[KS] Re: Hong Kiltong, etc.

John Frankl jmfrankl at fas.harvard.edu
Wed Mar 15 03:08:58 EST 2000



Having spent a few days in Kangw n-do, I return with some additional
thoughts and findings regarding Hong Kiltong-ch n and H  Kyun. I visited
the house in which H  was purportedly born (I am assuming the term
"saengga" refers to birth and not simply living, is this so?). It is in a
state of mild disrepair, which detracts from its potential tourist appeal,
but adds something in terms of gritty "authenticity." In any case, there
seems to be an inchoate movement for its "restoration" (whether this will
be somewhat historically accurate or closer to re-creation remains to be
seen). One interesting finding from Kangn ng is that outside academic
circles, there appears to be no doubt whatsoever that H  is the author of
Hong Kiltong-ch n; the sign leading to H 's house is actually a statue of
Hong Kiltong--a cherubic fellow riding a cloud--under which is written,
unequivocally, that H  is the work's author. Whether this is true or not
will probably mean little to a generation of Koreans (and foreigners) who
have seen it, literally, written in stone.

Back is Seoul I have been discussing some of this with Professor S l S
nggy ng. As to the question of "ibon," I have been informed that, Frank's
children's versions aside, there are three "major" versions of the work.
One is the Yadongbon, a.k.a. Ky ngp'anbon. Both of these names derive from
the work's origin; it was printed in an area of Seoul known as Ya-dong.
The only extant copy of this version is housed, not without understandable
concern on the part of many Koreans, at a most famous Paris museum. The
next is the Wanp'anbon which was printed in Ch nju. This is the version to
which I will refer later. The final version is a p'ilsabon, or
hand-written as opposed to woodblock-printed (p'an) version, which often
takes the name of its owner, Ch ng Urak. I am still not sure whether he
was supposed to have actually written, or merely possessed, this version.
Professor S l believes that cross-referencing all three versions is a good
way to begin a study of the Tale(s) of Hong Kiltong. 

Which brings us back to my original post which was based only on the
Wanp'anbon. Thanks again to Frank and to Walter Lew both for
problematizing my rather offhanded approach to an important matter, and
for motivating me to do a little homework. Still working, for now, with
only the Wanp'anbon I will attempt to clarify some points.

Hoffmann: >Is this true? Can you deconstruct one of my literary heroes
just like that?
>
>(1) You wrote: "Ultra-trickster Hong murders the existing king of Yuldo
..."
>Wrong. Kil-tong and his men fight one battle upon landing on Yul-do.
>After that the king of Yul-do surrenders. 
In this version the king kills himself. So, for this version, Frank and I
are both "wrong." Originally working from memory and not text, I admit to
having conflated the king of Yul-do with the king of the  ltong "beasts"
on S ng-do. On this first island, however, Hong does put an arrow into the
king. The following day, upon realizing the king is not dead, Hong gains
entrance to his quarters with a lie concerning his knowledge of medicine
and ability to heal. What the king gets ,however, is not the medicinal
herbs promised but a lethal dose of poison. Yul-do? No. Trickster? Yes. 

>However, in the Hong Kil-tong piece that I know Hong offers the
>surrendered king the second highest government post -- the former >king
accepts and becomes hereby Prince ?ry?g; in other words, he is >nominally
adopted by Hong Kil-tong as his son -- that makes quite a difference. 

But not in this version. See above.

>Kil-tong pacifies the members of the former government; he does not
murder them. 

Though I will not excuse myself for the factual error regarding Yul-do and
S ng-do, I must say my original post centered around Hong's willingness to
kill for personal gain, not where he did it. And he did do it on S ngdo,
which was, of course, the first stepping stone outside of Korea on the way
to Yuldo.  

> In an analyses, emphasizing the
>"shortcomings" of the text in offering a theoretical-analytical
>concept of a "political correct" Utopia almost 300 years before Marx
>and 350 years before Martin Luther King seems to me
>counter-productive in understanding this great piece of literature.

Here I agree with Frank completely. In my defense, however, my original
post was a reaction to another's use of the word utopia. I was, and am,
much less interested in putative shortcomings than in looking at a
well-known work from alternate angles. To call my very brief original post
an "analysis" offering something like a "theoretical-analytical concept of
a 'politically correct' Utopia" is to simultaneously give me both too much
and too little credit. The truly long and involved posts, though perhaps
generated by mine, were provided by Frank and by Walter Lew.

>(2) You continued: "... and takes both his daughters as prizes."
>Again wrong. You must be referring to the two daughters of two of
>Hong Kil-tong's associates. They had been kidnapped by the ultong
>monsters. Kil-tong frees them and brings them back to their families.
>They then become his first and second wife (politically incorrect, of
>course, it has to be in consecutive order). All this does not happen
>on Yul-do but on another island, Che-do. Che-do is were Kil-tong and
>his men land before continuing their journey to Yul-do. 

Again, Frank, in the Wanp'anbon, we are both wrong. [Will you be as
contrite as I?--:)] This whole incident occurred on S ng-do, a stop prior
to both Chedo and Yuldo. Also, Hong, killing the king of the  ltong, only
knowingly frees one woman, for which he has been promised her hand in
marriage along with half of her father's (his name is Paek Yong in this
version) considerable wealth. Unbeknownst to Hong, however, there are two
other women there. They are of commoner (yangin) background (this is made
very clear as a distinction to the background of the first woman whom I
assume was a yangban) with the surnames of Ch ng and T'ong. They have no
relation to any of Hong's associates. He decides to take all three as
wives. Interesting here is that, prior to his decision, the two commoners,
saying they have no other way to repay his grace, implore him to permit
them to be his sich' p (lit. "serving concubine," though I am sure someone
out there has a more eloquent translation for this there is even a
footnote defining the term as "a concubine who serves a nobleman."). It is
following all this that Hong goes to Che-do.

>What is more
>important: there are pretty clear indications that these monsters and
>their king whom Kil-tong kills are other-worldly beings, not humans.

Admittedly, the entire tale is one of riding clouds, dividing oneself into
eight, etc. As such, the line between this- and other-world(ly) is never
clear. That said, I read the story differently, finding pretty clear
indications that the  ltong provide a case of humans being dehumanized.
Professor S l seems to feel the same. They refer to themselves with the
first person singular pronoun "Bok," written with the Chinese character
pronounced "Boku" in modern Japanese (though I must admit that I am
uncertain as to whether this pronoun was used in late-16th/early-17th
century Japanese). Does this lend any credence to interpretations of
Yul-do as Ryukyu, and to claims of Hong's appearance in Japanese tales?
Perhaps S ng-do was an island closer to one of the main Japanese islands?
They refer to each other as "hy ng" and "tongsaeng." They understand all
of Hong's references to literary Chinese--one of which he uses to convince
them of his medical skill. They live in large houses with front doors,
upon which Hong knocks to gain entrance. They treat him rather cordially,
hardly behaving like beasts (until, of course, he kills their king, and
later all of them). There is one sentence that refers to them as yogwi,
and proves it by saying they command the wind and clouds. But Hong does
the same against them and at many points throughout the story--does this
cause us to doubt his human-ness?
  It goes without saying that both Frank's and my interpretation(s) are
equally subjective and equally valid. What is interesting (to me) is that
Frank's interpretation (seeing them as other-worldly monsters) tends to
reinforce one of my original hunches--that there is a tendency to read
this story from a perspective which puts a rather positive spin on
whatever Hong does. Obviously it is easier (just look at the rather recent
depictions of North Koreans as wolves and devils) to kill monsters than
humans. But, finally, I have H  being born in 1569 and living until 1618.
This would mean that he spent the majority of his twenties and a small
part of his thirties with Hideyoshi on the peninsula. It would not be too
great a leap from this point to suspect that certain strong anti-Japanese
sentiments could be at work in his writing, and that such sentiments could
in turn lead to monstrous depictions (the way in which the Mongols were
once depicted in Europe might also serve to illustrate such a
possibility).

>The freeing of the two girls, I think, is more described in the form
>of taking them back from the other-world to the human world. 

Again, it is three women. And in this version there is no other world.
Hong is walking through the mountains near his house in search of poison
for his arrows when he stumbles upon the  ltong. They live right around
the corner, as it were.

>Now, you
>see this as an indication that the people from the South (southern
>provinces, southern islands) are seen as uncultivated & non-human,
>etc.  

This is a personal interpretation of/addition to my original post which
read "....the island's aboriginal inhabitants are depicted as near
beasts...." I presumed nothing about southern provinces or other islands. 

>While this may also be quite right in general, I would argue
>that the island Yul-do is also in the South, and that the fact that
>the surrendered king of Yul-do becomes a high-ranking member of the
>new government is certainly not reinforcing your observation.

Again, in this version, the king commits suicide. Sorry. In addition,
hearing of this, the king's eldest son also kills himself.

Walter Lew followed with:

>I thank Frank Hoffmann for his astute defense of "Hong Kil-tong >chOn"
from John Frankl's bewildering misreadings.  

I honestly did not believe my original post was of sufficient length or
intricacy to bewilder; I apoligize. As for Frank's defense of HKTC, I
believe we are slowly working toward a compromise.

>I have seen many prominently published instances of sloppy Western
>literary commentary on ChosOn texts, ranging from naively literal
>theories of how subjectivity arises in various genres to assimilation of
>women's roles in the _minjung_ movement to an interpretation of the
>"Tale of Ch'unhyang" that assumed that the brief excerpt published in >a
commonly used anthology was the entire work. But this instance is a
>particularly striking example of...what?

Overreaction, perhaps? Again, as Walter Lew himself suggests below, mine
was a brief and, I have admitted, somewhat careless email message, not a
"prominently published" "literary commentary." If one is angry or
frustrated with preexisting work, one would do better to tackle such
problems individually and with their respective authors.

>I assume that either Mr. Frankl is working with another version of the
>tale, in which case I'd be fascinated and wd like to see a citation of
>the text, even a posting of the relevant passages, or that he dashed his
>message off in an unthinking moment (many of us have done >likewise--it's
somewhat in the nature of e-mail).  In any case, I do >hope that he can
find the time to clarify what his argument or intention >is in regard to
this truly important work.

I would like to thank Frank Hoffmann and Walter Lew again, both for
bringing my carelessness to my attention and for giving me the opportunity
to recant/clarify/elaborate certain points in my original post.

Sincerely,

John M. Frankl





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