[KS] Korean Tea Ceremony and other wonders

[don kirk]

Perhaps centuries hence scholars will be writing about Korea's "coffee ceremonies" -- considering the long-time popularity of coffee shops, getting ever more popular with global brands visible in all major centers and quite a few minor ones. After all, the tea ceremony evolved from simple meetings and conversations over tea -- long before coffee was on markets all over the world.
Don Kirk

--- On Thu, 8/16/12, McCann, David <dmccann at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:

> From: McCann, David <dmccann at fas.harvard.edu>
> Subject: Re: [KS] Korean Tea Ceremony and other wonders
> To: "Korean Studies Discussion List" <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Date: Thursday, August 16, 2012, 5:57 PM
> One of the fascinating parts in this
> intriguing string is the way a sijo can do it all.  The
> gesture, from the composed moment when it begins.  I've
> always found that fascinating, how the lines are not just
> parts of an argument, but movements,steps, and gestures as
> in a dance.
> 
> Have a drink, and then just have another!  Who cares if
> it be tea or makkolli?  Let's just pluck petals and
> keep count on this garden-variety abacus.
> 
> There ought to be a book on this very subject, of tea,
> gardens, landscapes, a drink, and a few lines of verse sung
> out.
> 
> David McCann
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
> On Aug 16, 2012, at 11:40 AM, "Best, Jonathan" <jbest at wesleyan.edu>
> wrote:
> 
> > A few too many thoughts peaked by Frank Hoffman’s
> last contribution to the string on Korean garden culture
> mostly.
> >
> > He did ask about the ritual, periodic rebuilding of
> Japanese temples: not temples, a term commonly reserved in
> the context of Japan for Buddhist ceremonial centers, but as
> far as I know the only significantly sized structure that is
> and has long been periodically rebuilt is a Shintō shrine,
> the Ise Jingū—which is the shrine dedicated to Amaterasu
> Ōmikami, the ‘Sun Goddess’ and divine progenitor of the
> ‘imperial’ family. It is rebuilt—and historically has
> been with but a few lapses—every 20 years with traditional
> hand tools; its next be rebuilding will occur next year
> (2013). Buddhist temples have been rebuilt, but not
> according to a ritually fixed schedule and, at least to my
> knowledge, without proscriptions on what type of
> construction technology may be employed. For example, the
> Shitennō-ji in Osaka, originally built in the early 7th
> century and destroyed several times by fire over time (the
> last destruction caused by Allied bombing in WWII) was
> rebuilt in ferro-concrete (sp?). It is, nonetheless, unlike
> most Chinese remakes of early Buddhist edifices,
> historically remarkably accurate in both form and
> decoration. Japan is, of course, most fortunate among East
> Asian countries in that it has a representative sampling of
> original wooden, freestanding Buddhist temple halls with at
> least one per century starting in the 7th century. They also
> have a wonderful array of original 8th-century and later
> paintings of temples, palace interiors, etc. plus a long
> established, scientific and, in my opinion especially since
> WWII, largely methodologically responsible archaeological
> tradition.
> >
> > Re gardens: I think the distinction between garden
> culture and having gardens is a useful one, As I understand
> it, gardens have a long history in China that began at least
> as early as the Former Han dynasty. But my sense is that
> while the Chinese elite through time enjoyed their gardens,
> their gardens were designed by hired garden professionals
> and largely with an interest in outward form (the appealing
> manipulation of a current style). Thus perhaps an apt
> parallel might be having one’s robes made up by the
> “right” tailor.  This is not to say that Chinese
> garden design doesn’t have a metaphysical foundation that
> it seeks to represent symbolically, it has both but it
> doesn’t seem to me that either that foundation or the ways
> in which it was symbolized evolved much through time.
> >
> > I think that the metaphysical foundation of Chinese
> garden design is Taoism and that geomancy provided the
> visual vocabulary through which the most basic Taoist
> concepts were symbolized in both garden design and landscape
> painting. So in this regard, perhaps I disagree with
> Professor Hoffman. I believe that geomancy, which was
> derived from Taoist theories about the structure of the
> physical universe, provided the basic perceptual screen
> through the premodern Chinese elite viewed the world. I
> think that most art historians and perceptual psychologists
> and thoughtful Buddhists believe that we human only
> “see” what we know to look for—which is another way of
> saying that we construct our own personal ‘realities.’
> In other words, all of our individual notions of reality are
> conditioned by our culture and our personal experience, and
> consequently they are to a significant extent illusionary.
> I’d probably best get back to Chinese gardens.
> >
> > Anyway, geomancy is concerned with the flow, and
> therefore the quality and quantity, of ch’i (perhaps a
> kind of vitalizing energy?) in a particular piece of real
> estate as revealed largely by its topography and the
> character of its watercourses. The cultural authority of
> this Taoist derived geomantic notion is reflected in the
> Chinese word for landscape painting, shan-shui hua 山水畫
> or  “mountains and waters painting” obviously.
> Unlike landscape painting, however, garden making or even
> design was not an art form considered appropriate for the
> Chinese literate elite, and I believe that with perhaps the
> exception of an occasional eccentric member of the elite, it
> was left to hired professionals. It seems that the Chinese
> who could afford them, felt that at the very least they
> ought to have a nice and ‘in the mode garden’ and many,
> even most, likely found actual enjoyment in their
> gardens—as presumably also do folks today living in
> MacMansions. In any case, the continuing importance attached
> to garden architecture in traditional Chinese society is
> evident from the remarkable and numerous personal gardens of
> Ming and Ch’ing date preserved in Su-chou, Hang-chou,
> etc.
> >
> > Turning finally to Korea, I suspect that given the
> prominence of having a garden among the Chinese elite of
> Ming times in particular, some early Chosŏn visitors to
> China sought to emulate the fashion at home. This is not to
> say that there were no earlier gardens in Korea, certainly
> there were, but I’m trying to explain what I suspect
> inspired the kind of garden making and its cultural rational
> in early Chosŏn that Werner and Sun Joo refer to. Those
> imagined garden-desiring early Chosŏn yangban would not
> have built the gardens themselves, so whatever form their
> garden assumed presumably reflected their tastes/ideas, but
> as understood and executed through the hands of others and
> to the degree realizable through the possibilities and/or
> limitations offered by the geology, botany, and climate of
> their locale. Stone is a basic component of a geomantically
> designed garden; most stone in Korea is igneous (especially
> granites), whereas in China you also have an wonderful
> variety of sedimentary stones—including those to my eye
> weird, but greatly esteemed by the Chinese elite, water-worn
> rocks that look like Swiss cheese but speak graphically of
> the formative interaction of yang (stone, i.e, 山) and yin
> (water 水). In sum, I suspect that at least for the early
> Chosŏn period, you’d have primarily Korean renditions of
> Chinese gardens, just as in early Chosŏn landscape
> painting, you have primarily Korean renditions of the
> Chinese, not the Korean, physical landscape rendered by
> Korean hands but essentially in the painting styles of
> China.
> >
> > More than enough already,
> >
> > Jonathan
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws
> [koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws]
> on behalf of Frank Hoffmann [hoffmann at koreaweb.ws]
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 2:40 AM
> > To: koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
> > Subject: Re: [KS] Korean Tea Ceremony and other
> wonders
> >
> > ------------------------------
> > In this re-written version, I am trying to summarize
> some minor issues,
> > but also get to the essential issues later in this
> posting. For
> > whatever reason the first version did not get posted. /
> FH
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Quick question:
> >
> > Professor Kim, the link you provide to the "original"
> of the poem shows
> > it is written in Hanja, not mixed script?
> > 
> 百里群山擁野平。臨溪茅屋幸初成。此身不繫蒼生望。宜與沙鷗結好盟。
> > That changes the grammar (no -porira ending), makes
> even Richard Rutt's
> > translation with the more 'passive' last line also more
> appropriate. I
> > thought that sijo were always composed in mixed script.
> Not?
> >
> >
> > Second quick question to Professor Sun Joo Kim. You
> wrote:
> >
> >> The thached roof building is none other than the
> MyOnang-jong,
> >> MyOnang Pavilion in Tamyang, where Song Sun
> resided.
> >
> > Okay, a "pavilion" then -- Myŏnang-jŏng -- but that
> seems a bit
> > strange, as a pavilion, by definition, is a place to
> meet, to drink
> > wine, sing, recite poetry, etc. That was such an
> intriguing concept
> > that Prussian kings even imported that to Dresden
> > (http://www.panoramio.com/photo/68305971
> ), and others that really look
> > like East Asian ones). You do not build a pavilion to
> then say, sorry
> > it is too small, stay outside my friends, I am enjoying
> just myself,
> > the moon and the mountains. For a photo of the rebuild
> pavilion,
> > Myŏnang-jŏng, see the last pictures on this page:
> > http://jungar.tistory.com/115  It makes much more
> sense if indeed the
> > object referred to would be a small house (in a similar
> setting). When
> > we read such "information" about allocations of places
> in literature
> > and poetry to specific, existing buildings and places
> we should be
> > suspicious. That pavilion may not have been a pavilion
> in the 15th
> > century, and/or the writer may just have had some very
> generalized
> > situational setting in mind when writing the poem. The
> reason I am
> > pointing into this direction is again the already
> mentioned
> > context--interpreting archaeological findings the way
> they seem
> > appropriate to make up a good story (but what I saw and
> mentioned
> > earlier did relate to tea ceremony). All this is, let
> me also note
> > this, NOT at all a Korean-only phenomena. The famous
> Dresden Cathedral
> > (Frauenkirche), for example, destroyed during WWII and
> finally rebuild
> > and reopened in 2005, never existed. It never existed
> the way you now
> > see it rebuild, not for a single day. (I just use this
> as an example
> > because I am very familiar with the details of the
> reconstruction
> > process, but this is a global scenario.) What you see
> when you visit
> > the impressive building are (often idealized and
> beautified)
> > projections of how various art historians and
> archaeologists imagined
> > how various parts of the building and its interior
> looked during
> > *different* historic periods. In many cases the rebuild
> version of each
> > room or part of the room (and other details) is a clear
> reflection of
> > current (1990s and 2000s) tastes, of what "looks best"
> and "most
> > impressive" or most "perfect" to the visitor. You will
> often see the
> > very same room at four different periods, each wall in
> the state of a
> > different period, and with walls that did not even
> exist at the time
> > the opposite wall existed. It is not a reconstruction
> of the
> > Frauenkirche during a particular period in time. Nobody
> did cut the
> > time, say in 1820, and said, well, that is the state of
> the building we
> > now reconstruct. Doesn't matter where to you go … in
> Japan temples,
> > for example, are being rebuild (please, Prof. Best help
> me out here),
> > was it every 80 years? Or every 200, I forgot. But they
> ARE being
> > rebuild on a regular basis, and they do change their
> looks with every
> > rebuild, most certainly so, as the "taste" changes, the
> needs change,
> > building construction techniques and economics change,
> and so on and so
> > forth. In Japan that is perfectly in line with Buddhist
> concepts of
> > life, of course (everything is always perfect in
> Japan). Maybe that's
> > why today's centuries old Japanese temples get us the
> feel of black
> > concrete castles modeled after construction plans from
> The Cabinet of
> > Dr. Caligari and German Autobahn bridges.
> >
> > Prof. Kim wrote:
> >> [I] do not want to (...) make any comment whether
> there was any
> >> unique garden culture in Choson
> >
> > What kind of question would such a comment have to
> precede, a
> > whether-or-not question? All that points into a strange
> direction then.
> > That should not be the issue. The EMPHASIS should
> really not be on
> > "unique" (yes, of course were Korean gardens
> unique!)  One of the main
> > questions is rather how important or how marginal
> gardens were in
> > Chosŏn Korea for cultural production (and that can
> only be answered in
> > relationship to whatever else was going on in Korea and
> what "garden
> > culture" meant in neighboring China, Japan, and also in
> the West.
> > "Garden culture" as we talk about it for these other
> cultures is not
> > about just gardens! Garden culture is, as pointed out
> before, as a huge
> > package of cultural production, in the arts,
> literature, and political
> > and social life. In Europe and Japan and in early China
> it could have
> > that role because it constituted 'high culture' and not
> 'low culture,'
> > came from the top of the power base or, in the Japanese
> case, was
> > instrumentalized to represent a new upwards moving
> merchant class. Now,
> > in Korea (this is a question, not the final answer), if
> indeed as
> > stated by Professor Sasse, garden design and
> architecture was informed
> > by ('low culture') geomancy and not by (as in old China
> or in early
> > modern Japan) Buddhist philosophy and related culture,
> and also not by
> > neo-Confucian ideas, then we would already have a very
> major difference
> > there to the neighboring settings. That is also
> expected, of course.
> > But my doubts are that in a neo-Confucian state low
> culture geomantic
> > practices can lead to a whole culture. See, again, this
> is not just
> > about gardens … you would then see literature,
> philosophical
> > discourses, you would see lots of ceramic wares and
> other handicraft
> > production, changes of social life etc. all circling
> around the garden,
> > and being reflected in garden designs. I have NOT seen
> that in Korea.
> > And it makes NO sense to me, would not expect that with
> any low culture
> > anywhere, not until the 20th century (or maybe the
> French Revolution,
> > if we talk about Europe). In that context it then also
> makes sense that
> > the few treatises by Korean scholars we do have come
> from early
> > Chosŏn--still close to the Koryŏ period, a time where
> gardens were
> > bound into philosophical concepts and were they still
> represented
> > aristocratic culture, both in China and Korea. So, my
> second set of
> > doubts is with all these over and over emphasized
> "geomantic"
> > principles etc. when it comes to later period gardens
> in Korea. What
> > that indicates that to me is that, all over,
> representatives of the
> > upper class, scholars, etc., did not anymore care much
> about gardens,
> > and that there was not much of a related culture left.
> Gardens could
> > NOT s easily be bind into neo-Confucian concepts of
> thought (quite
> > opposite to Buddhist societies, and also opposite to
> the European case
> > where power structures and resulting aesthetics were
> represented in
> > very direct ways … as e.g. in North Korea today).
> Bamboo and the
> > flowers mentioned before … yes, scholars may have
> discussed those, BUT
> > NOT within the context of garden, garden planning,
> garden architecture,
> > etc., just the way that they do play symbolic roles and
> the way they
> > appear e.g. in painting. Gardens themselves where, as
> compared to other
> > periods and other countries, at a low burner all
> through the Chosŏn
> > period, and if today you interpret their layout as
> geomantically
> > influenced than that is an indication of exactly -- we
> do see no
> > reflection of the ideologies of the state there, nor
> (!) was whatever
> > was done in gardens handed down from the aristocracy to
> a wider
> > population to again (a) propagate state ideology or
> ideologies of
> > important power brokers, (b) and there was no imitation
> of upper-class
> > culture either. The way I read Werner's description
> then rather means
> > lower and upper class culture were the same when it
> comes to gardens
> > (geomantic principles). That is an overly clear
> indication there there
> > was no importance put to gardens whatsoever. I would,
> however, further
> > extend my doubts to the "geomantic influences" part--it
> sounds too
> > 20the century Western 'esoteric.' Aren't geomantic
> practices always (a)
> > very concrete? And (b) this is never an entire
> philosophy either, but
> > the grand master plan such as Buddhist or Confucian
> models, but rather
> > limited in that sense. That again means, when it comes
> to gardens, then
> > there is no such "concept" of how to construct a
> garden, is there?
> > Rules may have been applied, mostly rules of what NOT
> to do. But
> > geomancy, although we use that term, was never anything
> like ONE school
> > (or religion) that would provide a whole toolset (like
> Buddhism,
> > Christianity) of symbolism; there are no grand master
> narratives that
> > someone could have taken up, it cannot be utilized for
> the grand
> > planning of gardens (for scholars and the upper
> class).
> >
> > A last note--let me come back to the issue of the
> "uniqueness" of
> > gardens (or garden culture, which I would not use).
> Uniqueness is out!
> > And right so, we should really stop talking about and
> thinking in terms
> > of uniqueness when we discuss, describe, talk about
> national or local
> > culture, even when we talk about individual cultural
> production. I know
> > that there are still people out there at anthropology
> museums and
> > museums that have East Asian art collections, and other
> such places,
> > where efforts are put into providing proof of national
> uniqueness of
> > this or that, but well, I think it has been at least
> two decades that
> > adjectives such as 'unique' started to get disqualified
> and to be
> > ignored at international contemporary art exhibitions.
> Although these
> > mummy terms in wheelchairs were never declared dead and
> replaced by
> > something else (but that's seldom the case with any
> cultural models and
> > belief systems, they do not get replaced, they co-exist
> until everyone
> > has forgotten), they were just disregarded and left
> alone in their
> > isolated chambers to dream of the olden days when they
> had received so
> > much attention. I see no reason why there should be any
> difference in
> > how we discuss traditional art and how modern and
> contemporary art and
> > art objects. Objects may have been produced under very
> different
> > circumstances, but we do evaluate them and their
> meaning to us today.
> > OUR concept of uniqueness and the still mainstream
> understanding that
> > 'good art' has to be 'unique,' that is basically a
> left-over from the
> > early and mid-20th century art scene and the way modern
> art, and more
> > specifically abstract painting and Informal, took care
> of propagating
> > themselves through pamphlets and declarations, and how
> it was later
> > advertised as the final and last stage of human art
> development by
> > entire governments, as the final (or at least
> strongest) legitimate
> > expression of individualism in the arts. All of that is
> yesterday's
> > talk now, all that has been dropped. Uniqueness and
> originality, as
> > concepts, are not even meaningful anymore for
> designers, as was still
> > the case in the 1980s and maybe up until into the
> 1990s. Then we had a
> > new emphasis coming in on "authenticity" and "the
> local" as a result of
> > and parallel to postmodern movements. But now that's
> gone also, and not
> > even corporate advertisement companies work with such
> concepts anymore.
> > When we see Apple vs. Samsung in court over a cell
> phone design, then
> > that is an expression of how far behind the court
> system is, not an
> > expression where our society and artists are. Neither
> designers nor
> > artists would care about "originality" and "uniqueness"
> much anymore,
> > and if they are soon out. The very obscure part comes
> in when we remind
> > ourselves that those engaged in East Asian art and
> culture have for
> > decades tried so hard to explain that "uniqueness" and
> "originality"
> > are modern Western concepts that traditional cultures
> in Asia did not
> > go by. Look e.g. through all the literature from or
> about Japanese art
> > of the 1970s, no matter if traditional or modern art.
> It's full of
> > originality discourses, that is the main focus. Korea,
> a few decades
> > years later, has these now, at least the official
> organizations
> > (National Museums, ARKO, etc.) all reproduce them, is
> at the hight of
> > it. So you see all these explanations on how and why
> "originality"
> > concepts had not been enacted in traditional Korean
> art, and a few
> > lines later it is explained to us how and why Korean
> national culture
> > is the most "unique" and "original" one (AND that is
> not even wrong in
> > the sense of factually incorrect). Be-au-ti-ful! So,
> while in
> > traditional art almost everything relies on models,
> patterns, and
> > repetition, all the modern national institutions in
> Korea never get
> > tired to advertise nothing but national-level
> uniqueness and
> > originality (Bauhaus and European modernism ideologies
> send their
> > greetings!); all the while the international art scene
> has moved on
> > into other directions. Try to explain that logic to
> your students,
> > please. That will likely take you a full semester of
> intense
> > brain-washing to communicate. But museum folks and
> other institutional
> > representatives are usually really skilled at turning
> all these
> > left-over approaches into a tasty pindaettŏk. And who
> knows, if you buy
> > their coffee table book for your art and culture class,
> they might get
> > you a free Samsung Galaxy S3 in unique Korean design
> right on top of
> > it.
> >
> >
> > I come to the modern Tamyang gardens later (maybe
> tomorrow) … and to
> > the various very interesting points Werner made. But
> seriously, I thing
> > the main disagreements are not about the actual gardens
> but about how
> > and where to situate the discourse.
> >
> >
> > Best,
> > Frank
> >
> > --------------------------------------
> > Frank Hoffmann
> > http://koreaweb.ws

>