[KS] Korean pronunciation for the names of the figures for Kuunmong

[AWOOJAlex at aol.com]

Dear Mark:
This was for the catalogue of the museum and I had to introduce Korean art to
the public so I decided to use Korean names for the figures and for the place
names I put Korean and put Chinese in paranthesis.  The screen paintings are
full of Korean feeling when the western public and Koreans comes and see it,
they vividly see how different and vibrant Korean art is as opposed to Chinese
and Japanese art, I felt it is not doing a great service to Korean art by
using Chinese names.  
I am aware of Virtuous Women and initially used that and then converted to
Pinyin but then I felt so foreign to the protagonists, and the figures in the
novel even for me, so I decided to follow Dr. Kumja Kim's precedent in her
recent catalogue.
The manjuda screen paintings with strictly Chinese narratives, I used Chinese
but Kuunmong was written by Korean.  I felt that Kuunmong was set in Tang
China Kim did so in order to avoid the criticism and possible death sentence
by Chang Huibin's faction in the tense political situation, he had to stage
the novel in China.  It is clearly directed to her, two queens (Queen Min and
Chang Huibin) and has more relevance to Korean history.  
In Sherman Lee's A History of Far Eastern Art book, a standard art history
textbook, the Lelang commandary of Han China is introduced as Naknang (without
Chinese word Lelang) as was pronounced by Koreans.  Because  Sherman Lee used
this, I also used Naknang and Taebang instead of Lelang and Taifang
commandaries in the introduction to my catalogue.  
But I maybe doing something wrong as a scholar, as you said.
Should I change the names back to Chinese, from Yang Soyu to Yang xiao-you,
Yukkwang taesa to Liuguan?
I even referred the protagonist with his first name "Soyu" so people would
feel close to him.  I have to plead to the emotion of the public because it is
dealing with art and Korean art is so foreign to people here.
For me it is much more simple and easy just to put Pinyin but I am hesitating.
I do not know what to do.  Let me know of any further ideas.
Thanks.
Junghee
>From Massachusetts.



 
 


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%