[KS] Is the Wikipedia article on the Tancheon "charcoal stream" myth correct?

[gkl1 at columbia.edu]

All the amusing tales about the famous Chinese jokester are fine, but  
his name should be given properly. His surname is unusual in that it  
consists of two characters, with the last single character as his  
given name.

東方朔 -- Dongfang Shuo, K. Tongbang Sak

Gari Ledyard

Quoting Knigel Holmes <i at knigel.com>:

> I've been looking for information on the Tancheon river and came
> across this interesting myth:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tancheon#History
>
> After looking around, I've found that other sites reference the
> Wikipedia article which has no citation itself. Do any of you, by any
> chance, have some reference for this, or can you in any way confirm or
> dis-confirm this as Korean folklore? I appreciate all of your help~
>
> Also, if you know of any interesting facts about the Tancheon River, I
> would be grateful for that information as well.
>
> I see this river every day outside of my window and would like to know
> it better.
>
> Kindness,
> Knigel
>
> "The Tancheon's name, is believed to be connected to Dong Bang-sak
> (동방삭, 東方朔), about whom many legends have come down to Korea via China.
> He lived during the time of Chinese emperor Han Wudi (156 BC - 87 BC),
> the seventh emperor of the Han Dynasty. Because Dong Bang-sak received
> the love and attention of the emperor for his great wit and his
> ability to make good decisions, he was awarded with a high government
> post. Perhaps, though, more so than these talents, he was most famous
> for the fact that according to legend he had lived more than 3,000
> lifetimes (180,000 years).
>
> It is believed that his long life came from picking and eating peaches
> at the stream of Seo Wong-mo (서왕모, 西王母), the Chinese goddess of
> immortality. For this, he became blessed with unnaturally long life.
> Some say, however, that the fact he lived a 3000 thousand lifetimes
> was an exaggeration caused by the slip of a brushstroke. He may have
> actually only lived 30 lifetimes. At one point, the Chinese characters
> for thirty (三十) may have accidentally come to be read as three
> thousand (三千), by someone adding one extra stroke to the top of ten,
> making it appear as one thousand. Of course, we cannot say for sure.
>
> Nevertheless Dong Bang-sak, with his long life, proved to be an
> irritation to the spiritual world. In the eyes of many spirits from
> the underworld, he had cheated death once too many times. So eager
> were they to catch him, and bring his soul with them to the afterlife,
> that they searched everywhere for him. However, as he was quick of wit
> and a man of immeasurably great wisdom, their efforts were always in
> vain. In fact, on many occasions he would even receive the spirits who
> managed to track him down, as guests in his home. After a short period
> of entertaining them, he was able to send them on their way without
> even so much as a struggle. So skilled was he at persuasion, that in
> no time he had the spirits believing they had mistaken him for someone
> else. They would then go off again searching, never the wiser as to
> this man's true identity.
>
> One spirit, who was determined to be fooled no longer, thought about
> the problem seriously. After deep contemplation, he came up with a
> cunning plan that would surely allow him to capture Dong Bang-sak once
> and for all. As it happened, Dong Bang-sak was one day passing over
> the Tancheon. There, he came upon someone washing clothes in the
> stream water with a piece of charcoal. It was, in fact, the spirit
> disguised as a human. Unable to resist this unusual sight, Dong
> Bang-sak asked, "Why are you using that charcoal to wash your
> clothes?"
>
> The spirit replied, "Because charcoal gets them whiter, of course!"
>
> Upon hearing this Dong Bang-sak burst out into a ferocious laughter
> and said, "Ha! My boy, I have lived 180 millennia, but never have I
> heard of someone making clothes whiter by washing them with charcoal!"
>
> With this slip of the tongue, the illusive Dong Bang-sak had given
> himself away. The spirit at once knew that he had at long last found
> the man whom he had been looking for. He then quickly apprehended Dong
> Bang-sak and took him to the underworld, bringing to a close the life
> of this long lived man of wit and deception. From this, though, we
> have the name for this well-known body of water in Bundang, the
> Tancheon: The Stream of Charcoal. "
>
>
>