Opinion - The Korea Times

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

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

Read more

Textbook checkers

Sijo conferences

English sijo

More American sijo

American sijo

Sijo, Korea's contribution to world

Sijo and haiku

Hanok village today

Death of Korea's villages

Presidential cannibalism

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