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Opinion

Columnists

Teaching sijo in America

I wrote last time about the Sejong Cultural Society based in Chicago and their annual fundraiser. Today I want to write about their annual teachers' workshop for American teachers to learn how to teach sijo in American classrooms. The workshop was a huge success with teachers attending from all across America.

2019-10-13 17:05

Sejong Cultural Society

There is a wonderful group of people in Chicago that have created an organization for the promotion of Korean culture. They are called the Sejong Cultural Society. Their purpose is to promote Korean culture in the United States. They engage in three activities, primarily - a music competition, an essay contest, and a sijo writing contest. It is the last item, the sijo contest that has brought them into my realm of interest and activity.

2019-10-06 17:35

A tribute to Prof. Song June-ho

Last week I wrote a tribute to the memory of professor Ed Wagner and I wrote of his contributions to Korean Studies and particularly his use of jokbo (genealogies) in his research. Today, I must write a tribute to his colleague and collaborator in Korean historical research, Song June-ho.

2019-09-29 17:26

Legacy of Prof. Ed Wagner

In writing of late in this column, which I call the “Frog Outside the Well,” I have touched on the subject of Korean jokbo (genealogies) a few times. I have had feedback from this column and from my YouTube channel that Korean jokbo are unreliable in that commoners and slaves have bought their way into established genealogies.

2019-09-22 17:55

More on eunuchs

A few weeks ago I wrote of my visit in 1977 to the last living eunuch in Korea and I wrote of his jokbo (genealogical book) and how it showed adopted eunuch children retained their natal family surname. The article stirred some interest among our readers and as a result, several questions came to me and I received several requests to write more about eunuchs.

2019-08-25 17:44

UNESCO and 'jokbo'

Last time I wrote about the conference I attended in Andong on “naebang kasa” and the desire of the participants to apply for UNESCO Memory of the World recognition. At the conference, quite unexpectedly, I ran into the head of the Gyeongju Choe lineage, a man who lives in Gyeongju. Although Gyeongju and Andong are quite far apart, they are both in conservative, most-Confucian North Gyeongsang Province. And the programs at the Academy for the Advancement of Korean Studie attracts people from all over the province. Still, I was surprised to see Mr. Choe there.

2019-08-14 13:50

'Destroyed' surnames

As a contrast to the names that have survived in Korea for 1,500 years and more, there were names that did not survive. I've been writing about how remarkable, and even unusual, the Korean surname situation is - specifically, the concentration of just a few surnames.

2019-07-28 17:56

Last eunuch's surname

When I was a student in Korea in 1977 I met a man introduced to me as the last living eunuch from the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom. At that point, I understood there was one other living eunuch as well, but the man I met was in his 60s and he had become a eunuch and was a young child in the last-gasp years of Joseon before 1910.

2019-07-17 17:19

The lesser surnames

The previous two installments in my “Frog Outside the Well” series have been about the dominance of the surnames Kim, Lee and Park. Today I want to look at the lesser names, the obscure names of Korea.

2019-07-07 17:50

Prominent surnames

Recently I wrote about the fact that Korea is very unusual, even odd, I would say, in that 21 percent of the people have one surname - Kim. And it adds to the oddity that Yi comprises 15 percent of the population and Pak 9 percent. I pointed out that no other country has such a concentration of surnames. Today's question is: How did the aristocratic families of Silla and then Goryeo maintain their status through the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom?

2019-06-30 18:00

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