Buddhist monk returns to secular world
Former Buddhist monk Hye Moon, left, poses with his wife and new-born son. / Courtesy of Hye Moon
By Kim Tae-gyu
In 2013, Buddhist monk Hye Moon hired a woman to work in his office, which was carrying out a campaign to get Korean cultural assets, mostly taken out of the nation during Japanese colonial rule (1910-45) and the Korean War (1950-53), returned.
It didn’t take long for Hye Moon to realize that he had fallen in love with her and he decided to leave the monkhood and return to secular life so as to marry her in January 2015. Later that year, the newly-weds had a son.
“Buddhist monks are not supposed to fall in love with women. But it was impossible for me not to love her. So I decided to leave the monkhood instead of my wife,” the 42-year-old said.
“After I became a layman, we still work together to continue our jobs of restoring more cultural assets, the mission that brought us together.”
Hye Moon is famous for starting a successful campaign of convincing the United States to return nine stolen Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910) seals in early 2014 ― President Barack Obama brought them with him on a visit here.
The nine items are comprised of three state seals, which Joseon kings used on diplomatic and other important documents, and six ceremonial ones that royal families used in rituals.
Hye Moon, who specialized in history at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, entered a Buddhist monastery in 1998.
He launched the campaign of retrieving looted Korean cultural properties as a Buddhist monk after learning many of them were smuggled out of the country in the early and mid 20th century.
His efforts were effective as Japan returned the annual records of the Joseon Kingdom in 2006 and a pictorial ritual book five years later. To do so, he visited Japan more than 40 times.
He is now focusing on four sets of items including an artifact enshrining relics of Buddha and famous Korean monks in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Ogura collection, around 1,100 Korean cultural treasures illegally taken by Japanese businessman Takenosuke Ogura, which are currently retained by Tokyo National Museum.
The other two are stone pagodas at Hotel Okura in Tokyo and a Buddhist bell at the Lushun Museum in the Chinese city of Dalian. Both were taken out of the country by other Japanese during the colonial rule or the turbulent decades before.
“None of the four jobs are easy. But we will do our best to bring them back. When we began the campaign to get back the seals, many said it was impossible but we managed to succeed,” he said. “I hope the same thing will happen with the other cultural assets, too.”