Cultural tourism scholar offers lectures on Korea's spiritual heritage

David A. Mason in 2013 / Courtesy of David A. Mason

By Jon Dunbar

When David A. Mason first came to Korea almost 40 years ago, he had two main fascinations, craggy mountains and East Asian philosophies, both of which he found in abundance here.

"I was mainly interested in China and had never heard of Korea, but upon visiting Korea I found so much of East Asian spiritual traditions flourishing in the gorges of very beautiful and accessible mountains, like nowhere else," he told The Korea Times.

During that first visit, he went to Mount Samgak, Mount Songni and Gyeongju, and took a deep interest in Sanshin, or mountain spirits in shamanism. "Learning more about it and finding more artworks of it just became my personal quest," he said. "Things just kept blossoming from there, as I learned about everything that was connected to Sanshin, which is most of Korea's history and traditions, especially the religious parts ― they are an axial factor of Korean culture.

Sometime in the 1990s, Mason's deep fascination went from hobby to career, and he is now a cultural tourism professor at Sejong University. He has done a lot of related work on the side, running the website san-shin.org, publishing about 10 books related to Korean spiritualism and serving as a tour guide and lecturer. He's a popular lecturer because he's knowledgeable and speaks on his topics with an infectious enthusiasm.

David A. Mason poses with a couple of his books, "An Encyclopedia of Korean Buddhism" and "Spirit of the Mountains." / Courtesy of David A. Mason

As the pandemic has put a stop to most tourist activities, he's been focusing on online lectures. These have included talks for local groups including the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea and Hippie Korea, as well as for global online platforms like Context Conversations and Tours By Locals.

This week, he kicked off an online lecture series on Korean history hosted through Seorae Global Village Center. The free 90-minute lectures run every Tuesday in August at 2 p.m. (KST), introducing Korea's premodern history and tying it with the present day. His first lecture, held Aug. 10, introduced Korea's four historical "golden ages" by examining UNESCO World Heritage sites associated with each.

His lecture next Tuesday, Aug. 17, provides an overview of Korean shamanism, and then he will discuss Korean Buddhism on Aug. 24 and Korean neo-Confucianism on Aug. 31. All four lectures are intended for the "general public beginner level," with plenty of colorful photos, intended to increase understanding and appreciation among foreign residents, visitors and Koreans who want to know more about their heritage.

"Shamanism is very basic human psychology, the oldest kind of spirituality humans ever had, and the actual root of every sort of religion," Mason explained. "Korean Shamanism is a very distinct and vibrant type, deeply rooted in ancient Northeast Asian ground and yet very much a living tradition, still evolving new modern forms! That's hard to find in other parts of the world."

He mentioned that shamanist practices remain illegal in most parts of the country, legalized only in five areas. But he said that despite the hostility of urban governments and national park authorities, it is possible to find shamanism throughout the country. Five county governments have allowed shamanism, where it flourishes quite well, and shaman sites can be found in most urban areas and outside the boundaries of national parks.

"New young shamans continue to train and get into professional practice, and expensive new shrines and artworks continued to be created," he said. "Almost all contemporary Koreans will tell you that they have nothing to do with it, but in reality there are millions of customers/clients across the nation, and increasing activity outside Korea among the now-vast diaspora."

His second lecture will look at Buddhism, the best-known of the three spiritualities, and the one most visible in Korean society today.

"Korean Buddhism is unique in having an essentially united national Buddhism, that blends the major Meditational (Seon, Zen) schools with the mainstream Scholastic and Devotional Schools," he said. "What I most love about Korean Buddhism is that it has plenty of Chinese Daoism infused into it, and that all its greatest temples are up in the beautiful mountains and not in urban lowlands; both of those are unique among Buddhist nations, and both have clear historical reasons that I'll tell."

He saves the most austere topic for his last lecture. Neo-Confucianism, in contrast to shamanism and Buddhism, is associated with stuffy scholars and rigid social hierarchy, but Mason encourages people to look closer to appreciate its values and characteristics.

"Frankly, not so many people want to hear about it ― but they should! People think it's quite a boring conservative philosophy and social system, just 'obey your elders.' They don't realize how revolutionary and beneficial it was in its time, in several ways," he said. "It certainly had its vast faults, which I will cover, but it has very good sides also. I myself have gotten some very good concepts and practices from it, about leading my life within civilization as a member of society. Neo-Confucianism is very much about living your real life in this very real world. It's worth learning about, and understanding the reasons why it dominated all of East Asia for 700 solid years, after Buddhism had had its own very good run for more than a millennium."

Confucianism often gets the blame for some of the uglier aspects of Korean society, such as conformity, strict hierarchy and strict emphasis on education, which Mason will discuss, but he also encourages looking at the bigger picture.

"Some of the bad historical results and some of the social faults can indeed be traced back to the fact that Confucianism did not live up to its own ideals, as all other religions and political systems also don't," he said. "Neo-Confucianism is also claimed to be responsible for some of the great successes of East Asia in the past centuries, and that credit is also well-deserved. It's way too simple to say it was only at fault; it's also true that if neo-Confucian ideals and actual doctrines were actually followed properly, such bad tendencies and poor results would not have happened."

Mason has been separated from Korea since last year amid the pandemic travel restrictions. After he visited family in the Philippines, he found it impossible to come back, leading to a year and a half of "unexpected exile." For the past three semesters, he's managed to continue teaching cultural tourism for Sejong University on a half-time schedule.

He is clearly sad to be instructing his students virtually in the final year before he reaches the mandatory retirement age in Korea. But Mason isn't planning to slow down, whether he's working from home in the Philippines or able to get back to Korea.

"One interesting gig I just finished was to transcribe hundreds of pages of letters written by an American Christian missionary starting in 1898, back to his home church organization," he said. "They were written in longhand cursive, and some Korean Christian professors could not read them, and they asked the younger Western English teachers around them and they could not read them either! So they found me, and yes I could read the old-style longhand and understand the English usage of 120 years ago, having encountered those things in my pre-computer youth. So I spent three months transcribing those ― a very rare case of me getting a job exactly because I'm elderly! There are still a few skilled things we oldsters can do that the young whippersnappers can't."

Visit global.seoul.go.kr for more information or to sign up for Mason's free online talks, or contact the center at seorae@seoul.go.kr or 02-2155-8949.