(244) Twisted heroes of our time
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By Janet Shin
“Our twisted Hero” is the title of a novel written by Korean writer Yi Mun-yol. The hero in this book is a school boy in fifth grade who wields absolute power even above his teacher. It portrays the contradictions in our society through the conflicts and power structure among the students in a small country school.
As the writer alluded, it is one facet of our political society and we can find similar cases easily. The former head of the National Intelligence Service, Won Sei-hoon has been interrogated over allegations of the agency meddling in the last presidential election. This has also been muddled by revealing 2007 North-South Korean summit proceedings. The public is criticizing its inadequate political posture and requesting reformation. Won became an object of derision by taking a golden tiger figure on his birthday. He was born in the zodiac year of the tiger.
Another case demonstrated a little bit off the politics but also very politically sensitive situation. A noted chief judge was known for his mettle in the realization of justice with a progressive stance. He was once at the center of a social issue as he had uploaded content on his Facebook, ridiculing the former president, Lee Myung-bak. He wrote a vulgar parody about Lee with slandering expressions. He recently caught people’s attention again by his abrupt resignation and its cause. He was charged with a crime of causing damage to another’s car. He had been arguing with his neighbor for floor noises and put some glue through the key hole of the neighbor’s car and punctured the tires. This was strongly criticized especially due to his profession, judge, which is regarded as a symbolic position of justice.
Korean society is more likely to experience social unrest, owing to its particular ideological situation, the division of North and South. In regards to this conflict, there recently were a couple of outstanding figures, Lee Seok-gi, a proportionally elected lawmaker and Lee Jeong-hee, co-leader of United Progressive Party. The argument started over the fraud-ridden primaries in their proportional representation voting system but it was more about their lopsided creed of agitating existing Korean society.
I have once compared the saju of the latter two, providing the analogy between them. Now we may be able to review the enumerated four, so to speak “our twisted heroes.” Needless to say, they all once represented social elites and are still sitting as a member of intellectual group, having seized enormous authority and leading many followers. Seemingly different but if we view them through the window of saju, we can find much common ground.
By the way, before getting down to the specifics, we have to make it clear that saju doesn’t make ethical judgment. It doesn’t tell whether they are right or not. Individually, they all pursued their own values. Their deeds could be reproached by some people, which shouldn’t be considered as a matter of an absolute virtue or not. What we can read by saju are their own possible anguishes and blunders in the process of life paths.
Even the saju beginners can tell that their day masters are all yin metals, which is represented by a knife or gun. People with yin metal day master are dispassionate and intelligent. They are sharp as the edge of knife, lustrous as gold and hazardous as a gun. They are delicate and vulnerable at the same time. Another evident aspect overlapped in their saju is the knowledge star, earth element. It indicates their learning and educational back ground. While the knowledge stars are very strong in all of them, they are also either clashed or congested
It suggests the inclination of their life related with honor and the likelihood of causing a tarnished reputation. Certain types of coincidences are often discovered in times of many people’s adversity by reading saju.
Information : Are you interested in learning more about the ancient Chinese teaching about the “Four Pillars of Destiny”? For further information, visit Janet’s website at www.fourpillarskorea.com, contact her at 010-5414-7461 or email janetshin@hotmail.com.
The writer is the author of “Life’s Secrets”.