Korea in Ten Words: (3) Yeoyu

Courtesy of Guilherme Stecanella

By David A. Tizzard

I never quite understood the term "yeoyu" when I first heard it. It means something like space, but also hints at abundance, freedom and contentment. It is both physical and mental. Financial and spiritual.

The Korean dictionary wasn't much help either. It pointed to two definitions: 1) a state of material, temporal or spatial sufficiency; or 2) a state of being in which one is able to think or act leisurely/calmly. So, yeoyu is when you have the time, money, space or mindset to do something you want. If you have a two-hour break in the afternoon, you've got a bit of yeoyu. If you saved some money last month or got given a bonus at work, you've got some financial yeoyu to buy a new book or cosmetic pack. If you sit down in a cafe and there are people crowded around every table, the place has a lack of yeoyu. You dump your boyfriend/girlfriend, leave the Kakao chatroom and block them on social media, then all of a sudden you have a lot of yeoyu. The word was everywhere.

It appears frequently in literature and the arts. In his poem "I Have Passed Myself By", Park No-hae complains of not being able to walk through the seasons with yeoyu. Haemin Sunim, the Zen Buddhist monk, says in his teachings that the happiness, peace and yeoyu that we ultimately want to achieve can only be experienced when the mind that continuously seeks something rests. The philosopher Gang Pan-gwon uses nature to describe it: A tree finds yeoyu only after discarding its leaves. When it has leaves, it has abundance but no yeoyu. Only once there is space between its branches does it find yeoyu in the nothingness. Humans, Gang believes, are similar. That the more we fill ourselves with objects and material beings, the richer we become but the less yeoyu we have.

The same might be said for modern Korea. The endless rice fields of the Joseon Dynasty, the wide sunlit open spaces of the traditional hanok houses, the leisurely meandering of the sounds of the "Gayageum," (a traditional Korean plucked zither) the slow passing of the seasons. There was little in the way of material possessions but physically, mentally and spiritually, the people had yeoyu. They could see the horizon, gaze at the sky and watch the clouds move. Observe a Korean temple or a traditional palace and you will notice how sparse they are compared to their Western counterparts. Physical space provided mental space. Mental space provided a sense of contentment. There was something in the nothingness. A beauty and value to the yeoyu.

And yet today, as rich as Korea grows, as tall as the apartments rise out of the ground, as busy as our days become and as full as our phones get with messages, emails, photos, appointments, emoticons and shopping lists, there is something that disappears in an equal corresponding amount. We gain abundance but lose our yeoyu. We have something, anything, everything but we no longer understand the value of nothing.

A student who does not pass their exams, a child with an empty afternoon schedule and a young adult who does nothing for the summer are all seen as lacking value. We rush to fill every available physical and mental space with a plethora of things. Not necessarily because we want them, not because we need them but because we have forgotten the truths that people long before us tried to elucidate. We sprint forward. But what is the solution?

The author Oh Eun suggests some answers. Oh divides yeoyu into two types: 1) material, time and space; and 2) a state of mind. The first is dependent on our physical living conditions and will change according to our social position, economic ability and living arrangements. It reveals itself countless times every day when we check our bank balance, take a seat on the subway or watch the slowly ticking clock on the wall. In this sense, yeoyu is a type of classification. It is counting and measuring things. The second one is not as easily quantifiable but we can nevertheless gauge it through facial expressions, attitudes and mannerisms. Do people look around as they step off the train? Do they listen to the person opposite them? Are they open to strangers and new experiences? Those with this second type of mental yeoyu normally answer yes to all the questions above.

Mental yeoyu can be obtained whoever we are and wherever we find ourselves. It can be created voluntarily and through our own efforts. We might not always be able to change our jobs, our house or our schedule. We can, however, change our minds. We can make time for ourselves and do things that we find important. We have to proactively seek out that which we enjoy, the things that bring us pleasure. It might be reading a book, watching movies, playing golf, walking in the mountains or simply sitting outside doing nothing. The important lesson is that we have to consciously seek out and create these opportunities rather than simply wait passively for them to appear. We put our phone in our pocket. We look and listen to the other person. We stop and breathe.

Asian philosophy has long advocated the essential and powerful value of nothingness. The path to enlightenment took one along the path on which the self, the most complex and fundamental part of our life, was, in fact, nothing. An illusion. This is far from nihilism when understood properly but rather a great awakening. By searching for the empty space one finds something greater than all the things that occupy the material world. Korean people once knew this at a very deep and profound level. Some still do and try to communicate it in their poetry, art and music. But it can only ever be pointed at. Yeoyu, despite all my efforts, can never be explained. It can only be experienced.

Dr. David A. Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) has a Ph.D. in Korean Studies and lectures at Seoul Women's University and Hanyang University. He is a social/cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the Korea Deconstructed podcast, which can be found online.