[KS] FW: H-ASIA: Remembering JaHyun Kim Haboush

[Frank Joseph Shulman]

This may be of interest to the members of the Korean Studies listserve who are not on H-Asia.

Frank Joseph Shulman
Bibliographer, Editor and Consultant for Reference Publications in Asian Studies
fshulman at umd.edu
February 13, 2011

From: H-Net list for Asian History and Culture [H-ASIA at H-NET.MSU.EDU] On Behalf Of Andrew Field [shanghaidrew at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2011 12:44 AM
To: H-ASIA at H-NET.MSU.EDU
Subject: H-ASIA:  Remembering JaHyun Kim Haboush

H-ASIA

Remembering JaHyun Kim Haboush
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From: "Keith Knapp" <knappk at citadel.edu>

For two years back in the early 1980s, Professor JaHyun Kim Haboush
taught at SUNY Albany.  I was lucky enough to take both halves of the
survey of Chinese history with her, as well as a seminar on Neo-
Confucian thought. She was an ethusiastic and engaging lecturer and an
outstanding teacher.  Interestingly though, she could never remember
exact dates.  When queried about this, she always said that you could
look up dates in a book; all you needed was a ballpark knowledge of
the sequence of events -- that struck me then (and now) as an
immensely sensible answer. In the three semesters I took her classes,
she instilled in me an everlasting fascination with Chinese history
and Confucianism.  Since she was supposed to be teaching Chinese
history at Albany, that is exactly what she did -- only much later on
did I find out that she was one of America's preeminent authorities on
Korean history.

Albany was not her cup of tea -- it was a bit too small for her.  Its
biggest virtue was that it wasn't far from New York City, which is
where she really wanted to be.  She once told me that she loved big
cities, whether it be Seoul or NYC.  She was also incredibly stylish;
everyweek it seemed that she had a new hairdo and the most fashionable
clothes I had ever seen.   Years later when she was at Columbia, I
bumped into her at a number of AAS meetings.  I thought that she would
never remember an undergraduate student from long ago.  But she did
and each time I saw her she impressed me with her personal warmth.

It truly is very sad that she is no longer with us, brightening our
days with her humor and enlightening us with her keen understanding of
East Asian history.

Keith N. Knapp
History Department Professor and Chair
The Citadel
171 Moultrie Street
Charleston, SC 29409

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Note: SUNY Albany = State University of New York at Albany