[KS] RE: two queries (on the first...)

[Kaliher, Kenneth L.]

On your first query:
 
By coincidence, a friend in Australia just this past week read to my wife
over the phone an excerpt from Elizabeth Kim's "Ten Thousand Sorrows:  The
Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan" ($16.07 in hardcover from
Amazon.com), in which the author recalls watching from her crib as her
mother was hanged in the same room by the mother's father and brother for
the crime of having had a child not only out of wedlock but by a foreign
barbarian.  While this is thus by now at least a third-hand account, you can
no doubt find the original in Kim's book.  I cannot recall having previously
heard of such a killing  in my nearly three decades of residence in Korea.
In the late 1970s, however, I recall that a Peace Corps volunteer who had
married a Korean woman against her family's wishes was forced to move with
his wife into the safety of the U.S. Embassy residence compound because of
threats of violence they had received from her family members.  They left
Korea before any violence was done, and the threats may have been just
bluster.
 
Does Korean literature recount any such incidents?
 
Ken Kaliher
Seoul

-----Original Message-----
From: Yuh Ji-Yeon [mailto:j-yuh at northwestern.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2000 6:29 AM
To: korean-studies at mailbase.ac.uk
Subject: two queries


hello everyone,

two unrelated queries that i hope list members can answer:

1) 
does anyone have any information on whether "honor killings" have ever been
or still are present in korean culture and society? "honor killings" are
incidents in which male family members kill a female relative, usually a
daughter or sister, because the female relative is alleged to have engaged
in some kind of sexual shame (pre-marital sex, relations with a male whom
the family disapproves of, extramarital affair, etc.) and has thus brought
shame on the family name and honor. killing her is the way to restore family
honor.

"honor killings" are alleged to be common in islamic societies and other
"backward" cultures and are starting to be a cause celebre in western
feminist circles, much the way that genital mutilation has been. it appears
that many people are assuming that "honor killings" also exist in asian
cultures, i.e., in korea and in china. in fact, some are claiming that these
honor killings are going on right now, in the present. so..... is there any
evidence for this belief? has korea ever had honor killings, either in the
past or in the present? is there any evidence that korean culture is
conducive to honor killings? i want to stress that an honor killing is not
the same thing as committing suicide to prevent a shame or to atone for a
shame -- in one, the person kills herself; in the other, she is murdered by
her own family members.

in addition, would any confucian beliefs (or peculiarly korean beliefs, for
that matter) preclude honor killings and instead consider it a shame to kill
one's own blood?

 ...
 
 with many thanks,
yuh ji-yeon
_____________________________________________________________
Yuh Ji-Yeon                     History Department, Northwestern University
j-yuh at northwestern.edu  Harris 202, 1881 Sheridan Road
1-847-467-6538          Evanston, IL 60208  U.S.A.




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