[KS] Korean Tea Ceremony and other wonders‏

McCann, David dmccann at fas.harvard.edu
Fri Aug 17 09:49:14 EDT 2012


U T'ak (1263-1342)) was getting at these points too:

In one hand holding brambles,
in the other grasping a big stick,
I tried to block the old road with brambles
and chase away white hairs with my stick,
but white hairs knew my intent
and came by the furrow road instead.



DM




On Aug 16, 2012, at 8:20 PM, Werner Sasse wrote:

Dear Frank and all other friends

while this thread is still going on, I anyway want to share the following

This list's postings roughly fall into two categories: 1. information seeking and giving, 2. exchange and discussions of scholarly ideas
The problem with 2) starts when words/concepts are being used without definitions. As long as those entering the discussion have the same definition in mind, this - pretty un-scholarly - way of discussing works. But when the key concepts in the discussion are understood differently by those commenting, it is no longer the subject which is being discussed, the disagreement centers around words. And it seems clear by now that this is what happened in this thread.

In this connection I cannot suppress the philologist in me....
--> "Culture" until about the 15th c. meant mainly s.th<http://s.th>. like "tilling the field", which is the original meaning of "cultura" (Latin). All the other meanings came later. Lately the definitions tend to be boiling down to s.th<http://s.th>. like "behaviour and the mental structures/ideas/ideologies behind it"
--> "문화" has different origin and different connotations. ...文... It must be a translation in the sense of the later meanings of "culture" (Does anyone know who coined it? Japanese?)

Do we have the key for understanding the discussion in this thread when we try first to define what we mean by "garden culture"?
(And, by the way, what is "Korean culture?" We seem to be in the middle of a very basic discussion, which goes much deeper than just "garden culture")

(Interesting, by the way, how "culture" in European languages changed from "changing nature into a desired state by work of hands and tools" --> changing human beings by work of education with paper, ink, and the printing press" to modern meanings which center around  -->"behaviour"...}

Happy tilling!
Werner



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