Presenting heritage in English

By Kim Ji-myung

On so many occasions I have raised the issue of writing properly about Korea in English. A new dimension that needs to be added now is "digital." Most material in hard copy, even if it has been translated from Korean, reaches only a tiny part of the world audience.

If we are serious about transferring information about the history, culture and people of Korea to a bigger worldwide population, we should present it in English and through digital media. This seems obvious, but it is hard to implement.

I think the information boards standing at heritage sites in Korea, such as the palaces, royal tombs and Buddhist temples face two challenges. Do they serve the target audience properly at accessible positions and in effective designs? Do they provoke interest and curiosity with the visitor by prodding them intellectually?

Much effort and money has been spent to tackle this "interpretation panel issue." Almost every year the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) has commissioned specialists to improve the message delivery at cultural heritage sites.

Several foreign residents in Korea have said that many of those on-site interpretation panels have world-class designs. They seldom block the perspective of viewers or the view of the camera lenses. Many are placed low in a corner. Often, visual aids such as maps and drawings stand side by side with the text panel.

But CHA officials are frustrated about being blamed unfairly for the many errors and insipid statements of interpretation texts throughout the nation. In fact, the CHA is responsible only for state-designated heritage items. Many more of these information panels are under the control of local governments.

Take an example text at the Royal Ancestral Shrine Jongmyo: "Jeongjeon, the main hall, is the most important part of Jongmyo Shrine. In front of this main hall stretches a massive elevated stone yard called a woldae, surrounded by walls on all sides."

We can easily guess that the writer is stating the facts about the building sitting in his room and not where the board stands. He needs to be creative enough to imagine what a visitor will see on site. If there is a very important feature which the visitor would likely miss, then it needs to be mentioned.

Why should a foreign visitor learn the Korean word "woldae," literally meaning moon terrace? It just indicates the elevated terrace surrounding major palace buildings in Asian countries.

It continues: "The scenery of the rough, expansive stone yard an imposing, magnificent roof floating over it has he ultimate beauty of sublimity found in classical architecture." The words are flowery but I doubt they overwhelm anyone.

Writing text from scratch, with a fresh viewpoint and thinking out of the "Korean box" requires will, experience and capability. It is, in a sense, re-inventing Korea.

My team of researchers carried out a project this year to suggest a fundamental change of policy regarding the interpretation system at heritage sites. We had Korean and English text from 1,860 panels to work on.

We approached the issue in two dimensions. First is content: how the texts in Korean and in English are composed now.

The second part regards presentation strategy and the physical system: what the most effective delivery system will be, such as an ideal mix of on-site boards, digital guides, applications, brochures, books and/or other on-line links to knowledge sources.

To find problems involved in the texts posted on site, the team tagged all Korean and English words of the texts of the 1,860 panels. Words were classified as cultural heritage, people, concept, event, book and space.

The words in different areas were compared against those entry categories of the "Korean History Thesaurus" and the "Encyclopedia of Korean Culture." As a test of the level of vocabulary, 4,845 tagged English words were checked against the 1,500 special English words of the Voice of America (VOA) and the 3,000 words of Paul and Bernice Noll. Results showed roughly less than 30 percent matched those core words.

We know that English speakers hate the repeated use of the same word. But the variation should not cause confusion. To give an idea of the situation, the Korean word gidan meaning base stone was translated into 18 different English words.

In the order of frequency of translated words for gidan, they are: pedestal, foundation, base, stylobate, podium, foundation stone, stone base, base podium, base stone, cornerstone, stylobate (base stone), platform, foundation platform, ground stone, ground base, ground foundation, stone foundation and support.

The Imjin War which means the Japanese invasion of 1592 (year of Imjin), was translated in 36 different ways.

One timely issue is the name of Korean Empire, which lasted between 1897 and 1910, as the history museum of the empire has recently opened. Six different names were found in our analysis– Great Han Empire, Great Han (Daehan) Empire, Daehan Empire, Great Korean Empire (Daehanjeguk), Great Han Empire (1897-1910) and Great Han Empire. As for this issue, I need a separate column to present why I among others insist on the name Korean Empire.

May our efforts to analyze and pinpoint the causes of communication problems change the way we Koreans talk and write about ourselves in English.

The writer is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute. (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com.

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