Opinion - The Korea Times

Hanok village today

By Mark PetersonMy recent visit to Sacheon village in Uiseong County of North Gyeongsang Province left me thinking about the traditional Korean village today. I wrote last time about Sacheon throwing all its efforts into becoming internationally known as a “storyteller's” village as a way to both promote storytelling as an art form and revive a dying village in the process.This visit to a traditional village, and a night in an ondol room, sleeping on mats on the floor, brought back to me many pleasant memories. I've spent many years on an ondol floor. And after living in Korea in traditional, and semi-traditional homes (meaning “hanok” and more modern homes still with heated floors), I have moved to America, but returned from time to time (six times in all) to live in traditional villages, what today are often referred to as hanok villages. I've also spent more than 20 nights, one at a time, in Buddhist temples, so-called “templestay,” with student groups and teacher groups. The six trips with students were spring term “study abroad” ex

Nov 2, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Death of Korea's villages

By Mark Peterson On a recent trip to Korea (I've been visiting Korea several times a year on lecture tours as well as attending conferences and seminars), I had the chance to attend a storytellers' meeting in Uiseong, between Daegu and Andong in North Gyeongsang Province. I came away with renewed fears for the future of the Korean rural village.Let me tell you about the village and then let me tell you about the storytelling festival they are holding there.The village is dying. It's truly sad because the village in Uiseong County called Sacheon is truly a first-class example of a traditional yangban (aristocrat) village, or as people more likely say today, a “hanok village.” Hanok is the Korean word for a traditional house, usually with a tile roof and ondol (heated-floor) rooms. Sacheon is as great an example of a traditional village as is Hahoe Village and Yangdong Village, the two villages that are better-known and have been named UNESCO World Heritage Sites.Hahoe is noted for being inside the horseshoe-bend of a river, and Yangdong is noted for its layout on four hill

Oct 26, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Presidential cannibalism

By Mark PetersonSeveral years ago I wrote an article about how Korea treats its former presidents, and noted that once they leave office bad things happen to them, and in some cases, bad things happen that cause them to leave office. I concluded that the way presidents are treated is as if they are eaten, in effect, and I used the term “presidential cannibalism.” I thought that the way Korean society treats their former presidents is not unlike the way some insects and animals in nature eat their young, or their spouse. Cannibalism ― eating one's own. With the recent announcement that former President Lee Myung-bak was sentenced to prison, I thought, “Here we go again!”Perhaps we need to take a moment to look at the history of how Korea treats its presidents, and maybe draw a few conclusions. Perhaps Korea needs to look at finishing their democracy by finding a way to honor past presidents instead of “eating” them.Korea has achieved a marvelous standard of democratization. I often tell my students and public audiences that Korea is more democratic

Oct 22, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Confucianization story in Korea

By Mark PetersonI have spent several weeks writing about the transformation of Korea in the late 17th century. I have outlined seven major social practices that were completely turned upside down at the close of the 17th, and into the 18th century. And these are not insignificant social events: the disinheritance of daughters, dropping daughters from ceremonies, dropping daughter's posterity from genealogies, the all-consuming desire to have a son, and adoption of a son if one is not born, the location of the marriage at the husband's father's house, and the establishment of “clan villages” where everyone in the village is a member of the patrilineage, except for the women ― these were fundamental developments that changed Korea forever.So fundamental were these changes that Korean society today looks back at the “traditional family system” ― meaning this Confucianized system ― and thinks that it has been this way “forever,” or for at least as long as we can know. This is wrong. The Confucianized family system is relatively recent ―&

Oct 5, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

17th century quiet revolution

By Mark PetersonI've previously written about the changes in the late 17th century and listed seven major features of social life and family organization that changed. I've written that these changes affected every aspect of social life in Korea. It was a revolution. But the revolution was not with bloodshed and chaos, but rather was a quiet revolution that changed everything.Why did it happen? What caused Korean society to disinherit daughters, leave daughters out of the ancestral ceremonies, drop the details of a daughter's life and posterity from the genealogy, look by all means to have a son, and adopt a son from within the patrilineage if a son was not born, marry only at the father's house (no longer recognizing an option of marrying at the bride's home, and thus creating villages of “men-related-to-men-by-men.” They created a system where women were invisible and only useful in biologically producing a son.Why?That is the question and I'm not sure I understand it completely, but I understand part of it. In fact, three parts of it.As I see it, three forces came toge

Sep 16, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Why Korea became Confucianized

By Mark PetersonThe process by which Korea came to be the “most-Confucianized” country in the world was a long, drawn-out process that requires careful observation and careful definitions of terms.Confucianism, as an alien ideology, came into Korea from China in the Three Kingdoms Period. Its introduction was not as dramatic, nor as successful as was that of Buddhism ― Buddhism had many more adherents in the early days. But gradually, over the centuries, Confucianism grew until, with the founding of the Joseon Kingdom in 1392, Confucianism was the ideology openly advocated by the new rulers.Confucianism is good for rulers. It is mainly a set of “governing” principles and is concerned with engendering a happy and harmonious society. Confucianism is concerned with the here-and-now, unlike Buddhism that is focused on the next life. Confucianism is not much concerned with a god or with heaven; it is society and government in the present that is most important. If Confucius had had a name card printed up for himself, on the line where it would say one's positi

Sep 5, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Traditional Confucian system

By Mark PetersonIn my last article, I argued that the traditional social order of Korea, that defined as “Confucian” and marked with features of male dominance, was not that old. I pointed out that there was a quiet revolution in the late 17th century whereby basic social and family practices changed. But the important point for us today was not that the changes took place, but that when those changes took place is a “knowable.” And yet throughout Korean society today, nobody knows about it. It's like a great secret ― unknowable, but in full sight.I wrote a book on the topic, in the late 90s. I wrote it in English ― it was published by the Cornell University Press, titled, “Korean Adoption and Inheritance: The Creation of a Classic Confucian Society” and then I made sure that it was available to the Korean academic community by personally seeing to the translation and publication in Korean ― “Yugyo sahoe eui changchul” (The Emergence of Confucian Society).I wanted the book to be read in Korean so that it would become part of the, w

Aug 31, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

'Traditional' Korean family system began

By Mark PetersonIn my previous installment, I argued that the so-called traditional family system of Korea, that was marked by Confucian ideology and practices, and called the “bugye family system” (patrilineal system), is of fairly recent ancestry. Many people in Korea assume that the system is ancient, dating back to at least the founding of the Joseon Kingdom in 1392, if not before. While it's true that some elements of Confucianization took place at the start of the Joseon Kingdom, there were elements of Confucianism adopted as early as the late Three Kingdoms period, and certainly by the Unified Silla period ― there were famous Confucian scholars, Seol Chong and Choe Chiwon, from the Silla period. But the ultimate practice of Confucianism, with all of its attendant ceremonies (ancestor ceremonies particularly) was not achieved until the late Joseon period.When we look at the hallmarks of the fully articulated Confucian society, there are several items that we can isolate as having changed in the late Joseon period, specifically, in the late 17th century. I will

Aug 13, 2018By Mark Peterson

'Traditional' Korean family system began

Mark Peterson

Origin of Korea's family system

By Mark Peterson How old is the Bugye family system (patrilineal system) in Korea?One of the hallmarks of traditional Korean society has been the dominance of patrilineal descent groups and the dominance of males over females, that is usually attributed to Confucianism. Americans don't usually use the phrase “patrilineal descent group,” a rather technical term, used in anthropology ― most would rather call it the “patriarchy” or patriarchal society ― but the term “bugye sahoe” is well-known in Korea. It's their system; they've got a name for it.Everyone in Korea tends to understand that traditional society was male-dominated ― instead of “ladies first” as in the West, it was “men first, women after” (namseon, yeohu). But the bugye sahoe meant more than that. Inheritances went only to sons, mostly the eldest son. And the tradition of the eldest son, of the eldest son, of the eldest son, for multiple generations has led to the concept of the “jongson” ― the “lineage heir” who lives in the &ldq

Aug 3, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Final note on invasions

By Mark PetersonThe frog-in-the-well view of Korean history is that Korea has been invaded multiple times by multiple nations. This frog ― from outside the well ― has a different point of view.And I am not alone. There are other foreign scholars, and more and more young Korean scholars who are starting to view Korean history in the way I am suggesting. But in the wider public, still the idea of victimization, still the idea of multiple invasions persists.In previous columns, I have argued that prior to the chaotic 20th century, there were really only two major invasions ― that of the Mongols in the 1230s and that of the Japanese in the 1590s. I argued that the Japanese “invasion” of 1894 or of 1910 was very different from that of 1592 in that the enemy was China, not Korea, though the fighting was on Korean soil. The invasions of the Korean War were lethal and destructive, but were not technically foreign invasions. Korea was victimized, but not directly by foreign powers, although we can argue that the North-South fighting was spurred by the greater powers

Jul 25, 2018By Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson

Read more

Hanok village today

Death of Korea's villages

Presidential cannibalism

Confucianization story in Korea

17th century quiet revolution

Why Korea became Confucianized

Traditional Confucian system

'Traditional' Korean family system began

Origin of Korea's family system

Final note on invasions

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