplanting rice seedlings, a peasant woman breastfeeds her baby, who is carried on his sister’s back. (Gochang, North Jeolla Province, 1974) 3 At the truce village of Panmunjom, where tension prevails, a North Korean soldier is taking an interest in a telephoto lens carried by a South Korean reporter. (Panmunjom, 1990)

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News Photos with Artistic SensibilityKim Nyung-man has attracted considerable attention for the

way he has never lost his artistic perspective despite his work as a photojournalist who has to capture the latest news. Though only one of his photos would end up being chosen by his editor for each story, he never failed to give that photo his own distinctive touch

His efforts and expertise are reflected in his photo books, includ-ing “That Day in Gwangju,” a collection of scenes from the Gwangju Democratization Movement; “Panmunjom,” with vivid images of national division; “What in the World Is the Presidency?” which resulted from his six-year stint as a news photographer at Cheong Wa Dae; and “20 Years of Upheaval,” wrapping up his career as a photojournalist.

In 2005, he received the Foreign Photographer Prize at the

Higashikawa International Photo Festival in Hokkaido, Japan, in recognition of his dedication as a photojournalist, as reflected in his book “20 Years of Upheaval,” which sheds light on Korea during the 1980s and 90s.

After retiring as a news photographer in 2001, he still records images of his hometown, Seoul, Panmunjom, and the Demilita-rized Zone. These photos are featured in his latest book, “Portrait of the Times,” which was published early this year. Revealing aspects of Korean society over the past 40 years, it is a retrospective of Kim’s career in photojournalism. The 270 or so photos in the book bear witness to key moments of modern Korean history, includ-ing changes in the countryside and Seoul in the wake of industri-alization, political upheavals like pro-democracy demonstrations in Gwangju and Seoul, as well as images that remind us of national

In the days of the onslaught of modernization in rural areas, the posterior image of a rural woman walking on a dirt road after shopping at a nearby market stands in stark contrast to a rushing taxi raising a cloud of dust. (Gochang, North Jeolla Province, 1976)


An old man, who left his hometown in North Korea long ago, is deep in prayer, holding the barbed wire fence south of the DMZ after paying respects to his ancestors at the Imjingak Pavilion on lunar New Year’s Day. (Imjingak, Gyeonggi Province, 1993)

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division and ideological confrontation.“If photography is a medium that can record fleeting moments,

a collection of photos is like a sentence or a story woven together with a series of images,” Kim says. “So I diligently took photos and worked hard to publish those images in books.”

As the old saying goes, “Only when glass beads are strung together can they become a precious jewel.” In this way, Kim has turned his photos into precious historical records.

Han and HumorKim’s works are heartwarming in a unique way. In each and

every photo you can find humor, whether it is an image of a rural area or a poor neighborhood in Seoul, or even Panmunjom, a site of tension, but they tug at your heartstrings at the same time. He uses humor to express han, a feeling of suppressed rancor and injustice that is often associated with the Korean psyche.

The photo of a mother breastfeeding her baby, who is on his sister’s back, as she stands on a ridge between rice paddies dur-ing the busy rice-planting season, creates a pang in your heart and makes you smile at the same time. The mother apparently has no time to look after her baby at home because she has to work in the fields. Though exhausted from hard work, she holds one edge of the baby wrapper with a muddy hand so that he is as comfortable as possible.

Kim’s photos of street demonstrations show a riot police officer plugging his nose with cotton during a brief pause and a passer-by covering his head with a plastic bag as the peppery sting of tear gas lingers in the air. This wit is also apparent in his photos of Panmun-jom. In one photo, a North Korean soldier curiously looks into the camera lens of a South Korean photographer.

Regarding the humor in his photos, Kim says, “I’m from Gochang, a place with a strong pansori [traditional narrative song] tradition. Listen to ‘Chunhyang-jeon,’ ‘Heungbu-jeon,’ or ‘Sim-

cheong-jeon,’ and you’ll find that the protagonists maintain a sense of humor even in a desperate or thoroughly miserable situation. There is deep pathos in their humor. I wanted to take photos of scenes with these sentiments — images that show not only people’s outward appearance, but also inner nature.”

Of course, it is Kim’s own sense of humor that infuses his works. This is evident in his ability to capture witty moments under what-ever circumstances, which has become a trademark of his photog-raphy.

National Division, an Ongoing ThemeSixty-one years after the end of the Korean War in 1953, record-

ing images that reflect the pain of national division remains Kim’s top priority. He has been taking photos of Panmunjom and the DMZ area over the past 30 years, and vows to continue doing so until the peninsula is reunified and his photos are archived as relics of his-tory.

“One of my photos features the deeply wrinkled face of an elder-ly man who left his hometown in North Korea during the war hold-ing onto the barbed wire fence with his hands on the southern side of the DMZ. This photo has become an icon of the painful tragedy of national division and copies of it can be seen at Imjingak Pavilion and the DMZ,” Kim says, adding that, “It has already been 20 years since I photographed the old man. Perhaps he has passed away, but the peninsula still remains divided.”

Kim wants to record history not only from a macroscopic view-point, but from a microscopic perspective as well. For more than 40 years, with his own heartwarming visual language he has woven stories about how people have lived and made history together. And one of the unfinished stories is national division.

Kim says he is happy because he has lived all his life doing what he likes best and can do best. He intends to continue to take photo-graphs for as long as he is physically able to do so, he adds.

“One of my photos features the deeply wrinkled face of an elderly man who left his hometown in North Korea during the war holding onto the barbed wire fence with his hands on the southern side of the DMZ ... It has already been 20 years since I photographed this old man. Perhaps he has passed away, but the peninsula still remains divided.”

BOO

KS & M

OR

ECharles La Shure Professor, Departm

ent of Korean Language and Literature, Seoul National University

Kim Young-dae Pop M

usic Critic

Arirang” is more than just a plain-tive folk song that has for centuries

been a beloved favorite of Koreans; it has become a symbol of Korea and its cul-ture. In response to the growing interest in “Arirang,” the Academy of Korean Studies and the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Foundation co-hosted the International Conference for Arirang in December 2011, drawing scholars from Korea and around the world. This is a collection of the papers presented during the conference.

The book is divided into six sections, which give the impression of expanding ripples in a pond. The first section con-

tains the keynote address, in which Cho Dong-il calls for the treatment of Arirang as a “total science,” requiring interdisci-plinary study encompassing music, litera-ture, folklore, geography, and history. The next section discusses the musical char-acteristics of “Arirang.” Lee Bo-hyung and Kim Young-un trace the historical devel-opment of the song from its beginnings in Gangwon Province to its spread around the nation.

The third section approaches the sub-ject from the perspectives of literature and popular culture. Kang Deung-hag dis-cusses the role played by film in popular-izing the song, and Kim Ik-doo outlines the various symbolic and thematic uses of “Arirang” in literature. The next sec-tion leaves South Korea. Jung Pal-yong, a North Korean defector, discusses the dif-

ferences and similarities between North and South Korean ver-sions of the song and proposes the adoption of “Arirang” as the national anthem of a unified Korea; and Zhang Yishan shows how “Arirang” is manifested in Chinese culture and what it means to ethnic Koreans residing in China.

The fifth section deals with the Asian region, with Yukio Uemu-ra examining the Japanese folk song “Lullaby of Itsuki Village” and tracing its origins to “Arirang.” The final section deals with “Arirang” in the United States, Europe, and Africa.

This is certainly the most complete and diverse examination of “Arirang” that has ever been published in English. While some of the papers could have used the attention of an English-speak-ing editor to smooth out the language, the volume nonetheless stands as a testament to the growing recognition and influence of “Arirang” and Korean culture throughout the world.

In America, the home of pop music, the so-called “pop music for adults” was

recognized as a new genre in the early 1960s. The media called it “adult contem-porary” and from the 1970s radio stations catering to this trend called it “easy-listen-ing,” a term that has survived to this day. Some of the major names associated with this genre are Barbra Streisand and Lionel Richie, known for their powerful vocals and emotional songs, and more recently Michael Bublé.

In Korea, too, ever since Western pop

“Hello” 19th album by Cho Yong-pil (2013), Universal Music Korea, 18,300 won “Serendipity” 15th album by Lee Sun-hee (2014), Loen Entertainment, 16,500 won ”Fall to Fly — Before” 11th album by Lee Seung-hwan (2014), Kt Music, 16,500 won

“Arirang in Korean Culture and Beyond” Compiled by Sheen Dae-cheol, 309 pages, 25,000 won, Soul: Academy of Korean Studies Press

Spotlight on ‘Adult Contemporary,’ Pop Music for Adults

Most Comprehensive Study of ‘Arirang’ Ever in English

“

personal relationships, with overlapping love triangles that keep the reader guessing at what is going to happen next. Yi himself divorced his wife from an arranged marriage and later eloped with a female doctor who nursed him back to health when he was ill, so he was no stranger to affairs of the heart.

The book is organized into four parts, each of which is divided into smaller sections, reflecting the serial nature of the novel as it was originally published. In the first part, the protagonist Heo Sung leaves his rural home to study in Seoul and becomes a lawyer; there he marries Yun Jeong-seon, the daughter of an aristocratic official. In the second part, he returns to his hometown to launch a rural enlightenment campaign there. The third part brings a cruel twist when Jeong-seon has a brief dalliance with a former suitor and later attempts suicide. The final part deals with the conflicts between the villagers that arise due to the actions of the local landlord.

In addition to its importance as a literary work, the novel also provides a glimpse into the rural enlightenment movement of the Koreans under Japanese rule and its underlying philosophy. How-ever, it should be understood that this is not necessarily an accu-rate representation of Korea at that time; rather, it is an idealized account from the perspective of its intellectual protagonist, who is always portrayed as noble and faultless for whatever he does, and who views the rural villagers as hopelessly backward. While it may not be an objective representation of Korea’s history, it does peer into the mind of an idealistic intellectual who must deal with the reality of colonial life.

The translation is faithful to the original and seeks to pre-serve the feel and ambience of the Korean text; it was recognized by World Literature Today as one of its 75 Notable Translations in 2013. Due to its historical context, the work might not strike a chord with readers like more contemporary Korean fiction, but it is an important milestone in Korean literary history and will appeal to anyone with an interest in digging deeper into how Korea has evolved into the nation and the society it is today.

Yi Kwang-su, often credited with writing the first modern Kore-an novel, lived in a tumultuous period of Korea’s history. He

was educated in Japan, but in the early years of Japanese colonial rule he was an ardent supporter of the independence movement. Toward the end of the colonial period, though, he was careful not to write anything that might upset the Japanese, for which he was later criticized. This has naturally led to conflicting views among Korean researchers about his literature and scholarship, but there is no denying that he was a foremost figure in colonial-period lit-erature.

“The Soil” was originally serialized in the Dong-A Ilbo newspa-per from April 1932 to July 1933. It takes as its subject the rural enlightenment movement based on the belief that Korea’s way for-ward was to be found in education, especially the education of the peasants living in the countryside. It also weaves a web of complex

First Modern Korean Novel Translated for Global Readers

music was introduced in the 1960s, the trends have been led by the young. In recent times, with the explosive popular-ity of K-pop and what Koreans call “idol music” (by girl groups and boy bands), the older generation have naturally felt left behind. This situation has changed, howev-er, with the success of the TV program “I’m a Singer.” Launched in 2011, this program confirmed that a market still exists for Korean pop music catering to more sophis-ticated adult tastes.

In the midst of idol music fever, the

successful return of Cho Yong-pil in 2013 was a memorable event. The songs of the long-reigning “King of Korean Pop” speak to both his contemporaries and the young without sacrificing any of his high musical standards. Stimulated by his suc-cess, more veteran singers returned to the stage in 2014. Lee Sun-hee, a female vocal-ist appealing to all generations, and Lee Seung-hwan, who has stayed in tune with the public through his concerts, produced high quality music mixing various genres such as pop, jazz, R&B, and rock. Their

heavy investment in recording and post-production work shows their commitment to producing “music for listening.”

The growing international popularity of K-pop confirms the wide appeal of Korean pop music and the universality of pop cul-ture. The activities of older singers, how-ever, affirm the diversity of Korean pop music, indicating new possibilities for the coexistence of high quality “music for lis-tening” and “music for watching.”

“The Soil”By Yi Kwang-su, Translated by Hwang Sun-ae and Horace Jeffery Hodges, 512 pages, $16.00, Champaign, Ill., U.S.; London; Dublin: Dalkey Archive Press


ENTERTAINMENT

According to the National Information Society Agency, the Internet penetra-

tion rate for Korea in 2013 reached 82 per 100 households, while the smartphone penetration rate stood at 79 and that of Internet service access was 98. Recently, with the sharp surge in smartphone users, wired Internet access has declined some-what, while the rate of mobile Internet usage reached 91, a big jump from 58 in 2012.

As wireless Internet usage increased steadily in line with the proliferation of smartphones, there has been revolution-

mobile devices, leading to the production of licensed goods by related industries. This webtoon series was made into a fea-ture film, “Secretly Greatly,” in 2013, which attracted 7 million viewers in Korea. This demonstrates how the webtoon, beyond the popularity of its manhwa content, can also be a driving force for Korea’s culture industry.

While YouTube has a UCC (user-creat-ed content) section for video clips, Korean Internet companies, such as Naver and Daum, have provided UCC sections for manhwa since the early 2000s. Yahoo Korea drew a large following when it launched a platform for popular webtoonists, such as Joo Ho-min, Lee Mal-nyun, Keean84, and Mind-C, but fell out of favor when it was unable to adapt to rapid changes within the industry and the government’s regulatory measures.

In particular, it lagged behind the shift from wired to wireless Internet use. Naver introduced the smartoon, a new touch method of changing screens instead of the previous scrolling method, while Daum provided an application specifically designed for iPad users. Korean Internet companies managed to retain their cus-tomer base even as consumers moved en masse to wireless Internet access, but

ary change in related businesses and ser-vices as well. Whereas the sales of home computers have tapered off, the sales of mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, have increased rapidly. Also in terms of user services, the use of email

has decreased due to the fast-grow-ing popularity of instant messenger services, such as Kakao Talk and

Line, whose usage now stands at 82 per 100 households, while the use of mobile banking (65) and mobile shopping (43) has also soared. The evolving information and communication environment has brought about huge change to the patterns of cul-tural consumption. Similarly, the paradigm for Korean manhwa has undergone its own transformation, through ceaseless innova-tion to keep up with the speedy develop-ment of digital technology.

Ten Million Readers a Day!More than 10 million subscribers a day

view the webtoons offered by portal sites. The popular webtoon series “Misaeng” (a.k.a. “Incomplete Life”), which started in 2012, recorded one billion views in 2013, while its print comic book sold more than 500,000 copies. The six-part drama “Mis-aeng Prequel” registered 3 million hits from smartphones, tablets, and other

From Webtoon to SmartoonManhwa in Digital TransitionThe webtoon is a genre of online comic strips, with or without animation, which has developed at the nexus of Korea’s ubiquitous Internet access and high-speed digital communications. While a manhwa story in its earlier comic book form was presented in frames read from left to right, a webtoon feature is read from top to bottom, and is often in full color. Webtoons and their latest iteration, smartoons, are immensely popular in Korea. Comics creators are riding this new wave to upload their own stories, catapulting the webtoon to a new stardom.Park Seok-hwan Professor, Korea University of Media Arts; Comic and Cartoon Critic

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Yahoo Korea, unable to keep pace with the latest user preferences, eventually closed its business.

When Yahoo Korea shut down its opera-tions in 2012, users let loose a barrage of complaints. Because Yahoo was one of the world’s largest Internet providers of such individual services as email, photo images, and blogs, customers were worried about how these services would be handled. Attention was focused on the webtoons serialized on Yahoo Cartoon. Netizens lamented Yahoo’s abandonment of the Korean market: “Where do we go to see these series now?”

New Paradigm for Comics IndustryExpressing surprise at the rapid trans-

formation from manhwa to webtoons, Scott McCloud, a world-famous cartoon-ist and industry specialist, introduced an animated Korean webtoon, “Ok-su Station Ghost,” in his blog (http://www.scottmc-cloud.com). This work consists of images much like those shown in earlier web-toons, but the scenes in which the ghost appears were given moving effects so that the ghost seems to pop out of the moni-tor. Readers viewing the webtoon on You-Tube were impressed, and viewers in vari-ous countries translated and dubbed the video into English. They circulated it widely through YouTube, making it known around the world.

Webtoons are constantly evolving, adapting to the dynamic environments of online platforms and readers’ devices, from controlling the story time flow through mouse scrolling and touch screen to facili-tating the cartoonist’s involvement in the flow. The elements initially adjusted to the wired user environment have been transformed to adapt to the smaller-size screens of mobile devices. Along the way, additional attention has been paid to audio quality because so many people use their mobile devices with earphones. Users can now enjoy a new form of webtoon, which

provides dramatic changes in visual and audio effects through a quick touch of screen, while in the past they had to scroll the mouse or touch the screen constantly.

From Smart Manhwa to SmartoonStarting in the early 2000s with “Snow

Cat,” “Marine Blues,” and “Pape Popo,” Korean webtoons have steadily evolved thanks to the prolific creations by such art-ists as Kang Full, Kang Do-ha, and Yang Young-sun. More recently, Cho Seok and Kim Gyu-sam have done their part to att-ract even more fans. Now evolving further to a new stage of smartoon more than 10 years since their emergence, webtoons are also expanding their commercial value to benefit their creators and publishers by breaking away from a heavy dependence on advertisements alone. They have begun to shift from free viewing to a variety of paid subscription schemes, while aggressive-ly pushing diverse marketing endeavors like character licensing business.

The situation is thus different from the webtoon’s early days, when this content was not treated as a profit-making busi-ness due to potential conflict with the print manhwa market. The key difference today is how Internet service providers have become increasingly confident of the web-toon’s market potential. Recently, Korea’s

Internet giants have started to manage the overseas distribution of webtoon content. Instead of Tapastic, which provided a plat-form to distribute webtoon content to Eng-lish-speaking markets, they now use their own networks to offer the content abroad.

As the market demand for webtoon con-tent continues to expand, this will encour-age the creation and production of web-toons that are diverse in content and form. Already, auteurist works, and works dealing with social parody and niche subjects have appeared, further broadening the appeal of Korean webtoons and smartoons.

1 “Ok-su Station Ghost” is a new form of webtoon with interactive features. 2 “Misaeng” is a popular webtoon that has spun off licensed works of film and drama.2


GOURMET’S DELIGHT

Dessert from an Emperor’s Sweet ToothFew can claim to have tasted the South Pole version of a frozen dessert, and kin to Korea’s own shaved ice dish called bingsu. In that polar region, where even viruses cannot survive temperatures that drop to below minus 50 degrees Celsius, strawberry syrup is poured generously over a slab of ice, which is then scraped hard and eaten. That’s the bingsu of Antarctica. Only the hardy researchers stationed at Antarctic research bases can enjoy this dessert, as in a scene from the Japanese film “The Chef of the South Pole” (2009). But then, not everyone can go to the South Pole.Yoon Duk-no Food Critic | Lim Hark-hyoun, Cho Ji-young Photographers

Craving for flavored ice is universal, spanning continents and millennia. People enjoyed icy desserts 2,000 years ago. The

difference then is that the ice had to be brought down from the per-petually frozen heights of the Alps or the Himalayas in the farthest reaches of ancient empires. Legend has it that the first-century Roman emperor Nero once held an incomparable banquet. Run-ners were positioned along the Via Appia, the grandest Roman roadway, to relay buckets of icy snow from the snowy mountains to the banquet site, where it was combined with honey, fruit juice, and wine to make luxurious concoctions. Such an icy delicacy might well have been a prototype of Italian sorbet, since this account is often mentioned whenever the origin and history of ice cream is discussed.

Bingsu, which is made of finely shaved ice combined with a vari-ety of toppings, has long been a favorite treat to take the edge off the summer’s heat. Nowadays, it has become a popular dessert for every season. There are endless variations of this icy favorite, which serve to drive Korea’s bingsu craze. The dish has an interesting his-tory, which in many ways is similar to the emergence of frozen des-serts in other parts of the world.

The dictionary defines “renaissance” as “rebirth”; when capital-ized, the word refers to the rebirth and flourishing of Greco-Roman culture. In present-day Korea, a renaissance of frozen desserts is indeed flourishing. Snowy desserts like those enjoyed by the Roman emperor Nero and the icy juice-flavored delights of 11th-century

China — famed throughout Asia — are now undergoing a resplendent rebirth in Korea.

Renaissance of Frozen DessertsThere is an astonishing variety of bingsu, in addition to the tradi-

tional fruit versions with strawberries or mango, and the sweet red-bean classic, with fruit syrup poured over well-boiled red beans atop a mound of finely shaved ice. Bingsu can also be flavored with green tea, wine, frozen milk flakes (“snowflakes”), pieces of glutinous rice cake coated with soybean flour (injeolmi), cheese, and even coffee. Fine-shaved ice is like snow, while topping it with various ingre-dients is like returning to the origins of ice cream, which evolved from earlier frozen desserts. Today’s ubiquitous ice cream, which is softened by whipping a custard based on milk and eggs, made its appearance in the 17th century. Originally known as “iced cream,” it became simply “ice cream” about a hundred years later, in the mid-18th century. But these cream dishes were preceded by other icy desserts.

Prior to ice cream, the upper classes of Europe enjoyed various forms of sherbet. Sherbet with milk as an ingredient and sorbet without milk were a kind of beverage made with cold or frozen fruit or fruit juice. Even earlier, during Greek and Roman times, snow from high mountain peaks or large ice blocks chopped in winter and preserved until summer would be topped with juice, spices, or wine to create a refreshing distraction from the heat.

Craze for Bingsu

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The red-bean bingsu, made of fine-shaved ice topped with well-boiled red beans, sticky rice cake bites and crunchy dried fruit or nut slivers, is the quintessential Korean dessert for cooling off in the summer heat.


You can choose your favorite toppings and mix them up with the ice or enjoy the toppings and the ice shavings separately. Bingsu allows for individual preferences and is thus customizable, while ice cream is ready-made.

similar to today’s bingsu, especially Japan’s traditional kakigori, in which syrup is sprinkled onto shaved ice. The classic red-bean bing-su of Korea seems to be most closely related to the mishabing of the Song Dynasty.

There were various kinds of bingsu in the past: the red-bean bingsu still popular today, bingsu with frozen yogurt, fruit bingsu topped with cherries, and alcoholic versions like plum brandy bing-su and wine bingsu. In the summertime, shaved ice was also used for hwachae, a fruit punch, or molded into a platter to chill fruits, called binggwa.

The near countless versions of bingsu and binggwa could emerge thanks to the technological advances that made ice easily available. Ice storages had existed for several thousand years, but around the 11th century there was a breakthrough that significantly expand-ed the supply of ice. Demand for ice steadily increased as its cost declined, which enabled the development of numerous bingsu vari-

ations. Still, it long remained a luxury dish reserved for only the elite classes. Whereas ice cream became popular in the late 18th century in the West, bingsu became popu-lar in the late 19th century in the East, when the first modernized Asian country, Japan, produced an ice-shaving machine.

Slow Food with a Simple RecipeWhen ice cream arrived in the East and

quickly became a favorite children’s treat, bingsu fell out of favor temporarily, but it

has now returned to the forefront of icy desserts in the 21st century. Korean bingsu and its Japanese and Chinese cousins, kakigori and baobing, are all well loved. Known by different names, to Koreans they are all bingsu at heart. Bingsu is especially popular in Korea perhaps because of the Korean people’s love of cold food, like noo-dles with ice, while the Chinese will prefer hot tea even in summer.

But why is bingsu even more popular than ice cream? It seems that today’s bingsu resurgence is rooted in the emerging culture of the 21st century: people have come to favor slow food over fast food. Ice cream is a kind of fast food, while bingsu is more of a slow food. Onto the finely shaved ice, various toppings are simply added. It can taste great with only one topping or two, or even more delec-table with red beans, rice cake, and peanuts, almonds, and walnuts, as well as ice cream. You can choose your favorite toppings and mix them up with the ice or enjoy the toppings and the ice shavings sep-arately. Bingsu allows for individual preferences and is thus custom-izable, while ice cream is ready-made. Bingsu is the ultimate in sim-plicity — just ice and toppings — but with a refreshing complexity at the same time.

Icy Desserts in East AsiaWith some similarities and differences from the West, people in

the East enjoyed icy refreshments made with shaved ice and fruit juice or spices, as well as bingsu. Particularly beloved as a cold des-sert in East Asia, bingsu has long been a favorite treat throughout this region. In the “History of Song,” a documentary account of Chi-na’s Song Dynasty, a passage notes: “The emperor granted senior ministerial officials mishabing (milsabing in Korean, “fine ice with honey”) on the dog days.” Perhaps this was a kind of bingsu with honey and red bean over ice. If so, then the bingsu of old is similar to the bingsu of today.

In “The Pillow Book” (Makura no Soshi), an urbane Japanese woman’s memoirs from the early 11th century, one can read about a refreshment made by shaving ice with a knife, putting the shav-ings in a metal bowl to keep them cold, and then adding a drizzle of kudzu syrup. Although kudzu sap has a bitter taste, this dish is quite

1

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1 A mango bingsu made of mango-flavored frozen milk.2 Long considered a cooling food for hot summer days, bingsu is now beloved as a perfect dessert for any season.3 Bingsu is customized to one’s taste, with toppings chosen and mixed as wished.4 Black tea bingsu with syrup sprinkled on ice cream atop a bed of fine-shaved ice.

3 4

2


LIFESTYLE

‘Little Cinema’ for Rural Residents Small cinemas with fewer than 100 seats have begun to appear in rural areas, satisfying the cultural needs of local residents. Horizon Cinema, the first such movie theater, opened in Gimje, North Jeolla Province in September 2013, followed by Hannuri Digital Cinema in adjacent Jangsu County, taking root as new venues for cultural and arts events, much to the delight of locals.Jeon Sung-won Chief Editor, Hwanghae Review

The 20th century marked the first time that more than half of humanity lived in the cities. In Korea as well, urbanization

began in earnest in the 1960s with economic development and pro-ceeded rapidly, as numerous people from the countryside moved to the cities to find work and benefit from a better educational envi-ronment and cultural infrastructure.

Back in the 1960s, the movie theaters in small towns and villages served as community centers, the most accessible venues for cul-tural events. It was the golden age of Korean cinema. For many, the experience of visiting a movie theater for the first time, holding their parents’ hands, remains an unforgettable and treasured memory. Moreover, since color television became widespread only in the early 1980s, the visual stimulation from the vividly colored images on the big movie screen must have been similar to the amazement the Western viewers experienced when they saw the work of the Lumi-ère brothers for the first time in the theater.

Local Cinemas Vanish amid UrbanizationKorean film is now reveling in its second heyday. Riding the crest

of hallyu (Korean Wave), a number of high-quality domestic works are drawing the attention of cineastes and moviegoers around the world, not a few of them attracting more than 10 million viewers in Korea alone. But despite the phenomenal growth of the domes-tic film market, urbanization and rapid aging of the rural popula-tion have led to a steady disappearance of movie theaters from non-urban areas. The fact that the laughter of children is fast disappear-ing from the countryside is of course a result of the declining birth-rate, but an equally relevant factor is that, despite a rise in the eco-nomic standards of living, the cultural infrastructure necessary for a richer life is often absolutely lacking.

As of October 2013, the number of cinemas across the coun-try stood at 410, with 2,484 screens. Ninety-five, or about a quarter of the total, are located in Seoul. Including cinemas in the six met-ropolitan cities of Busan, Incheon, Daejeon, Daegu, Gwangju, and

Hannuri Digital Cinema in Jangsu County, North Jeolla Province, is a good example of how the “Little Cinema” movement enables rural residents to enjoy movies without traveling to a city. It has been enthusiastically received by people of all ages.

© Jeollabuk-do P

rovincial Governm

ent

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Ulsan, 201 cinemas, or about half of all movie theaters in Korea, are found in major cities. The residents of small towns and rural areas have to drive from 30 minutes to an hour to the nearest city in order to see a movie. The average number of cinema visits per person per year is 3.84 nationwide, but this figure reaches 5.52 in Seoul com-pared to 1.72 in South Jeolla Province.

According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, among the 227 self-governing administrative units (cities, counties, and dis-tricts), up to 109 had no cinema in 2012. In the same year, the min-istry’s survey on leisure activities found the “artistic event” that most people wanted to attend was a movie (41.4 percent).

Since 1992, when local autonomous governance was intro-duced, regional governments have implemented their own policies

and projects for growth and development. Most efforts, however, have emphasized the building of new production facilities to pro-vide employment and attracting public utilities, such as waterworks or electricity providers. North Jeolla Province, on the other hand, has focused on the idea that cultural infrastructure should be the basis for regional growth and development. Even so, it is difficult for a local government with a chronic shortage of financial resources to build a cinema that is ordinarily a private enterprise requiring an investment of some $2-3 million. One solution was a “little cin-ema,” which would help to reduce costs and bridge the cultural gap of local communities. Hence, Horizon Cinema opened in Gimje on September 5, 2013 as the first government-sponsored small movie theater in the country.

A “little cinema” is defined as a theater with two screens, each with 50 or less seats, where local residents can enjoy the latest mov-ies anywhere in the country. Horizon Cinema has two screens and 99 seats in total. It is equipped with a projection system and other facilities like any modern cinema, with one of the screens capable of showing 3D movies. Except for their size, little cinemas are just like regular movie theaters: they offer the latest films at the same time as anywhere else in the country; the tickets, which are somewhat cheaper, can be purchased at the box office or online; and there is also a concession stand selling popcorn and soft drinks.

Small Is BeautifulIn January, 65 children from the nearby Singwang Kindergarten

visited Horizon Cinema to see “Walking with Dinosaurs,” an 80-min-

ute animated feature about a baby dinosaur overcoming all sorts of difficulties to become a great hero. After watching the movie, the children excitedly chattered about the dinosaurs they had just seen together. And in unison they said, “It was fun to go with friends and see the dinos on the big screen.”

From long ago, the Gimje area played a central role in Korea’s agricultural society, thanks to its vast rice fields on flat land that stretched to the horizon, a rarity in light of the country’s mostly mountainous terrain. Until the 1950-60s, when the population of Gimje reached 260,000, you could find cinemas even in small town-ships. But the population has since decreased to about 93,000, and there are hardly any cultural facilities of decent standards any more. When the little cinema project started, skeptics questioned whether

elderly people in the countryside would go to see movies. But contrary to such con-cerns, the little cinema has drawn a large number of viewers. From the first official preview on August 26 to December 31, 2013, the cinema welcomed 24,690 visitors, which is equal to one fourth of Gimje’s total population.

This little cinema has brought about conspicuous changes. Above all, since new films now open here on the same day as in Seoul, the local community no longer feels left behind. Also, this little movie theater in the countryside has become a kind of tourist attraction as people from nearby areas come to visit it. These days, Gimje’s civil servants take great satisfaction in the phone calls from elderly locals enquiring about the movie schedule.

Winds of Change from a Fluttering ButterflyThe little cinema movement is now spreading nationwide. The

county government of Jangsu, adjacent to Gimje, had invested some 15.1 billion won (just over $14 million) in the Hannuri Arts Center, which opened in 2010. But the facility remained underutilized. This prompted the county government to set up its own little movie theat-er, Hannuri Digital Cinema, in the center. South Gyeongsang Prov-ince has plans to set up 10 cinemas with 100 seats each by 2016, starting with Namhae County this year, while the city of Jecheon in North Chungcheong Province plans to invest 100 million won ($90,000) to build a cinema of similar scale near Uirim Lake.

Last year, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism agreed to help finance little cinemas to be built across the country. This year, the ministry’s first-stage plans call for the opening of 22 venues, including 12 independent initiatives. “Little cinemas” are the start of meaningful change that will improve the quality of life in otherwise culturally neglected communities. It seems that the “fluttering of a little butterfly” in the provinces has given rise to the winds of change all over the country.

“Little cinemas” are the start of meaningful change that will improve the quality of life in otherwise culturally neglected communities. It seems that the “fluttering of a little butterfly” in the provinces has given rise to the winds of change all over the country.


JOURNEYS IN KOREAN LITERATURE

Everything that happened to Jung, who works as an advertising copywriter for a metropolitan newspaper, began with a trivial

mistake. Having misspelled the name of an establishment being advertised in her newspaper, she had to recall the 5,000 copies of the paper already sent out to a hundred distributors to paste a sticker over the error, copy by copy. Misreading the wording on a shop sign is a small mistake that can happen to anybody, but here the protagonist, “like someone intending to catch bus num-ber 4 but taking bus number 8 by mistake,” briefly leaves the path of daily life. If you, like the lead character in this story, have mis-read a shop sign and set off on wild imaginings, you will sense how everything is the same for everyone and yet is really not the same. This story’s fundamental narrative strategy lies in the way it devel-ops a delicate bond of sympathy between its character and the reader, as it makes a huge and unfamiliar leap of the imagination away from everyday reality, even in trivial things that anyone might experience.

The way this author, Yun Ko-eun (1980- ), notices things that can be easily found around us but that we heedlessly pass by because we are so busy, and then weaves a story of imagination, is not limit-ed to this work alone. Similar approaches can be found in her other published works. In “Invader Graphic” (2009), the scraps of tiles bearing odd designs one sometimes notices while walking along the street are in fact a sign of resistance left by anti-establishment forces; in “Sweet Vacation” (2009), mounds of dead insects dis-covered beneath the bed and in corners of the closet make people believe that bedbugs are invading the world, and launch a cam-paign to exterminate bedbugs; and in “Weightlessness Syndrome” (2008), the moon high in the sky somehow becomes six moons, triggering a virtual epidemic of weightlessness. These examples reveal the author’s boundless capacity for fantasy and wit. Likewise, the same is true of the way this story brings a wry grin to the face of

readers, while maintaining a subdued tone to depict the quiet real-ity of the protagonist.

Jung found herself standing in front of a fish tank outside a sushi place. She was with her coworkers, but felt like she was standing there alone. A mackerel inside the tank quickly turned around. The current was so strong that the fish could not but turn, and thus the tank felt like the ocean. That mackerel might have even thought it was swimming under its own power. There were only two ways to find out if it was swimming passively or actively: the current could be stopped, or the mackerel could leap out of the tank. But outside there was only hard asphalt. Always the dark side of the rather absurd but lively imagination

displayed by Yun Ko-eun is overlaid by the shadow of grim real-ity. The story that begins with a trivial mistake goes on to observe a group of mackerel in the tank of a raw fish restaurant, which leads to a chilling warning about the mistake’s potential seriousness. The mackerel, pushed in a single direction by the powerful flow of water, seem to believe that they are swimming vigorously when in fact they are simply being thrust about by the artificial current. We are naturally reminded of Zhuangzi’s “Butterfly Dream” or the movies “The Matrix” or “The Truman Show.” The story is asking us whether, amidst the chaos of everyday life and within the context of a reality dominated by money, we might be living in a huge delusion.

However, what the story focuses on, rather than the struc-tures of existential cognition or the contemporary individual who has been deprived of personal freedom, is the sense of solitude encountered when we escape from ordinary life: “She was with her coworkers, but felt like she was standing there alone.”

Her colleagues at work will go on living with the illusion that they are swimming for themselves as they are carried along by a swift

Bonds of Sympathy and Trivial Mistakes

CRITIQUE

Chang Du-yeong Literary Critic

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current, but Jung will end up, like the mackerel that has leapt out of the tank in her imagination, flailing on the hard asphalt. As the current in the tank is too strong and fast, her colleagues cannot afford to understand or sympathize with Jung. Besides, she might have been utterly alone even when she was still in the tank. Belat-edly, she realizes that she has been lonely all this while, as she is confronted, only after being laid off, with the distinction between the inside and the outside of the tank. The bond of sympathy between the reader and the protagonist, beginning with a trivial mistake and passing through a leap of imagination, eventually overlaps with the loneliness of the wayward mackerel that has fallen onto the asphalt.

Another story by the author, “Table for One” (2009), depicts a class for people who dread eating alone in restaurants. The main character, who after attending the course for three months has yet to overcome his loneliness, says: “What I had hoped to learn was how to eat at ease on my own; what I received from the class was the consolation of knowing that I was not the only one eating alone. We were a kind of chain store composed of isolated individuals.” The remark contains the small but significant truth that loneliness, when lonely people come together and form a group, is no longer loneliness.

The same truth seems to apply to “The Chef’s Nail.” As we fol-low the steps of Jung who, beginning with a trivial mistake, sinks to the depths of loneliness, we have to go on reading in company with her loneliness and alienation. As the story takes in the loneli-ness surrounding her, explores it, sympathizes with it, and offers consolation, it asks us why we too can’t receive comfort. Even if it does not have the power to change reality or to influence the life of the character in the story, it is saying that for us mackerel living in a fish tank, sympathy and consolation are our obligations. Even if that, too, might be a “mistake.”

Yun Ko-eunHave you ever seen a tiny sticker pasted

to correct a mistake in the text of printed

material? It’s a cheap expedient to avoid

the time and cost of revising and reprinting

the entire text. If you have ever, even once,

removed such a sticker, you are capable

of entering with great interest into Yun

Ko-eun’s “The Chef’s Nail” as it draws up

vivid streams of imagination from ordinary

daily life. But if you go in too deeply, you

might risk being reduced to a smudge

between the lines.

© P

ark Jae-hong
