Opinion - The Korea Times

Petitions and signatures

By Mark PetersonWe used to joke, when I was a student in Korea in the 1970s, that the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom was more democratic than the Park Chung-hee era in then contemporary Korea. The joke had some truth to it. Both at the level of criticism of the Park administration for its lack of democracy on the one hand, and the amount of democracy we find in Joseon.Of course, therein lies the irony ― that the time of kings, the Joseon dynasty, had democratic institutions. But there were several. I could write a column on each ― for example, student demonstrations. Korea's student demonstration were hallmarks of Korean political life from April 19, 1960, through the 60s, 70s and 80s, until true democracy evolved in Korea. The “samsa” was the censorate ― the three offices of government that had the duty of criticizing the king and the government (and the censorate had great power in the Joseon court; the three arms of the censorate often, really often, criticized the king and his appointments). The king would sometimes withdraw the offending appointment or decision, and someti

Jan 5, 2020By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Gems from Sillok

By Mark PetersonIn continuing the theme I wrote on last week, that of unusual incidents recorded in the Sillok, the official history of the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom, today I want to write about an unusual episode discovered in the Sillok by my colleague, Milan Hejtmanek, who retired recently from Seoul National University.The story Milan tells is available on YouTube at the Academy of Korean Studies site called Societas Koreana. There, several scholars have recordings of important lectures they have given. It is similar to what some universities call the “Last Lecture” series, meaning not that it is really your last lecture, but it is the sum of much of a career of work distilled down to its most important parts and presented in an hour-long format. I have a lecture there: #61. Milan's is #58. Milan's lecture is marvelous. He covers many important aspects of the Sillok ― the kind of record it was, its reliability, its compilation, its suppression by the Japanese in the early 20th century ― and in fact, the near total destruction of the record during the Japanese invasion

Dec 29, 2019By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Treasures from Sillok

By Mark PetersonThe Sillok was the official historical record of the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom. It was an abridgement of the discussions at court where the Royal Secretariat keep record of all the discourse between the king and his subjects. Topics covered everything from major policy decisions, minor decisions, reports from the countryside and even astronomical phenomenon.The Sillok was a faithful chronicle; one of the safeguards built into the writing of the history was that they didn't compile the official history until after the king died. Then a committee of scholars/officials would be assigned to go through the records and write the official history. And the new king could not interfere on behalf of his father, the predecessor king. (The Sillok has been named as UNESCO Memory of the World.)The record began with the four secretaries that would take notes in every official meeting with the king. If one goes to the palace today, one can see the four desks on the floor where the secretaries would sit, in a space between the king's throne and the inside of the doors of the palace hal

Dec 15, 2019By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

More on Chinese education

By Mark PetersonAfter writing last week about my Chinese tutor, Na Kap-ju, and the study of the Chinese classics in Korea, it occurred to me that there is much more I would like to say.When I was first in Korea in the signboards on virtually all businesses were in Chinese. There were some signs in Hangeul. I remember thinking “why do so many signs have 'CH' in English on them?” That was the word “대,” meaning great or big. So, I do remember some signs in Hangeul, but there were so many signs in Chinese. From time to time I see photographs of Korea in the '50s and '60s and am reminded of how much Chinese was used.Newspapers were loaded with Chinese. The headlines were always in Chinese and much of the text was as well. And books, too, were loaded with Chinese.Things gradually changed. Newspapers continued to use Chinese in the headlines, and the text was predominantly in Hangeul. Books moved from titles and text loaded with Chinese, to titles in Chinese, but text in Hangeul with Chinese in parenthesis. And finally, all titles and text in Hangeul. A book I wrote

Dec 1, 2019By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Chinese scholarship in Korea

By Mark PetersonThis article is in the series of “tribute” articles I've written lately. This time the person I want to honor is Na Gap-ju, my classic Chinese tutor who taught me Chinese for about five years when I was living, studying, and working in Korea.I was reminded of him on my recent trip to Korea when I met a young scholar, a Ph.D. candidate, Shin Chae-yong, who works part-time as a translator of classic Chinese. This was greatly encouraging to me because I feared that, with the death of the older generation that had learned Chinese in the traditional way, the art would be lost. I'm pleased that the skill of reading the classics is still alive.The great scholar and teacher of classic Chinese, who taught me, was a gentleman who was taught in the old village schools and who memorized virtually all of the Chinese classics. His name was Na Gap-ju and he lived most of his life in a rural area near Gwangju, but who, late in life came to Seoul and became a tutor and teacher of the Chinese classics.He came to Seoul at the suggestion of my unofficial Korean-resident gradu

Nov 22, 2019By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Korean Studies pioneer

By Mark PetersonIn recent issues here, I have paid tribute to some of the founders of Korean Studies in America. Today I want to recall the contributions to Korean Studies of Spencer Palmer.Palmer was a pioneer in Korean Studies earning his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley with a dissertation on early Korean-American relations. His specialties were in the political science of his dissertation work, Korean history in general and, as he settled in to his career, he found himself in the Religion Department at Brigham Young University (BYU) with research and publications in World Religions.He was my undergraduate professor and one who inspired me to major in Asian Studies and to specialize in Korean Studies. I remember attending Korean Committee meetings with him at the annual meetings of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS).His first exposure to Korea was in the army and belongs to what I call the second generation of Korean Studies specialists. The first generation is the early missionaries including Homer Hulbert, Horace Underwood, James Scarth Gale, George McCune,

Nov 10, 2019By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Korean excellence in education

By Mark PetersonKorea has a well-established reputation for having one of the best education systems in the world, but I have learned a new dimension of that excellence on my recent trip to Korea. I have been invited, of late, to give lectures to a variety of groups ― some breakfast groups, some lunchtime groups ― and coupled with lectures I give to universities, government organizations and private companies, I'm starting to see a picture of how education in Korea is life-long and unlike other countries in the world.The picture of how truly pervasive educational objectives are in Korea has become all the more clear to me when I tried recently to set up some lectures for a Korean friend visiting America. I, for my part, have been the beneficiary of giving numerous lectures in Korea, and I thought I could do the same for my friend in America. He has an interesting message, one that Americans, in the right setting, enjoy hearing. But the bottom line is that there just weren't that many venues that we could find. There are schools, but that is difficult to set up; there are Rotary Clubs

Oct 27, 2019By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Teaching sijo in America

By Mark PetersonI 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.The daylong seminar was held in Indianapolis, Indiana, and co-sponsored by Indiana University. There were teachers from California, Maryland, Georgia ― east coast, west coast ― and all around the Midwest. Teachers were given sessions on various aspects of sijo, were taught how to write sijo, and shown comparisons to Chinese jueju (quatrain poetry) and Japanese haiku. The culmination of the day's activities was a sijo-writing contest for the teachers.The Sejong Cultural Society deserves great credit for planting sijo in America. The sijo is the format, a three-line poem, but the language is English. For 11 years now the Sejong Cultural Society has sponsored an online contest for American high school students (although there are some primary school students who ent

Oct 13, 2019By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Sejong Cultural Society

By Mark PetersonThere 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.For several years, off and on, I have been one of their judges in their sijo writing contest. David McCann, my “seonbae” from Harvard, has also been one of their judges. They have an essay writing contest where a short story translated from Korean is often the kind of subject matter ― that brings the Korean cultural element into the essay. And they have a music competition to encourage young musicians ― Korean-Americans, and otherwise ― to compete in violin and piano. But it is the sijo contest, and the society's sijo workshop, that has brought me into their work.The music contest and the essay contest are for precollege stu

Oct 6, 2019By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

A tribute to Prof. Song June-ho

By Mark PetersonLast week I wrote a tribute to the memory of professor Ed Wagner and I wrote of his contribution 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.Song was a professor at at Jeonbuk National University in Jeonju and for a while after he retired, he had an honorary position at Wonkwang University in Iksan. Like Wagner, Song was a specialist in the social history of the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom, and in jokbo, and he worked with Wagner on creating a master index of the 14,607 men who passed the highest civil service exam, the munkwa. And like Wagner, Song knew the historical value of the documents known as jokbo.Both knew that the popular views of jokbo as “compromised,” “inaccurate” “falsified” were not a correct interpretation of the documents. He knew this because he used a jokbo like any other historical document ― data therefrom had to be cross-checked and verified. He used the jokbo really n

Sep 29, 2019By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Read more

Petitions and signatures

Gems from Sillok

Treasures from Sillok

More on Chinese education

Chinese scholarship in Korea

Korean Studies pioneer

Korean excellence in education

Teaching sijo in America

Sejong Cultural Society

A tribute to Prof. Song June-ho

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