Opinion - The Korea Times

Confucianization in family trees

By Mark PetersonKorea has known Confucianism for over 1,500 years. But Confucianism in Korea was not always the same kind of Confucianism. Social practices changed over time: Initially Confucianism was adopted and adapted to fit Korean society of the Silla period (beginning roughly in the 4th century), but later, Confucianism conformed to the texts on ritual and social behavior and transformed into a totally orthodox ― or as one of my readers likes to say ― “fundamentalist” style of Confucianism.The tipping point came in the late 17th century when, due perhaps to population pressures, and perhaps because of forever reading the texts and making excuses for not conforming, and perhaps due to the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Korea's “older brother,” Korea accepted a thorough-going, orthodox form of Confucianism.Last week I showed two examples of jokbo ― the typical Korean printed genealogical tables ― showing how they were radically different in organization and in representation of their society in early and late Joseon. Today I want to address a special form of ge

Jan 15, 2019By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Changes in Jokbo

By Mark Peterson Jokbo is the Korean word for the published genealogical tables. The term is well-known in Korea, and for good reason. Korea probably has the greatest concentration of genealogical publications of any country on Earth. In other words, more Koreans are recorded in genealogical books than any other people in any other country on Earth. Koreans publish a lot of jokbo.As I wrote last week, the Korean textbooks ignore the Confucian orthodoxy movement of the late 17th century when so many social practices came in line with fundamentalist Confucianism. In addition to ceremonies, inheritances and marriage practices, the genealogies changed ― jokbo came to be recorded in a different way.The Andong Gweon jokbo of 1476Let's illustrate the change by looking at an early Joseon period jokbo and a contemporary jokbo:Here we can see one of the differences between early Joseon society and late Joseon society or contemporary society. The one from 1476 ― the first printed jokbo in Korea ― shows that sons and daughters were recorded equally ― that is, the children in each family were rec

Jan 6, 2019By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Korean textbook improvements

By Mark PetersonLast week I wrote about some of the work I've done over the last 24 years to try to improve American textbooks ― specifically, in how they cover Korea. I think I will spend the next 24 years trying to improve Korean textbooks on how they cover ― not America ― but how they cover Korea.Korean textbooks, on the whole, are very good. But like everything, there is room for improvement, and my career in Korean studies has highlighted several things that I think Korean textbooks can improve on. I'm not qualified to evaluate the textbooks in their total treatment of Korean history and culture, but there are a few areas in which I have personally conducted research where I think I can offer some suggestions for improvements. First, in the area of understanding Confucianism, there is almost no mention of Korea's transformation into a classic ― maybe the best example on the planet ― patrilineal society, better known in Korea as bugye society ― or in simple terms a male-dominated society. What is meant by the sociologists jargon “a patrilineal society” is often called

Dec 31, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Textbook checkers

By Mark Peterson I returned recently from Korea where I attended a conference sponsored by the Academy of Korean Studies. The purpose of the conference was to celebrate the 15th year of the “understanding Korea project” ― the title of the program aimed at correcting mistakes in foreign textbooks in their coverage of Korea.The object of the Academy's concern has been the way Korea is portrayed in textbooks, mainly world history textbooks, in countries around the world. I was one of two representatives from the United States. There were delegates from England, France, Serbia and Argentina as well.My presentation went beyond the 15 years of the Understanding Korea Project they were celebrating, because I have been working to improve for 26 years. Before the National Assembly gave a budget to the Academy of Korean Studies, the budget line for improving Korea's position in overseas textbooks was given to the Korean Overseas Information Service (KOIS) ― now, the Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS).A contact I had known at KOIS asked me if I would set up a team to con

Dec 26, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Sijo conferences

By Mark PetersonMaybe this sijo thing is really catching on?In the last month I've been invited to two, count them! two!, conferences on sijo. The first was in Korea, in the tiny town of Cheongdo, south of Daegu, where a prominent sijo poet and even-more prominent artist, Min Byoung-do, has a studio. He put together an international conference on sijo. And two weeks after that, I spoke at a conference on teaching sijo for secondary school teachers held in Chicago sponsored by the Sejong Cultural Society, based in Chicago. A little bit about the two conferences:The Cheongdo conference was all in Korean, and was “international” in that there was one guest from America, and two from Taiwan. I was the American representative and had the honor of giving two talks ― the first titled “The Importance of Sijo,” and the second, “The Future of Sijo.” Attending the conference were poets and literary critics from all across the peninsula ― they came from Seoul, Andong, Incheon, Daegu and there was a busload from Busan.In my first talk I spoke of some of the thi

Dec 17, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

English sijo

By Mark PetersonI have a proposal.In recent weeks, I have documented the birth of sijo in English in America. And I've contrasted the rise of sijo in English with the death of sijo in Korean. Today, I am proposing a way to revive sijo in Korean.I think the reason sijo is taught as a dead art form in Korea is because of the college entrance exam, the all-important exam students take their senior year in high school. Because the exam can only test for knowledge of old poems, and cannot include a poem the student might write, the only thing taught is the old poems, the classics. The common criticism of education is “teach to the exam” lets exams control what is taught. Can the student write a sijo? No! It's a waste of time ― one must study for the exam. And thus, the creativity of writing one's own poem is forsaken in order to teach what someone else did, creatively, 500 years ago.Don't misunderstand me. I think the Korean education system is one of the best in the world. All the evaluations say so ― it's ranked No.1, or No.2, or in the top five ― depending on which survey y

Dec 3, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

More American sijo

By Mark PetersonLast week, I wrote about high school students in America writing sijo in English ― and I gave several examples. That point was that sijo, basically a dead form in Korea, is alive and well in America.It's truly sad that most Koreans have learned the half-dozen Korean masterpieces, but no more and think the sijo is an archaic form, a dead form. For high school, and even most college students, that is true. There are, of course, some poets who write sijo today. You can find some sijo written today, and some publications, but sijo is not taught as a living art form in Korea. This is unfortunate.In America, sijo is starting to be taught, not only as a classic Korean art form, but as a poetic form that can be used today. In English.Last week I gave several examples from the Sejong Cultural Society's webpage (sejongculturalsociety.org) of contest winners from secondary schools all across America. The contest has gone on now for 11 years. In the early years, there were not many applicants, and most were Korean-Americans. Now there are over 1,000 applicants, and most, by 80 pe

Nov 25, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

American sijo

By Mark PetersonWhereas many Koreans consider sijo a dead art form, the poetic genre is starting to catch on in America.In a previous column I wrote that haiku, the Japanese short poem form, has become a part of American culture. Every student in America today has studied haiku and has actually written their own haiku in English. There are books on English haiku, websites on English haiku ― it is a success. Haiku is part of English literature! But now sijo is close on its heels.Sijo is the next step for many American students. They've learned about, and learned to write haiku ― a short three line poem that features syllable counting as the structural element ― not rhyme, a more-common feature of English poetics. Now comes sijo, also in three lines with a syllabic count that is a little more elaborate than haiku. Sijo has four segments in each line with three or four beats in each segment, with the exception of a longer segment in the third line. It's that longer segment, the second of four, in the third line that often provides the “punch line” or the twist, or the resolu

Nov 19, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Sijo, Korea's contribution to world

By Mark PetersonSijo, the famous Korean, three-line, short poetic form, should be understood in a cross-cultural perspective. As the frog outside the well ― that is as a non-Korean Koreanologist ― I see sijo differently than most Koreans, and the view I have is that sijo is one of Korea's best contributions to world literature.When I first began teaching Korean Studies at Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1984, I came into a humanities building that held paintings featuring examples of world literature in the main hallway. There were two framed paintings for each piece of literature ― one was a scene from a story and one was an explanation that described the work and its author.There were, among others, “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo, “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare, “The Divine Comedy (Inferno)” by Dante, “Don Quixote” by Cervantes, “Faust” by Goethe, “War and Peace” by Tolstoy, “The Brothers Karamazov” by Dostoyevski, “The Odyssey” by Homer, “Huckleberry Finn” by M

Nov 9, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Sijo and haiku

By Mark PetersonHaiku, the classic short-form style of poetry from Japan, is not well-known in Korea and is not taught in Korean schools. On the other hand, every American student in the last 20 or 30 years has studied haiku. By study, I mean they have learned the classic forms in translation, they have learned the form is three lines, with syllable counts of five, seven and five per line, and they have been assigned to write their own haiku. Haiku has become a part of American culture.Years ago, when teaching sijo in my university pre-modern literature class, I would ask if students knew haiku. Then they would respond that they had learned, and written, haiku in high school. As the years went by, I found students were learning haiku earlier and earlier in school ― now they study haiku in the third or fourth grade. There are numerous books of haiku poetry and countless websites on haiku. Truly haiku has become a part of American culture.There is an old Korean saying, “My cousin bought some land and I got a stomachache.” The meaning may not be apparent; it expresses jealou

Nov 5, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Read more

Confucianization in family trees

Changes in Jokbo

Korean textbook improvements

Textbook checkers

Sijo conferences

English sijo

More American sijo

American sijo

Sijo, Korea's contribution to world

Sijo and haiku

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