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Sijo, Korea's contribution to world

Sijo, the famous Korean, three-line, short poetic form, should be understood in a cross-cultural perspective. As the frog outside the well - that is as a non-Korean Koreanologist - I see sijo differently than most Koreans, and the view I have is that sijo is one of Korea's best contributions to world literature.

2018-11-09 17:40

Sijo and haiku

Haiku, a classic short-form style of poetry from Japan, is not well-known in Korea and is not taught in Korean schools. On the other hand, every American student in the last 20 or 30 years has studied haiku. By study, I mean they have learned the classic forms in translation, they have learned the form is three lines, with syllable counts of five, seven and five per line, and they have been assigned to write their own haiku. Haiku has become a part of American culture.

2018-11-05 17:27

Hanok village today

My recent visit to Sacheon village in Uiseong County of North Gyeongsang Province left me thinking about the traditional Korean village today. I wrote last time about Sacheon throwing all its efforts into becoming internationally known as a “storyteller's” village as a way to both promote storytelling as an art form and revive a dying village in the process.

2018-11-02 17:23

Death of Korea's villages

On a recent trip to Korea (I've been visiting Korea several times a year on lecture tours as well as attending conferences and seminars), I had the chance to attend a storytellers' meeting in Uiseong, between Daegu and Andong in North Gyeongsang Province. I came away with renewed fears for the future of the Korean rural village.

2018-10-26 19:09

Presidential cannibalism

Several years ago I wrote an article about how Korea treats its former presidents, and noted that once they leave office bad things happen to them, and in some cases, bad things happen that cause them to leave office. I concluded that the way presidents are treated is as if they are eaten, in effect, and I used the term “presidential cannibalism.” I thought that the way Korean society treats their former presidents is not unlike the way some insects and animals in nature eat their young, or their spouse. Cannibalism - eating one's own.

2018-10-22 17:48

Confucianization story in Korea

By Mark PetersonI have spent several weeks writing about the transformation of Korea in the late 17th century. I have outlined seven major social practices that were completely turned upside down at the close of the 17th, and into the 18th century. And these are not insignificant social events: the disinheritance of daughters, dropping daughters from ceremonies, dropping daughter's posterity from genealogies, the all-consuming desire to have a son, and adoption of a son if one is not born, the location of the marriage at the husband's father's house, and the establishment of “clan vill...

2018-10-05 17:11

17th century quiet revolution

I've previously written about the changes in the late 17th century and listed seven major features of social life and family organization that changed. I've written that these changes affected every aspect of social life in Korea. It was a revolution. But the revolution was not with blood-shed and chaos, but rather was a quiet revolution that changed everything.

2018-09-16 16:37

Why Korea became Confucianized

The process by which Korea came to be the “most-Confucianized” country in the world was a long, drawn-out process that requires careful observation and careful definitions of terms.

2018-09-05 17:36

Traditional Confucian system

In my last article, I argued that the traditional social order of Korea, that defined as “Confucian” and marked with features of male dominance, was not that old. I pointed out that there was a quiet revolution in the late 17th century whereby basic social and family practices changed. But the important point for us today was not that the changes took place, but that when those changes took place is a “knowable.” And yet throughout Korean society today, nobody knows about it. It's like a great secret _ unknowable, but in full sight.

2018-08-31 16:22

'Traditional' Korean family system began

In my previous installment, I argued that the so-called traditional family system of Korea, that was marked by Confucian ideology and practices, and called the “bugye family system” (patrilineal system), is of fairly recent ancestry. Many people in Korea assume that the system is ancient, dating back to at least the founding of the Joseon Kingdom in 1392, if not before.

2018-08-13 17:14

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