[KS] Revisiting GARDENS in Korea

[Frank Hoffmann]

Oh hey, is someone reading our list? Seems so to me, or just … f i n a 
l l y … a turn of thought and approach?:
You sure recall the interesting debate we had on Korean gardens several 
months back. I was just looking for a completely different topic and 
accidentally ended up at the index page of the tourist magazine 
_Koreana_, probably the latest issue (Autumn 2013). It's special 
feature is "Yards and Gardens" and I was positively surprised at what I 
read at the beginning of the first article in there, by Han Kyung-koo, 
a cultural anthropologist at SNU:

http://koreana.or.kr/ebook/viewer.asp?fcs_mid=0000999&viewer=undefined&page=0

Q U O T E :
"Traditionally, when Koreans build their homes, they did not make any 
specific effort to cultivate the elaborate gardens for which their 
neighbors, the Chinese and the Japanese, are known. This was of course 
true for the common people, but even the wealthy and powerful generally 
did not plant anything in the front yards of their homes, however 
grand. They tamped down the earth and kept their yards clean and free 
of even the smallest pebble or blade of grass. [… NOTE about a few 
*exceptions* like Soswaewŏn…] Most Koreans seemed to keep their yards 
neat and tidy rather than maintaining large, attractive gardens."

You see where to the journey goes from this quote already.
The articles title is therefore: "Yards rather than Gardens"

Twenty years late, but thanks anyway -- nice to see.

……….

Unrelated: I have reason to believe that my message with subject line 
"SOCIALIST SURREALISM" was not received by most subscribers, probably 
because some terms in there did trigger our computers to decide that it 
is inappropriate. (Computers are always a little behind, one must 
know.) Here is the posting in the archives: 
http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/2013-October/010644.html

Best,
Frank

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Frank Hoffmann
http://koreanstudies.com