[KS] Mok Sun-Ok

Sat Aug 28 11:02:52 EDT 2010

Such sad news. 

Brother Anthony kindly introduced me to Mok  Sun-Ok.
Ever since, I never failed to visit her tiny cafe for a 
restorative daechucha. Seoul's bustle melts away  there.

She was very remarkable - and will  live on in her book,
which Anthony did us all a great boon by  translating.
It's available from Seoul Selection: see below.

I sometimes think modern Korea has had more than its  share
of extraordinary lives. Hers was astonishing, and  humbling.

Requiescat in pace.

Aidan FC

Aidan  Foster-Carter 
Honorary Senior Research  Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds 
University, UK 
E: _afostercarter at aol.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at aol.com)      
_afostercarter at yahoo.com_ (mailto:afostercarter at yahoo.com)    W: _www.aidanfc.net_ 
(http://www.aidanfc.net/)      
Flat 1,  40 Magdalen Road,  Exeter,  Devon,  EX2 4TE,  England,  UK 
T: (+44, no 0)     07970 741307 (mobile);     01392 257753 (home)    
Skype:  Aidan.Foster.Carter   Twitter:  fcaidan  

_http://www.seoulselection.com/bookstore/index.php?page=shop.product_details
&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=1166&category_id=14&keyword=tea&option=com_v
irtuemart&Itemid=53_ 
(http://www.seoulselection.com/bookstore/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=1166&category_id=14&key
word=tea&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=53) 

"wonderful translation . . . It's the best book of prose  I've read from 
Korea. nothing like it, nothing close." (Professor David McCann,  Harvard 
University) "absolutely engrossing, absorbing and engaging" (C. Yun) The  Fate 
Called a Poet's Wife Memoir of Mok-sun-ok, wife of deceased poet Chon  
Sang-pyong A deeply personal account of life as a poet's wife is now available  in 
English. Mok Sun-ok, poet Chon Sang-pyong's wife of over 20 years, writes  
about her years with the poet in My Husband the Poet, published by Seoul  
Selection. Dead poets are usually quickly forgotten in Korea, yet his is still 
a  familiar name to most Koreans. Younger people know him as the poet with 
a  childlike heart who wrote the beautiful poem "Kwichon" that they read in 
high  school. Older people remember him as a picturesque eccentric who 
enjoyed hanging  out with artistic, bohemian friends in the bars of Myeong-dong, 
drinking  makkolli, talking and laughing loudly, and writing poems and 
essays for a  pittance. Likewise, anyone familiar with Insa-dong knows the tiny 
tea-house also  called "Kwichon," which is run by the poet's wife since 1985. 
Since his death in  1993, the story of their life together has been 
portrayed in stage plays,  musicals, and TV dramas: his life in total poverty, his 
arrest and torture on  the groundless suspicion of being a spy, his dramatic 
disappearance, then  reappearance just when his friends had concluded he 
was dead, his love of  children, and above all, the faithful and selfless care 
he received through  twenty years from Mok Sun-ok, his wife. It is entirely 
thanks to her efforts  that now, a dozen years after his death, Chon 
Sang-pyong is commemorated by  memorial stones in several parts of the country and 
an annual Chong Sang-pyong  Literary Award, as well a yearly Chon 
Sang-pyong Festival in Uijongbu, where he  lived, died and is buried. Herself a 
survivor of the Hiroshima atom bomb, Mok  Sun-ok wrote and published the story of 
their life together soon after he died.  Mok Sun-ok has previously 
described Chon Sang-pyung as "having the innocence of  a 7-year old." In the book, 
she tells the story of living with her childlike  husband, who writes like an 
angel but has no other abilities. It is Mok Sun-ok  who has to take care of 
him like a baby, while keeping up the teahouse. People  who know the couple 
say that without her patience and selflessness, his writings  would not 
have been possible. Through its frank and honest narrative, the book  offers 
interesting insights into one of Korean literature's most famous couples.  
English translation was undertaken by Brother Anthony, professor of English  
literature at Sogang University. About the book, he says, "It is a remarkable  
story, a beautiful one; very "Korean" in the way it is told, and one that 
many  people across the world ought to read. It is intensely human, funny and 
sad at  the same time." This is the 20th volume he has published of 
translations from  Korean. Beginning in 1990, most of his work has been on poetry, 
including a  volume of poems by Chon Sang-pyong published in the United 
States at Cornell  University in 1995, then reprinted in a bilingual edition by 
DapGae (Seoul) that  has gone into 17 reprints so far. Other translations he 
has published include  several volumes of works by Ko Un, and by Ku Sang, 
by So Chong-ju, Shin  Kyong-Nim, Kim Kwang-kyu etc. In the coming weeks he 
will be publishing 4 more  volumes: translations of poems by Kim Kwang-kyu, by 
Ko Un, and by Mah Chonggi,  and a book about Korean green tea written by 
himself in  English.

______________

In a message dated 8/27/2010 19:28:29 GMT Daylight Time,  
ansonjae at sogang.ac.kr writes:

I am sorry to report  the death on August 26 of Mok Sun-Ok, the widow of 
the poet Chon Sang-Pyong.  Some members of this list will have been to the 
little cafe "Kwichon" which  she first opened in Seoul's Insa-dong in 1985 and 
which she kept open every  day of the year until very recently, although the 
original shack was  demolished and replaced by a concrete bunker several 
years ago, with loss of  most of the original charm. Her life-story with that 
of Chon Sang-Pyong (which  she told in a book I translated, "My Husband the 
Poet") is a remarkable tale.  Having survived the Hiroshima atom bomb which 
killed her father, she agreed to  become the wife / carer of her brother's 
friend Chon Sang-Pyong after his 1971  breakdown and shared his poverty until 
he died in 1993. After that she played  the leading role in maintaining and 
promoting his memory, which finally  resulted in the annual arts festival 
bearing his name held in Uijeongbu each  April. She was still looking after 
her mother, who was born in 1910, when she  died. Her niece operates a second 
"Kwichon" cafe in Insadong, serving the same  home-made fruit teas, but for 
many people Mok Sun-Ok was a unique witness to a  bygone Seoul, expressed 
by the flow of older writers, artists, musicians and  youger workers and 
students coming to pay their respects. The funeral will be  this Sunday.

Brother Anthony
Sogang University,  Seoul
http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/

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