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<TITLE>Re: [KS] Korean Tea Ceremony and other wonders</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'>Lovely. Perhaps one day the Huntington Gardens, Library and Gallery will have a Korean garden on its premises so we may hear these words spoken ... It would be appropriate for the city with the 2nd largest Korean population in the world: Los Angeles.<BR>
</SPAN></FONT><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>-- <BR>
Lauren W. Deutsch<BR>
835 S. Lucerne Blvd., #103<BR>
Los Angeles CA 90005<BR>
Tel 323 930-2587 Cell 323 775-7454<BR>
E lwdeutsch@earthlink.net<BR>
</SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'><BR>
<BR>
<HR ALIGN=CENTER SIZE="3" WIDTH="95%"><B>From: </B>Young-Key Kim-Renaud <kimrenau@gwu.edu><BR>
<B>Reply-To: </B><kimrenau@gwu.edu>, Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws><BR>
<B>Date: </B>Sun, 12 Aug 2012 15:11:54 -0400<BR>
<B>To: </B>Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann@koreaweb.ws>, Korean Studies Discussion List <koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws><BR>
<B>Subject: </B>Re: [KS] Korean Tea Ceremony and other wonders<BR>
<BR>
Hi Frank, Werner, and others,<BR>
<BR>
Thanks for this very interesting thread of discussion. <BR>
<BR>
I am not sure if you will find this relevant to the conversation, but here is a poem by Song Sun (</SPAN></FONT><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleMyungjo">송순</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> 宋純, 1493 ~ 1583) cited by<B> </B>a Korean architect, In-Souk Cho, in her presentation on traditional Korean architecture at the15th HMS Colloquium in the Korean Humanities at The George Washington University on November 3, 2007. <BR>
<BR>
<BR>
The poem was read to highlight the kind of understanding of the relationship between nature and human beings. The original poem, followed by my own translation, is shown below:<BR>
<B> <BR>
</B></FONT><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">십년</FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">(十年)</FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">을</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">경영</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">(經營)</FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">하야</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">초려삼간</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">(草廬三間)</FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">지어내니<BR>
나</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">한</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">간</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">, </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">달</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">한</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">간에</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">청풍</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">(淸風) </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">한</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">간</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">맛져두고</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">,<BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">강산</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">(江山)</FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">은</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">드릴</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">듸</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">업스니</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">둘너</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">두고</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT><FONT FACE="AppleGothic">보리라<BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Arial"> <BR>
--Song Sun (</FONT><FONT COLOR="#222222"><FONT FACE="AppleMyungjo"><B>송순</B></FONT></FONT><B><FONT FACE="Arial"> </FONT></B><FONT FACE="Arial">宋純, 1493 ~ 1583)<BR>
<BR>
It took ten years to build<BR>
my little thatched hut.<BR>
One part is for me, the moon fills the second,<BR>
the third is reserved for the clear wind.<BR>
Rivers and mountains: There is no room to invite you in!<BR>
Stay where you are—I’ll gaze at you surrounding me.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
--Tr. by Young-Key Kim-Renaud<BR>
<BR>
With my best wishes, <BR>
<BR>
Young-Key <BR>
<BR>
On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 9:53 AM, Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann@koreaweb.ws> wrote:<BR>
</FONT></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'><FONT FACE="Arial">Dear Werner, dear All:<BR>
<BR>
Thank you Werner for taking the time and effort to respond in detail.<BR>
<BR>
While some themes and issues can just be discussed by stating facts<BR>
with additional interpretation (see e.g. Kenneth Robinson's reply to<BR>
Lauren's request), I think this "garden culture" issue does require a<BR>
different approach in replying. We otherwise just end up in some A says<BR>
YES and B says NO thread that might not be all too educational.<BR>
<BR>
I think that all Werner wrote in his posting is correct, and I really<BR>
do not have to stretch myself to say so. While all these observations<BR>
are very likely to the point, this still does not change anything with<BR>
the problem I have as regards to "garden culture" in Korea. Allow me<BR>
therefore to explain what the problem is, as short as I can.<BR>
<BR>
The starting point **for me** in looking at such themes is always what<BR>
we may call the "discourse situation" (or simply the existing<BR>
discourse). The discourse can never be ignored, and whatever arguments<BR>
are made are always within an existing discourse, are always reacting<BR>
to an existing discourse. Someone can certainly claim not to care about<BR>
the existing discourse, but that would then just be another tactic of<BR>
reacting to the existing discourse (e.g. to provoke in order to<BR>
stimulate new approaches), or it is done out of pure ignorance. By the<BR>
1990s we were in a situation were the discourse on Japanese tea<BR>
ceremony and garden culture had reached a highly sophisticated stage. I<BR>
would say that the 1990s up until the early 2000s were all over the<BR>
most important time for theoretical approaches on East Asian art, a<BR>
time where just everything came finally together. [I could explain this<BR>
in much detail, but not now, it would mean to side-track, and it would<BR>
take several pages.] In this situation, with the continuous discussion<BR>
and research activities on Japanese garden culture, that was by then on<BR>
a really sophisticated stage (I already mentioned the book by Guth as<BR>
one example), with a lot of available textual sources and textual<BR>
analysis done, and with an amazing number of publications--yes, indeed<BR>
a 'hype' already in that area, within this discourse situation I now<BR>
saw KOREA suddenly raising its middle finger to say "oh well, never<BR>
mind, we have all this as well. We have almost no textual evidence, we<BR>
have almost no gardens, hardly anyone has a green finger in Korea and<BR>
knows what to do around the house, there are no sort of traditional<BR>
aesthetic treatises by Korean scholars on gardening and on the<BR>
relationship of garden and philosophy (Buddhist or otherwise), but<BR>
never mind, we have what you have anyway." Okay, yes, this is somewhat<BR>
ironic. The problem there is that all these people, media, publications<BR>
do not just try to say, "see, we also have gardens" but that from the<BR>
very beginning the talk was about "garden culture"--AND there is a very<BR>
vibrant discourse and a hype going on about this in neighboring Japan,<BR>
and as for Japan, garden culture played without doubt a very central<BR>
role for art and aesthetics. And OF COURSE does that discourse matter<BR>
to Korea AND for anyone else seeing a book on Korean garden culture,<BR>
and of course was everyone in Korea quite aware (but possibly not well<BR>
informed) about that discourse. (NOTE: To be perfectly clear about<BR>
this, I personally do not at all like Japanese gardens with their<BR>
miniature landscapes, sense of artificiality, and the philosophy that<BR>
they relate to.)<BR>
<BR>
Now, nobody please get me any naiivité flash card as a response at<BR>
this point, I urge you. We do talk high up cultural politics and<BR>
well-crafted, government-sponsored manipulation beyond believe here.<BR>
Garden culture is a big one, and my example of Rubens' "Man in Korean<BR>
cloth" that becomes a "Korean man in Korean costume" in the National<BR>
Museum's exhibit is a smaller example of this. Factual evidence and<BR>
historical truth is secondary, is shaped in whatever way seems<BR>
opportune to propagate national culture--for what, with what aim? Now,<BR>
I sure do not want to make this a finger-pointing statement. As<BR>
Professor Best might or might not agree with, Japanese organizations<BR>
and scholars followed very similar tactics, and much earlier than<BR>
Korea, and also with and about e.g. tea ceremony and garden<BR>
culture--which makes it really a complex topic to discuss. Basically,<BR>
what I am saying is that Korea is taking a bath in its neighbor's pond<BR>
while it has its own, but that is not called garden culture; it is,<BR>
intentionally so, hopping onto an existing discourse by simply<BR>
replacing a country name: these are tested corporate marketing<BR>
strategies applied to culture--Honda becomes Hyundai, and other<BR>
corner-cutting approaches to sell.<BR>
<BR>
The 'hype' about Korean garden culture is thus build upon the<BR>
pre-existing discourse on Japanese garden culture, there is no doubt<BR>
about that. But now that we have it, can we actually fill that easily<BR>
achieved 'hype' with some real historical, material and textual<BR>
contents? (Zero points from me if you reply that this is a question of<BR>
having the same "right" than Japan has to this. What I want to know is<BR>
what there actually existed in historic times.) THAT is my question,<BR>
and that is where I do have various doubts. I have a lot of doubts<BR>
about the archaeological "evidence"--at least what I have seen in<BR>
Korean journals a few years ago in Korea ….I copied two such articles<BR>
exactly because they looked so traumatizingly odd to me, but<BR>
unfortunately I do not have those at hand here in Italy. I also noted<BR>
(and sorry, I have again to pass when it comes to references, nothing<BR>
is here with me) that some the book publications seemed to fill in for<BR>
the absence of concrete, verifiable historic information and textual or<BR>
material evidence with what I consider weird and abstruse, completely<BR>
made-up aesthetic theories. Such wide-spread and in Korean officially<BR>
propagated explanations are also reflected in Werner's description<BR>
below (referring to the part "build in a way that they looked natural"):<BR>
<BR>
> Studying Soswaewon it sometimes was not easy to<BR>
> distinguish between some feature which has been added and features<BR>
> which were simply cleaned spots left in the original state but in<BR>
> connection with other areas given aesthetic meaning. And some of the<BR>
> walls building terrasses were build in a way that they looked<BR>
> natural, and you had to give a second look to see they were man made.<BR>
<BR>
Sounds somehow mystic and very "Oriental" to my ears, and of course, we<BR>
see this being repeated over and over in lots of Korean magazines, but<BR>
was that so? In short, I think this is not the case. We really should<BR>
be awake and careful not to confuse today's journalistic explanations<BR>
with historic reality. When Rapunzel lets her hair down, then that<BR>
indicates that key to the tower is unavailable. But we do not have to<BR>
climb up. We can instead search for the key. If people have no clue how<BR>
to explain a certain artistic object, as they miss sufficient<BR>
historical information that allows them to make connections explaining<BR>
how the object was used, how it was made, who owned it, and so forth,<BR>
then we do often end up hearing these made-up "appreciation of nature"<BR>
aesthetics as a simple replacement for actual information. (Korea and<BR>
Korean garden culture is by far not the only such example. In the 70s,<BR>
for example, whatever book you read about South American culture, Inka<BR>
etc., you would always read about this "appreciation or nature"<BR>
aesthetics--by now, with much more information at our hands, that has<BR>
disappeared, now we have much better information on how objects were<BR>
used, how gardens were utilized, and for what purposes by whom, etc.<BR>
"Appreciation of nature" is nothing but an emergency place-holder.) A<BR>
much simpler explanation could be that Koreans were not concerned about<BR>
gardens and garden culture, that the emphasis was on quite different<BR>
issues. Why, for example, do Germans care so much about perfectly well<BR>
build double-glass windows in their houses, and why is this by no means<BR>
one of the top priorities for Americans, even on the cold East coast,<BR>
how tightly their windows close? Well, Germans stay (at least until<BR>
recently) a life time in one place and Americans move on after two<BR>
three years, on average. There are always explanations for cultural and<BR>
stylistic and all other choices. When we discuss traditional Korean<BR>
landscape architecture and gardening, we should of course look to and<BR>
compare that to China (and Japan), as we do with all otherwise also.<BR>
For a Sino-centric country like Korea that is a must. Why would we<BR>
suddenly make some sort of exclusion from the rule when it comes to<BR>
garden culture? And if we do this, then we will see that there is no<BR>
explanation for a possible absence of a bulk of textual sources, major<BR>
sources, if there ever was anything like garden culture in Korea.<BR>
Garden culture is high culture, we do not talk about "shaman" practices<BR>
in the countryside here. If there was a vibrant garden culture in Korea<BR>
(same applies to tea culture) we would find plenty (!) of texts about<BR>
it and all the details, same as we have on e.g. traditional painting,<BR>
both Korean and imported Chinese texts. We would see the usual<BR>
patterns, the variations, discussions, schools of opinions, etc. And<BR>
*if* indeed there would have been anything like an "appreciation of<BR>
nature" approach that would have been strong enough to cause a garden<BR>
culture with all that belongs to it (being expressed the way you<BR>
describe it in above quoted passage), then we sure would find<BR>
*extensive* sources about exactly this--letters between scholars<BR>
discussing gardens, proof of exchanges of art objects that relate to<BR>
garden culture, extended philosophical treatises in gardens, etc.<BR>
However, the only more scholastic and in-depth philosophic-aesthetic<BR>
approaches into that direction (quite apart from garden culture, just<BR>
to an "appreciation of nature" approach alone), the only schools of<BR>
thought that followed such path--sorry if that sounds once again like<BR>
'Korea-bashing'--come from early 20th century Japan, and there also<BR>
with KOREA as its 'object' here, as a kind of experimental sample case.<BR>
As you see we are right back on track to the theme pre-existing<BR>
discourse: key phrase "Yanagi Muneyoshi and colonial aesthetics (Korean<BR>
porcelain for Japanese tea ceremony, etc.)" Anyway, Harry Harootunian<BR>
and others have in recent years written a lot about such nature<BR>
aesthetics/philosophies, how that relates to Fascism, and more. I am<BR>
not aware of any such (historical) Korean approach, not before the late<BR>
colonial period at least, and there it was again directly influenced by<BR>
contemporary Japanese models.<BR>
<BR>
I have no doubts that everything else you say and describe in the<BR>
posting is right on. That, however, does by no means constitute proof<BR>
of the existence of a "garden culture" in the way the term "garden<BR>
culture" is otherwise used. It means Koreans had gardens, yes, at least<BR>
the aristocracy had. It does not mean gardens played any sort of<BR>
central, important role in overall traditional Korean culture.<BR>
<BR>
Still, some of what you describe, e.g. ….<BR>
> Lots of prose literature and poems about it, too, including<BR>
> a map with references (middle 18th c.)<BR>
makes me curious. Could you describe in more detail? I am not yet<BR>
understanding what poetry you are referring to.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Best,<BR>
Frank<BR>
<BR>
--------------------------------------<BR>
Frank Hoffmann<BR>
<a href="http://koreaweb.ws">http://koreaweb.ws</a><BR>
</FONT></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'><FONT FACE="Arial"><BR>
-- <BR>
<FONT COLOR="#999999">Young-Key Kim-Renaud, Ph.D.<BR>
Chair, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures<BR>
Professor of Korean Language and Culture and International Affairs <BR>
The George Washington University <BR>
801 22nd Street, N.W. (Academic Center, Rome Hall 452) <BR>
Washington, DC 20052 <BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#C0C0C0">kimrenau@gwu.edu <a href="mailto:kimrenau@email.gwu.edu"><mailto:kimrenau@email.gwu.edu></a> <BR>
</FONT><a href="http://departments.columbian.gwu.edu/eall/people/109">http://departments.columbian.gwu.edu/eall/people/109</a> <BR>
<FONT COLOR="#999999">Tel: (O) 202-994-7107 <tel:202-994-7107> <BR>
Fax: (O) 202-994-1512<BR>
</FONT><BR>
</FONT></SPAN>
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