[KS] Fuji Kawashima

[gkl1 at columbia.edu]

   Fuji Kawashima, what a gentle man! I first met him in Seoul
sometime during the winter of 1963-64, during my dissertation
research year. I remember well because it was very cold and we were
all bundled up. It was in one of those tiny book stalls in the
Tongdaemun sijang where there was only enough room for three or
four people to stand. On that particular afternoon we were all
huddled around the nallo. He had a friend with him; they had both
studied Korean in Japan and had come to Korea to refine their
knowledge of the language and develop their fluency. Fuji's Korean
was already so smooth that at first I thought he was a Korean, but
as we spoke and talked about our interests, I learned that he and
his friend were Japanese. Japanese of any age or gender were very
rare in the streets of Seoul in those days, and given all the stuff
one heard about Japanese in Korea--passions were especially hot as
the Japan-Korea normalization talks were just ahead--I was struck
with admiration at the ease with which he embraced the place and
the comfort Koreans felt with him. Later on he visited me where I
was living in Hyehwadong with my wife and baby daughter. He stayed
on for dinner, and the memory of his games with my daughter, then
around two, are very fresh.
   I don't know if at that time he had already begun his painting or
not. It was only quite a few years later, when we were both 
attending some meeting or conference, I found him sitting in the
sun somewhere near the hotel and working on the scene in front of
him. He had a carrying case with a fair number of his sketches and
paintings with him and showed them to me. They were mostly small,
intimate landscape scenes and struck me as very beautiful and
sensitive. He remarked that he took his colors and brushes with him
whenever he traveled and that he found painting very relaxing,
especially when the main business was a meeting or an academic
conference. Indeed, relaxing is a very good word for Fuji himself.
No one was more gentle or more able to make others feel that way.
   The full form of his given name was Fujiya, but everyone called
him Fuji. He was one of the best students among the many fine ones
that Ed Wagner had over the years, and it seems to me that in his
own work he was the one who most fully embraced Wagner's own
concern for the close study of social, family, and genealogical
history. He did many fine studies of chokpo, pangmok, hyang'an,
hyang'yak-- all kinds of social data at the most primary level.
His work was always careful and meticulous. If he ever made a
general statement about some aspect of traditional Korean society,
you knew that behind it was a lot of diligent research and close
observation. He was probably the most knowledgeable person in the
world on the very influential Munhwa Yussi lineage, of which his
wife was a member.
   He will be missed. My deepest condolences to his family and many
close friends.

Gari Ledyard


Quoting David McCann <dmccann at fas.harvard.edu>:

> Let there be many recollections and appreciations of Fuji.  It
> will be a
> comfort to read what others may write on his work in the field of
> history, but I also hope there will be some who know more than I
> about
> his watercolors and sketches.  I remember at a meeting a few
> years back,
> he showed me a sketchbook, and there was in his manner a bit of
> wonder
> at his remarkable talent.  The work was full of life.  I had the
> sense
> that he had discovered that path rather late, and perhaps was
> surprised
> by it.  Didn't he make sketches where he had travelled and
> stayed, and
> give them to his hosts?  Gifted, and giving so joyfully.
>
>
> David McCann
>
>
>
> On 3/6/06 6:43 PM, Robert Provine wrote:
>
> > Dear list:
> >
> > Bruce Cumings has sent the list-owners the terribly sad news
> that Fuji
> > Kawashima, the great historian of Korea at Bowling Green State
> > University, has passed away very suddenly.    More information
> on
> > Professor Kawashima will certainly come out in the near future,
> but I
> > wanted to inform the Korean studies community quickly about
> this
> > unexpected and tragic news.
> >
> > Rob Provine
> > Moderator
> >
>
>
>