[KS] "Pagoda" and Asian chauvinism

[Theodore Hughes]

Dear Heinz,

Thank you for your post regarding Pagoda. You're certainly right
regarding the multilayeredness of the text (I think your
elaboration of the connection between Pagoda and the recent film R
Point is also very helpful).

Thank you also for sharing your story about the difficulty of
getting permission to translate Pagoda. I also have one--lacking
experience, I actually translated Pagoda in 1998 under the
assumption that the permission of authors was easy to gain. Hwang
Suk-young, however, didn't want the translation to be published
because he felt that his views of the war had developed
considerably over the past thirty years, and he didn't want
English-speaking readers to get the wrong impression. I disagreed
because I thought the text was very valuable and interesting (which
is why I translated it) and also since The Shadow of Arms was
already available in English, but it was to no avail at the time.
And so I was glad to see that Hwang had reconsidered, and the text
has finally come out in Chun Kyung-Ja's anthology.

I do hope that readers of this list consider purchasing The Voice of
the Governor General and Other Stories. Chun Kyung-Ja's anthology is
a major contribution to Korean literature in translation, and many
of the stories included in the collection would make great
additions to assigned readings in undergraduate courses on Korean
culture, society, history, and literature.

Sincerely,

Ted Hughes













인용 Insu Fenkl <fenkli at newpaltz.edu>:

> Dear Victor,
> I don't think that pointing out Korean atrocities in VN negates
> Hwang's story,
> which is a work of fiction and never claims to be representative
> of the
> entirety of ROK experience or behavior in VN. Nor does the new
> panAsian
> exclusion of the west suggest that Asians are in some way more
> problematic
> with their social behavior than Americans & Europeans -- racism,
> political
> isolationism, and the creation of an "us" against a "them" are
> all general to
> human societies. (I find it refreshing, actually, that the
> Pacific Rim nations
> can do this now -- it shows a shift of political/economic power
> away from the
> old white nexus.)
> That aside, I would recommend you have a look at the film "R
> Point" directed
> by Kong Su-chang. It's marketed as a horror film, but I think
> that in it you
> will find a very interesting popular culture take on some of the
> themes that
> come up in "The Pagoda." Kong is clearly referring to Hwang's
> short story, and
> he's unpacking some of the subtext you find in the story's
> imagery, making it
> accessible to a general audience of less-literate moviegoers.
> Hwang's story is more loaded than one might think from Ted's
> review, and it
> should be read carefully, preferably in the Korean, to catch the
> connotations
> in Hwang's use of language. When I was still a naive and
> bright-eyed grad
> student on my Fulbright back in '84, "The Pagoda" was the first
> story I
> proposed translating. Fortunately, one of the junior admins at
> the then Korean
> Culture and Arts Foundation took me aside and told me that it was
> forbidden.
> That mediated the shock when I stubbornly insisted to the Jr.
> Director and was
> told, outright, that I would not be permitted to do it (or else).
> The general reading of that story is different now, 20 years
> later. At the
> time it was initially published, it was considered an expose of
> certain
> unpleasant realities, and though it is one of Hwang's earlier
> stories (less
> masterful in his use of language and imagery, which improved
> vastly after his
> time in prison), it is well worth examining for how it plays, in
> complex ways,
> with different levels of expression. Kong's film takes one of the
> themes and
> amplifies/runs with it, but it's hardly as powerful.And neither
> claims to
> authoritatively represent the full spectrum of Korea's
> involvement in VN.
> -HIF
>
>
> On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 09:04:32 +0000
>   "victor fic" <vfic at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello list members:
> >
> >
> > The review of the short story "Pagoda" found below recounts how
> that tale
> >tells about Korean troops in Vietnam allegedly showed
> sensitivity toward the
> >local culture, supposedly unlike a certain white ally. Others
> might recall
> >that the Koreans were brutal. When Americans encountered someone
> lying in the
> >street, one soldier kicked the body over whilst a comrade
> covered his friend.
> >The Americans taught this to the Koreans, who laughed at the
> Mi-gook's quaint
> >ideas. They would simply rake the body with gunfire. Also,
> Korean forces were
> >notorious for "ear necklaces" made from their victims severed
> ears. They also
> >forced their prisoners to draw lots. The loser got skinned alive
> and the
> >survivors were released to warn others. In fact, one leader of
> the Korean
> >troops in 'Nam was Chun Doo-whan, whose refusal to discipline
> his men was an
> >early signal to his allies that he is not -- pardon the pun -- a
> straight
> >shooter and therefore not the man Washington wanted to take the
> Korean helm.
> >
> >Finally, just as the Japanese keiretsu got rich off the Korean
> War, the
> >chaebol profited from the Vietnamese version. Solidarity means
> less than the
> >bank account.
> > About five years ago, the Hankyroeh tried to run an expose on
> these Korean
> >crimes. The comment to the editor took the hard nosed form of
> something like
> >forty ex-commandoes attacking the newsroom with bats. Isn't that
> a sign there
> >must be something to hide? Is it just Japan that lies?
> >
> > I wonder if Asians can posit a non-chauvanistic unity? This
> observer notes
> >that the Western imperial tendency to oppress downward -- on the
> vertical
> >axis -- is more than matched by the Korean, Chinese and Japanese
> propensity
> >to shove the gaijin/waegook/laowai outside -- aggression on the
> horizontal
> >axis.
> > The risk for the US/West is that East Asian cultures now closed
> to each
> >other -- circles that collide -- will meld into one giant sphere
> that
> >discriminates. The fact that Washington is not invited to the
> Manilla
> >conference on East Asian regionalism, alongside Mohammed
> Mahatir's desire to
> >leave out Canberra and Wellington from any final blueprint -- is
> worrisome.
> >Whenever I see Japanese, Koreans and Chinese together,
> invariably the talk
> >gets around to how certain foreigners are self-interested --
> implicitly in
> >contrast to the virtuous natives -- and how East Asians possess
> some unique
> >capacity for cooperation and togetherness, even as the skulls
> pile up -- the
> >sense of superiority and exclusion over the outsider is
> palpable.
> > Best, Victor Fic, Seoul, vfic at hotmail.com
> >
> >
> > "The Voice of the Governor General and Other Stories of Modern
> Korea", by
> >Hwang Suk-young et. al. and translated by Chun Kyung-Ja.
> Norwalk: EastBridge,
> >2002. 190 pp. (ISBN 1-891936-06-9 paper, $24.95).
> >
> > Reviewed by Theodore Hughes
> > Columbia University
> > th2150 at columbia.edu mailto:th2150 at columbia.edu
> >
> >
> > ...snip...
> > In "Pagoda," the first South Korean literary work set in
> Vietnam, a platoon
> >of Korean soldiers is dispatched to R-Point...to secure a pagoda
> considered
> >important to winning the affiliation of the inhabitants of a
> local village.
> >After heavy casualties and an extended firefight, U.S. troops
> arrive on the
> >scene and proceed to raze the pagoda, paying no attention to the
> protests of
> >the Korean soldiers. ?Pagoda? contests the semi-peripheral
> position of South
> >Korea in the Cold War World, the location of South Korea between
> the U.S. and
> >its ?undeveloped? Others, by advocating a realignment based on a
> culturalist
> >pan-Asianism (here in the form of Buddhism).
> >
> >
> >
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