How better to fill the gap year than with an intense research fellowship? Centenarian archives, temple hunting and...noraebang? Why hello, Korea. I've missed you.
(우은숙)This is a truly terrible translation and a good reminder that poetry is a sonofabitch to translate. I went the lazy route and stuck with a more literal and stanza-centered approach, so some coherency in the way of English got lost. Eh, hopefully it can at least help along any hangul beginners.
A good feeling
As the pickerel blooms along the hushed path out at dawn
In the young red glow that quietly follows even the wind is stilled
As though the womb full of and immersing me in well-being was about to burst open; this morning.
(Wu Eunsuk)
*Funny note: I looked up 물달개비 and could only find the scientific name in English from naver...drumroll...the chortle inducing, Monochoria Vaginalis, a name that is made no less dignified by its "common" names: oval-leaf pondweed and heartleaf false pickerel weed. I went with the least ridiculous sounding one...despite a strong urge to make some link between "vaginalis weed" in the first verse and "womb" in the last (incidentally the word 씨방, that I chose to translate as 'womb', is actually more like uterus...actually literally translates to "seed room". Oh Korean, how I adore you).
A little random but interesting. A Korean blog I follow, On the Picket Lines, posted this translation (I'm not sure if it's the author's own or from a professional translated edition distributed in Korea) of Stephen Holmes' "Lineages of the Rule of Law" (19-61, excerpt p. 32) in Democracy and the Rule of Law, edited by Jose Maria Maravall and Adam Przeworski, and included a nice little question about how such a sweeping generalization - clearly derived solely from Western examples - relates to modern Korean history. I was lucky enough to find the original text itself available for free on GoogleBooks - no mean feat given I was forced to pry "Przeworski" from the Hangul bastardization "쉐보르스키" - but still a good thing since it saves everyone from the game of telephone that would probably result from a re-translation of an already translated text.
The original is as follows:
A ruler who needs to raise a citizen army cannot keep his subjects apprehensive, disorganized, demoralized, mutually distrustful, passive, and incapable of collective resistance. So what is he to do? To secure the voluntary cooperation of ordinary citizens in war, according to Machiavelli, a shrewd ruler will provide the poor and the weak with fair legal procedures, democratic participation, and property rights. This is not utopian aspiration, but a historically observable pattern..."[I]n time of war the landholding class accepted a fairly steep tax on its property, even though it was the most influential political group in the country" (Strayer 1970: 108). That war between mass armies boosts the leverage of less affluent and less prestigious citizens is also suggested by the observation that, during World War II, and despite a ban on strikes, American unions organized and grew much faster than they had through plant sit-ins and mass picketing in the late 1930s. Finally, the central role of veterans benefits in the original emergence of both property rights and the welfare state suggests that transfer programs, too, are rooted in this ur-form of the social contract, namely, the exchange of combat service for legal protection and opportunities for "voice".
And below the Korean translation:
시민들로부터 군대를 모집할 필요가 있는 지배자는 시민들을 두려움과 무질서, 낮은 사기, 상호 불신, 수동성, 집단적 저항 불능 등의 상태에 발치할 수 없다. 그렇다면 지배자는 어떻게 해야 하는가? 마키아벨리에 따르면, 명민한 지베자라면 전쟁시 일반 시민의 자발적 협력을 미리 확보해두기 위해 빈자와 약자에게 공정한 법적 소송 절차와 문주적 참여 및 재산권을 제공할 것이다. 이는 공상적인 꿈이 아니라 역사에서 흔히 볼 수 있듣 현상이다. "전시에 지주계급은 그 나라에서 가장 영향력 있는 정치집단이면서도 자신들의 재산에 부과된 상당헤 높은 세금을 받아들였다." (Strayer 1970: 108) 제2차 세계대전 당시 미국에서는 파업 금지 조차가 내려졌음에도 노동조합들이 조직되어 1930년대 후반의 작업장 점거 시위나 집단 피켓 시위를 통해 노조가 성장했을 때보다 훨씬 빨리 성장했다는 사실 또한 대규모 군대 간의 전쟁이 덜 부유하고 덜 중요한 시민들의 영향력을 증가시킨다는 것을 시사해 준다. 끝으로, 재산권이라든가 복자극가가 처음 출현하는 데 퇴역 군인 집단이 중심적인 역할을 했다는 사실은 소득 이전 프로그램 역시 이와 같은 근원적 형태의 사회계약에, 즉 참잔을 법적 보호 및 "발언" 기회와 맞바꾸는 데 뿌리를 두고 있다는 것을 암시해준다.
Picketline continues with the question below, first in the original Korean, then in English:
영국에서도 2차 세계대전을 전후하여 노동계급의 성장이 있었다고 아는데, 이런 것이 일반적인 현상이라면 왜 한국에서는 그런 징조가 없었을까? 공산국가와의 전쟁이었기 때문일까? 한국민들만의 특수성이 있는 것인가? 몸 대주고 몫도 못챙긴 한국의 신민들. 우리의 아버지, 할아버지들이다.
"If, knowing that post-war Britain also experienced a expansion in its labor class, we posit that this is indeed a general pattern, why has there been no sign of such a development in Korea? Is it because the Korean War was with a communist nation? Is there some unique characteristic that belongs only to Korean people? Koreans who proffer their bodies and cannot protect the parts. Our fathers, our grandfathers."
Unfortunately, the comment list was fairly short and predictable, beginning with the standard, "Historical generalizations cannot be derived from Western models alone," to the "No such opportunities have thus far arisen in Korea," to one surprising but all too short remark that, "There is no labor class in Korea in the same sense that there have been in the examples noted in this entry". (Disclaimer, I'm paraphrasing the comments with a vengeance to cut down on space) I think the question is interesting, however, not only because it notes a problem with the original article's generalization, but because it points to a Korean identity issue that is no less charged today than it was during World War II - that is, what is Korea's place in the Western-Globalization model?
Leaving that question open, I'll end by citing the relevant sources to the excerpt below.
Holmes, Stephen. "Lineages of the Rule of Law." Democracy and the Rule of Law. Eds. Jose Maria Maravall and Adam Przeworski. Cambridge, UK; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 19-61.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. Discourses on Livy. Trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Strayer, Joseph R. and Dana C. Munro. Middle Ages, 395-1500. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970.
Just the historical background section (no particularly Buddhist or Christian stuff) here, since it covers a lot of ground. The author takes a lot for granted in terms of knowing events and figures off the top of your head (he's writing to students who went through the Korean school system, after all), so I put in some relevant reading at the bottom for any hardy souls who feel inclined to brush up on their modern Korean history.
Period Background: Historical Setting, Imperial Japanese infiltration of Buddhism, and the influx and growth of Christianity
No Buddhist figure lives out their life in a vacuum. Rather, given their particular period and the circumstances they are faced with, such figures respond according to their own personalities. Let us attempt to examine the historical setting in which such modern Buddhist figures found themselves. An account of the past century of modern Korean Buddhism requires three general sorts of period background descriptions. First, the historical background of the past century of modernity. This background is usually composed of those events that are selected by historians from among the innumerable happenings experienced by Koreans for their deep-seated connections with the nation, the citizenry, or a considerable mass of people - events often recorded as political and international in character. The second background issue is the Joseon oppression of Buddhism, which resulted in the disseizin of Korean Buddhism by Japanese Buddhism, and the third is the introduction and expansion of Christianity.
Historical Setting: 19th century Korea had fallen prey to occidental imperialism. The Joseon kingdom, in the latter half of the 19th century, shed its commitments to sequestering the kingdom and broke off its policies of isolationism, emerging into and adjusting itself to global-historical trends instead. This 'coming-out', however, did not afford the opportunity for either the establishment of a modern democratic state or an industrial revolution, but ample opportunity for international subjugation of the government to foreign powers such that, rather than a standard modernization process Korea found itself upon the path to colonization. The political and physical weakness of the Joseon dynasty was such that between 1870 and 1900 any and all foreign powers with which Korea had relations treated the country as a pawn which they could move at will. The five-hundred year old Joseon kingdom was at the point of ruin, and likewise the structure of traditional society. Coerced by Japan, the Joseon government concluded the Ganghwa-do Treaty in 1876, and as Korean ports opened under the terms of the treaty the nation found itself thrown open completely before the Great Western Powers.
In 1894 and 1895 the actions of provincial leaders of the Donghak movement resulted in peasant uprisings. With the intention of aiding the Joseon government in it efforts to quell these revolts, China dispatched its own troops. Japan, determined not to miss this opportunity to remove the influence China wielded in Korea, mobilized its own forces and ordered the defeat of China (the Sino-Japanese War). Through its victory in the Sino-Japanese war, Japan reset the balance of foreign influences in Korea so that, relative to all other foreign powers, it held the predominant position. Japan, which was receiving economic aid from both England and the United States, next provoked and won the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5). After this Japan's invasion of the Korean empire went unhindered. November of 1905 saw the conclusion of the Eulsa Protection Treaty, a negotiations treaty between Korea and Japan, which deprived Korea of its diplomatic rights and put in place in Korea the Japanese Government-General, after which the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty (July, 1907) compelled the abdication of Gojong and the succession og the sickly Sunjong. Finally, within the atmosphere of the Japanese army's strict occupation of Seoul, the Treaty Regulating the Annexation of Korea (August, 1910), which read, "All regulation and rule of the entirety of Korea is conceded completely and in perpetuity to the Emperor of Japan," was passed and Korea annexed to Japan.
Ito Hirobumi; An Junggeun
Once the nation had fallen into its new role as a colony of the Japanese empire, freedom fighters associated with numerous independence movements and patriotic nationals fought for the cause of freedom and emancipation. In 1909, An Junggeun, a lieutenant-general of the Korean resistance army, assassinated Ito Hirobumi ( ~1909) - the Japanese Resident-General of Korea implicated as the chief proponent of the invasion of Korea - at Harbin station in Manchuria. He was executed in March the following year. On March 1, 1919, the Buddhists Han Yongun and Baek Yongseong were among the thirty-three representative Korean nationals to sign and recite the Declaration of Independence, an event which also marked the birth of the Independence Movement. Although this movement failed to achieve a people's emancipation, it carried a number of historical significations for popular liberation that remained throughout the period of Imperial Japanese Colonization.
Between 1919 and 1945, Japanese colonial rule went through a number of stages. After the 1930s, in the wake of the commencement of an invasive war, Japan's colonial policy towards Korea grew even more restrictive. It compelled patriotic actions in the name of the Japanese government. Included among these were firstly compulsory worship at Shinto shrines and the exchange of Korean names for the use of Japanese names. Further, until the conclusion of the World War, Korea had been subject to 36 years of colonial restriction and exploitation. Joseon's economic resources has been exhaustively expropriated in the interests of the Japanese empire. The attitude adopted by the Japanese occupation was that evaluating the parties or persons who might spark emancipation was of the utmost importance. The end of the World War and the accompanying emancipation from Japanese imperial rule saw Korea fall immediately from the period of colonization into that of division (north and south). Along with a number of internal factors, perhaps the most immediate was Japanese colonial rule and the division and occupation of the Korean peninsula between the American and Russian military forces. With the general election of 1948, South Korea established its own distinct Republic of Korea (ROK) government, and in the same year North Korea independently established itself as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Division soon led to civil struggle in the outbreak of the 6.25 War (the Korean War, June 1950). The war grew into an international conflict which continued for over three years and drew to a close without any conclusive termination of hostilities, in the uneasy wake of which the structure of a divided Korean peninsula remained unchanged. In the 1950s following the conflict, the right-wing dictator Syngman Rhee (Yi Seungman, 1875-1965) established his own governmental system on the pretext of the division, a system that was both incompetent and corrupt. The system was demolished in the outbreak of the 4.19 student uprisings during the 1960s. Even in this upheaval, however, Pak Chonghee (Pak Jeonghee, 1917-79) established his own military regime, and as the military-dictatorship that preceded economic development continued, the structure of peninsular division was cemented in place. Finally, in 1972, the military-dictatorship was switched-over to the 'reform' system.
US news coverage of Gwangju Democratization Movement
On the one hand the democratic movement and the peaceful and solidarity-minded people's national unification movements of the 1960s continued unabated under the military-dictatorship - lending the motivational power that finally destroyed the Pak Jeonghee administration. And yet in the 1980s a new military authority crushed the Gwangju Democratization Movement (May, 1980) and until 1988 democracy was almost entirely unsupported as, under a new general, the system of military dictatorship continued. Following this, another succeeding general was designated president (Constitutional Measure; April 13, 1987). Almost immediately, in June of 1987, the cities of Korea broke out in mass gatherings in a show of popular force so immense that the government had no choice but to concede the direct election of the president to the people. Thus in 1992, after only 32 years, the Kim Youngsam (k: munmin-jeongbu) government was born. Political, economic, societal, educational, and many other sorts of reforms were advanced, while the system of peninsular division continued without change. Many Koreans foresee that in the 21st century the system of division, the most pressing concern of the Korean people, will be dealt with.
Recommended Reading:
Deuchler, Martina. Confucian Gentlemen and Barbarian Envoys: the Opening of Korea 1875-1885. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.
Chandra, Vipan. Imperialism, Resistance and Reform in Late Nineteenth-Century Korea: Enlightenment and the Independence Club. Berkeley: Center for Korean Studies, 1988.
Robinson, Michael Edson. Cultural Nationalism in Colonial Korea, 1920-1925. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988.
Eckert, Carter J. Offspring of Empire: the Koch'ang Kims and the Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, 1876-1945. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991.
Cumings, Bruce. Origins of the Korean War (all volumes). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981-1990.
Lee Byeong-cheon. Developmental Dictatorship and the Park Chung-hee Era: the Shaping of Modernity in the Republic of Korea. Trans. Eungsoo Kim and Jaehyun cho. Paramus, NJ: Homa and Sekey Books, 2006.
Lee, Namhee. The Making of Minjung: Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007.
If I have to suffer through the text book, so does everyone else. Or more to the point, if I'm going to be translating this in my head anyway I might as well write it down and post it online, contributing (hopefully) to the oh-so-inadequate English resources on Korean Buddhism. I'm not completely sure who wrote all this, but the book I'm working out of is an unpublished manuscript that was distributed in a history class I took at Seoul National University, so presumably it's correct and (more importantly) presumably the author will not find me and sue me for putting his shit up online...in another language...yeah...
Section 5: Modern Korean Buddhism, 100 years
0. Introduction and Period Setting
This section intends to present the fifty-year periods both preceding and following the 1945 emancipation of Korea, namely the diverse patterns that marked modern Korean Buddhism during those one-hundred years. As in any other era, this one saw the birth of a variety of forms of Buddhism. In addressing the hitherto inadequately examined form of Buddhism during the past century, the first and most difficult task is selecting which patterns/forms among the panoply of developments make the most appropriate subjects for discussion. While one pattern might seem to have great meaning in the present, as time flows by any import it had might not persist and the form itself fades into oblivion, and conversely that which seems insignificant now might, with the test of time, ultimately achieve such strength and influence that it will hold a solid significance in the account of Buddhist history. The preferred method in this work has been to select from among the countless developments of modern Korean Buddhism eight that seem to merit recording in Buddhism's ideological history and placing these developments within a single spectrum. These developments were at the heart of the ideology and practice of Buddhists of note, and so are presented as characteristic of the past century of modern Buddhism.
Taken during the March First Movement
Previous studies of the past century of Buddhist history have focused on the various forms that emerged during this period, but the methodology of such studies cannot help but to concern themselves primarily with the lives and ideologies of particular Buddhist practitioners. Here, however, aside from Buddhists of remarkable note, only those figures who leave an impression either because of their association with a particular movement or those who link a movement to its past or lead into its future manifestations are considered. As with these criteria for alluding to particular Buddhist figures, so too did we consider two particular points in regard to our selection of relevant modern forms of Buddhism. First, that the same or similar forms of Buddhism that were followed in the present, the past and the future were marked by different and notable practitioners, and also that the form presented both comparative distinction and consistency with prior and contemporary Buddhist movements.
This undertaking, while greater in scope than "A Study of Korean Buddhist Ideology," promises to hold a factor in common with that work - in order to minimize the degree of self-interest that would accompany his selection, the author describes primarily those subjects that have demonstrated a lasting significance within traditional Korean Buddhism. The relative merits between the religious disciplinary theories of meditation and study (the latter narrowly interpreted as silent scriptural study and more broadly as the general study of written texts); the conflict between the understanding of Buddhist tradition (the question of the driving spirit of Buddhism), enlightenment (existence), and ethical conduct on the one hand and an interest in history and politics on the other; the discrepancies between Buddhism's nationalistic character (the question of the attitudes held by Buddhist figures towards nation or politics), its shamanistic character, and its central faith (accomodation); as well as Buddhism's attitude towards other religions and the core trends of modernity (modern civilization and capitalism) are all points of interest. The undertaking also requires both determining what the awareness of Buddhists who lived through that period (as their present) was of the time, and what the meaning of their varying forms of period-consciousness was. The character of these peoples' era concerns not only their understanding of Buddhism or their intimate ties to the formation of its character, but is a key factor in the process of comparing and contrasting the various forms of Buddhism in which they participated. In comparing and contrasting one form (of Buddhism) with a different form, the differences between the two will naturally come to light and each will reveal its intrinsic critique of the other. Ultimately a single form, held against all other forms, will demonstrate its defects.Concerning the question of in which order to set upon our description, we will follow the sequence of which issues were considered most significant by these key Buddhist figures.
Random ajusshi snapped by LIFE back in the day
This composition is divided into two periods before and after the central event of emancipation. The figures that characterized the Buddhist forms of the former period are Song Kyeongheo (1849-1912), Baek Yongseong (1864-1940), Pak Hanyeong (1870-1948), Han Yongun (1879-1944), and the figures or parties that characterized the forms of the latter period are Yi Seongcheol (1912-1993), Kwon Beopseong (1914- ) and Yi Jikwang (1950- ), Pak Beopjeong (1935- ), and the Seon-u Doryang.
Coming up in the next textbook installment (yup, there's gonna be another. try to contain your excitement): Period Background - historical setting, imperial Japanese infiltration of Korean Buddhism, and the influx and expansion of Christianity in Korea
해에게서는 언제부턴가 종소리가 난다. 은은히 울려 퍼지는 소리 앞에 무릎 끓고 한데 모으는 헌 손들 배고픈 영혼들을 위한 한끼의 양식이오니 고개 숙이고 낮은 데로 임하소서 하늘이 지상의 빈 터에다 간판을 내걸었다. 무료 급식소, 무성한 생명력의 소리 받아먹으려고 고적함을 견디며 서 있는 길고 긴 행렬 깃털처럼 야윈 몸들을 데리고 될 수 있는 한 웅크린다. 아무것도 움직여본 적 없고 스스로를 쳐 소리 낸 적 없는 몸짓이다. 바람이 조금만 불어도 파동치는 해에게서는 수세기의 깨진 종소리가 난다.
I said shush girl,
shut your lips.
Do the Helen Keller,
and talk with your hips.
This site (halfietrot@blogspot.com) is not an official Fulbright Program site. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of its author and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State or any of its partner organizations.
This is a truly terrible translation and a good reminder that poetry is a sonofabitch to translate. I went the lazy route and stuck with a more literal and stanza-centered approach, so some coherency in the way of English got lost. Eh, hopefully it can at least help along any hangul beginners.
1918 Declaration of Independence
No Buddhist figure lives out their life in a vacuum. Rather, given their particular period and the circumstances they are faced with, such figures respond according to their own personalities. Let us attempt to examine the historical setting in which such modern Buddhist figures found themselves. An account of the past century of modern Korean Buddhism requires three general sorts of period background descriptions. First, the historical background of the past century of modernity. This background is usually composed of those events that are selected by historians from among the innumerable happenings experienced by Koreans for their deep-seated connections with the nation, the citizenry, or a considerable mass of people - events often recorded as political and international in character. The second background issue is the Joseon oppression of Buddhism, which resulted in the disseizin of Korean Buddhism by Japanese Buddhism, and the third is the introduction and expansion of Christianity.
The Independence Celebration
Taken during the March First Movement
Random ajusshi snapped by LIFE back in the day
