[KS] Seo Giwon's "The Ma Rok Biographies" and Chinese Anecdotes

[Young-Jun Lee]

Dear Charles Montgomery:

I agree with you, the note seems to be misleading.
The author of the note might not have known that in the first place "ma
rok" reads "baka" in Japanese, meaning a "fool". In this reading, the title
can mean "Biographies of Fools", a proper title for the collection of
satirical stories. And, when two words, "ma" and "rok," are combined, it
can refer to the ancient Chinese historical anecdote "指鹿爲馬" ("to point
at a deer and call it a horse") recorded in Shiji. Here is the link to the
source of the expression:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baka_%28fool%29

To quote the story from the link,

  "Zhao Gao was an infamous eunuch who served the first emperor Qin Shi
Huang (r. 246-221 BCE) and forced the second Qin Er Shi (r. 210-207 BCE) to
commit suicide. The Shiji history records that Zhao devised a loyalty test
using a deer and horse.
    Zhao Gao was contemplating treason but was afraid the other officials
would not heed his commands, so he decided to test them first. He brought a
deer and presented it to the Second Emperor but called it a horse. The
Second Emperor laughed and said, "Is the chancellor perhaps mistaken,
calling a deer a horse?" Then the emperor questioned those around him. Some
remained silent, while some, hoping to ingratiate themselves with Zhao Gao,
said it was a horse, and others said it was a deer. Zhao Gao secretly
arranged for all those who said it was a deer to be brought before the law.
Thereafter the officials were all terrified of Zhao Gao. (tr. Watson
1993:70)"

In my view, the title seems to be deliberately alluding to the circumstance
under the Park Chung-hee regime, during which the freedom of expression was
severely restricted. 

Best,
Young-Jun Lee
Harvard University

-----Original Message-----
From: koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws [mailto:koreanstudies-
bounces at koreaweb.ws] On Behalf Of Charles Montgomery
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 9:45 AM
To: Korean Studies Discussion List
Subject: [KS] Seo Giwon's "The Ma Rok Biographies" and Chinese Anecdotes

Colleagues,

I'm reading Seo Giwon's "The Ma Rok Biographies."

I read the liner notes, which say:

Ma Rok, which stands for the various protagonists with the surname of Ma in
this series of five short stories (of which only three are included here),
actually means ³the horse and the deer² in Chinese. This odd combination
of
the two animals refers to a classical Chinese anecdote in which the powerful
can coerce others into seeing a horse as a deer. According to its
connotations in Korea the title also evokes the reality of humanity
checkered by the vulgar and the noble, thus drawing the reader to recognize
the moral ambiguity that operates in the human psyche during turbulent
historical times.


This analysis seems pretty far at odds with the absurdist humor that Seo
uses in his work, and I'm far more tempted to attribute this title, if it is
at all attributable to Chinese myth, to the story of the race of the horse
and deer, in which absurd actions lead to the enslavement and death,
respectively, of the animals.

I wonder if you someone on H-Asia can comment on this editorial attribution,
or about a Korean interpretation of the foundational myth the liner-notes
refer to?

Thanks for any light anyone can shed,


Charles Montgomery
Dongguk University