[KS] Fuji Kawashima

[sangoak at snu.ac.kr]

After reading Professor Ledyard's story during the winter of 1963-64 , I also 
recollect the first contact with Fuji around that time. He requested to play 
"Oh, Holy Night!" on KBS radio with his contact point. As Professor Ledyard 
said,  Japanese of any age  were very rare in Seoul in those 
days, I was curious about how Japanese Koreanologist looks like as a freshman in 
the Department of Korean, SNU. We have infrequently encountered each other 
because my field is linguistics but always kept our friendship.



The last memory is visiting his house in Bowling Green on the way to move 
from Harvard-Yenching to Illinois. I still thank to her wife to prepare my lunch 
during my following dreive.


Sang-Oak Lee
--- Original Message ---
>From    : 
 "gkl1 at columbia.edu"<gkl1 at columbia.edu>
To      : 
 "Korean Studies Discussion List"<Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Date    : 
 2006/03/09 목요일 오전 1:52:00
Subject : 
 Re: [KS] Fuji Kawashima
   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

> >

>

>

>












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