RASKB Excursion to Yangcheon Hyanggyo and Gaehwasan next Sunday, May 10

Next Sunday, May 10, I'll be leading a walk around the area of Yangcheon Hyanggyo Station and Gaehwasan Station for the Royal Asiatic Society. The former location was the seat of Yangcheon Hyeon, or prefecture, during the Joseon period and still sports the only remaining Hyanggyo, or Confucian Shrine, in Seoul, as well as a number of other historic landmarks. We will also visit a museum to the innovative Joseon Era landscape painter Jeong Seon (1676–1759), and look at paintings of the area that he made in the mid-1700s. I've mentioned the area before (here and here), and this post at Seoul Suburban covers some of the spots we'll visit.

(Yangcheon District in the 1870s)

From there we will take the subway to Banghwa Station to explore Mt. Gaehwasan. After passing through a park with a number of 400-year-old zelkova and gingko trees, we'll head up the mountain to see the numerous tombs, many with beautifully carved tombstones and flanked by stone civic official statues, of the Pungsan Shim clan, who for several generations served the Joseon kings and were memorialized for their meritorious deeds – one of which was taking part in the overthrow of the notorious king, Yonsan-gun.

We will also go to Yaksasa Temple and see a statue of the Buddha and a three-story stone pagoda which date back to the Goryeo Era.

We'll see an even larger such statue dating from the early Joseon period outside Mitasa Temple, on the other side of the mountain. The statue was found buried in the 1930s, when the temple was rebuilt. Both temples were destroyed during the Korean War, but the pagoda and statues survived.

Next to Mitasa is the Memorial to the Loyal Dead, which was erected to remember the 1,100 soldiers of the Korean 1st Army Division who died defending Mt. Gaehwasan - which overlooks Gimpo Airport - during the opening of the Korean War, which will provide an opportunity to learn more about the fighting which took place on the mountain during the war, as well as its military importance in the present. I'll also touch on the importance of the area during the Imjin War.

Being a mountain, of course, there will be lots of opportunities to take in views of the Han River and surrounding area and enjoy what nature has to offer.

If you feel like joining us, please do! The cost of the tour is W20,000 for RAS members and W25,000 for non-members. The excursion will set off next Sunday, May 10, at 1:00 pm from exit 3 of Yangcheon Hyanggyo Station (양천향교) #906 (subway line number 9). For more information, see here.

Bits and pieces

Comedian Jeong Chan-u got more of a response than he bargained for when he appeared on 'Cult Two's Veranda Show' on MBC on Tuesday wearing the sweater seen below, causing controversy. Netizens weren't impressed, saying they were reminded of Japanese war crimes, and that even if it was unintentional he should have seen such a response coming, and so he apologized on twitter yesterday for causing offense.

(Also regarding MBC, someone decided to have some fun when an MBC program censored the breasts in Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.)

Speaking of controversy, a week ago it was reported that a restaurant in Itaewon had caused controversy by naming a fried chicken dish 'Heukhyeong,' or 'black big brother.' Mike Hurt dug to the bottom of this and found that it had been blown out of proportion by an irresponsible media outlet. It's nice to see Mike back to regular blogging.

On the topi of restaurants and eating, Gord Sellar has written a post placing the 먹방, or 'broadcast eating' in context, as well as another looking at why good restaurants so often go bad in the Seoul area.

As well, this interview with the elderly Chae Hyun-gook, a fascinating, if mostly unknown, figure who financially supported aspects of the democracy movement in the 1970s and 1980s is well worth reading. I liked this:

The worst of all is politicians who are desperate for strife. Ideologies and any other things are not important. They just can’t stand amicable relationships and are in need of discord to be influential.

Exactly.

At the other end of the age scale, I also found these personal looks by a young woman at the influence of her father on her decision to become a journalist and on his work with the Korea Center for Investigative Journalism worth reading.

Hidden dragons

The Joongang Daily reported that a recent report by Jongno District Office about relics at Dongmyo shrine revealed that hidden behind a screen for centuries was a painting of nine dragons:

The painting - measuring 2.75 meters (9 feet) in height and 4.95 meters in length - was discovered in October 2011 as cultural artifacts experts were doing an inventory of artifacts at the shrine. The painting was on a wall behind a gilt bronze statue of Gwanwu (160-219), a legendary warrior from China’s Three Kingdoms period (220 ? 280) and also the subject of worship by some Chinese believers.

A folding screen showing a landscape in seven parts had been placed over the wall painting and nailed to the wall.

“Judging from the condition, it appears the painting has never been uncovered or removed from the wall since it was created in the 17th century,” said Jang Gyeong-hee, a professor of cultural heritage conservation at Hanseo University’s fine arts department, who wrote the report.

“Thanks to the folding screen, air was blocked and dust was kept away, allowing the colors to remain vivid all these years.”

Photos of the dragons can be seen here:

As the final photo reveals, however, the screen has been put back in place, which has raised concerns from academics who wish to study the painting.

Celadon and postcard exhibitions

There are a couple of interesting exhibitions on this month I thought I'd point out.
It was mentioned to me awhile ago that the National Museum in Yongsan was holding a large exhibition of Goryeo era celadon - its first in 20 years -  and I sort of stumbled upon it this week. Here's some information on it:

This special exhibition is based on the research achievements on the peninsula's long ceramic tradition which have undergone a remarkable development since the 1990s. The purpose of the exhibition lies in outlining the development of Goryeo celadon wares such as its birth, and origin and application of inlay techniques. Furthermore, it is put together to take a closer look into the role, production, and circulation of the celadon, and its relationship with other metal crafts and lacquer wares during Goryeo Dynasty.

The exhibition presents 350 intact celadon wares. They have been carefully selected from the collection in Korea and other countries in regards to the importance and quality. In terms of the scale, the exhibition is the largest of a kind in history. It includes 29 nation's designated cultural heritage(18 National Treasures and 11 Treasures) and two Japan's designated important cultural assets, making the exhibition an unprecedented case of bringing together top quality celadon wares.

It's well worth seeing, though this Sunday (December 16) is the last day. There's also a book with photos of the entire collection available for purchase.

Down at the Independence Hall in Cheonan is another exhibition, this one of colonial era postcards. If you like old photos and views of Korea's major cities (and of the countryside and daily life) from the 1910s to the 1930s, there are 150 postcards of such scenes on display there, and more collected in a slideshow. There's almost no information about this exhibition (in the media) in English, and though it's noted on the Korean language site, there's no information on the English language site (though there's useful information on how to get there). This page (I hope that link works) has links to a few examples, including this street scene and this postcard (one of ten or so which shows both sides at the exhibition) written by Ahn Chang-ho to his daughter while in the U.S. Rather annoyingly, that page has a link to a photo of the book on display there which collects all of the postcards, but it's not available to buy.

The exhibition is in Hall #7, to the right behind the large main hall. From Seoul, taking a train down to Cheonan and a ~30 minute bus ride to the hall, you could probably spend all day there. I only saw the exhibition, the remains of the old government general building (I'll put up photos of it another day) and the first two of seven halls and that took over three hours. The exhibition is on until the end of the year.

Art From Outsider's Point of View

The 2005 English Spectrum Incident

Part 1: English Spectrum and 'Ask The Playboy'
Part 2: The Kimchiland where it’s easy to sleep with women and make money
Part 3: English Spectrum shuts down as Anti-English Spectrum is created
Part 4: How to hunt foreign women
Part 5: Did the foreigners who denigrated Korean women throw a secret party?
Part 6: The 'Ask The Playboy' sexy costume party
Part 7: Stir over ‘lewd party’ involving foreigners and Korean women
Part 8: The 2003 post that tarred foreign English teachers as child molesters
Part 9: Netizens shocked by foreign instructor site introducing how to harass Korean children
Part 10: Movement to expel foreign teachers who denigrated Korean women
Part 11: "Middle school girls will do anything"
Part 12: Netizens propose 'Yankee counter strike force'
Part 13: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 1
Part 14: Segye Ilbo interview with the women from the party, part 2
Part 15: Web messages draw Koreans’ wrath
Part 16: Thai female laborers and white English instructors
Part 17: 'Regret' over the scandal caused by confessions of foreign instructors
Part 18: "Korean men have no excuse"
Part 19: "Unfit foreign instructors should be a 'social issue'"
Part 20: 'Clamor' at foreigner English education site
Part 21: Foreign instructor: "I want to apologize"
Part 22: No putting brakes on 'Internet human rights violations'
Part 23: "They branded us as whores, yanggongju and pimps," part 1
Part 24: "They branded us as whores, yanggongju and pimps," part 2
Part 25: Don't Imagine
Part 26: 'Foreign instructor' takes third place
Part 27: Art From Outsider's Point of View

I just discovered the following Korea Times article from January 21, 2005 about a Korean artist's reaction to English Spectrum (prior to the incident), which can be found in this blog post:

Art From Outsider's Point of View

By Park Chung-a
Staff Reporter

It is the era of globalization. Cultural exchanges are growing in popularity and the number of foreigners coming into the country and Koreans going abroad is on the rise, making the words "hybrid'' and "multi-cultural'' very familiar to Korean society.

Lee Joo-young, known as Jooyoung Lee abroad, is a young artist who seeks to shed light on this hybrid, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual community that is becoming an important part of Korea through the visualization of snippets of text extracted from Internet blogs in the form of stencil artwork.

"I became interested in hybrid culture as I studied visual arts in the United Kingdom for five years,'' Lee said. "I came back to Korea after having lived as foreigner in another nation and I began to wonder how foreigners here thought and felt about living in Korean society. I wanted to project myself through the thoughts and words of 'outsiders.'''

According to Lee, "outsiders'' are not only foreigners but also include Koreans or Korean-Americans who feel alienated from Korean society when their individual hopes or viewpoints are criticized or frustrated because of prejudices and narrow-minded norms dictating Korean society.

English Spectrum, an Internet message board for English teachers in Korea, which has been shut down temporarily because of sexist comments against Korean women, triggered Lee's enthusiasm for exploring the thoughts and feelings of these outsiders.

"I discovered the Web site in April through a foreigner. Everything I wanted was in the site,'' she said. "Because it was designed for the active exchange of opinions and information, I could see how foreigners in Korea felt while living here.''

"Although the comments were sometimes very superficial, many of them just venting their anger toward Koreans, I thought they were deserving of attention.''

Since then, she has been collecting snippets of text and words that represented universal thoughts and feelings of outsiders from personal Internet blogs run by foreigners living in Korea or Korean-Americans. She wanted to reveal what was happening in the domestic multi-cultural community through her work.

One of her works says, "You are always hurry hurry hurry. Where are you hurrying to?'' which she believes shows the hand-to-mouth aspect of Korean society. Added to the text is "They are hurrying to love'', which she made up by herself. In addition to using the texts in their original form, she also adds some words that express her reaction or perspective.

Other texts include "Anything for the right price,'' "We should send all foreign guys away'' and "I rove you'', which is phonetically written based on many Koreans' pronunciation of "I love you'', who often confuse "l'' with "r'' when pronouncing them. Through phonetics, she wanted to focus on the trial and error that we face in the process of learning foreign language and accepting foreign culture.

"Being spread all over the Internet, those raw words could mean nothing and be considered as trash. However, by representing them through stencil work, I wanted to make viewers reconsider the feelings of outsiders and understand people of different cultures and nationalities,'' Lee said.

The stencil work is done on paper as well as on walls and T-shirts. By overlapping sentences and blurring the spray paint, Lee pursues a reverberation effect, symbolizing the cyberspace in which clusters of words, voices and opinions abound. She uses the term "anarchi-stencil'' for describing her work as it is based on free expression without any restriction.

In March, Her stencil art will be demonstrated in a group exhibition with foreign artists in Buia Gallery in New York. Lee plans to hold an exhibition in Seoul in September. She also plans to open a stencil shop later this year or next year in order to give the general public a chance to express their opinions and feelings on T-shirts through stencils.

"Instead of just holding exhibitions as an artist, I would like to contribute to increasing people's interest in art, making people get used to freely expressing their feelings and thoughts through their own works. I am currently thinking about teaching a stencil work to a group of youth,'' she said.

In addition, she has been working on quasi-documentary project based on a collection of interviews with foreigners in Korea. So far, she has interviewed ten foreigners.

"I would like to make those interviews into one complete video work and show them in the Hongdae area, Itaewon or Yongsan, where multicultural communities abound. When I am done with the project, one socialist is to make a book from it. However, the project has been stalled at the moment due to a lack of funds.'' But she is determined to continue it despite difficulties.

"While I was studying in England, one of my English friends asked another English friend who was living with students of various nationalities what it was like to live with foreigners. The response was `What could be so different? They are people just like us!''' she said. "That answer made me think about how many people were prejudiced against people of different nationalities without trying to realize that they are just humans. I hope people will realize this through my work. Seeing my work, I I hope people will become more open to others and learn to respect the co-existence of diverse opinions and thoughts.''

Lee is a prominent artist who currently lives in Chang-dong art studio, run by government-funded National Museum of Contemporary Art, which is only granted to artists with brisk activities and high-quality performances. Since starting her career as a professional artist in 2001, she has held numerous exhibitions both in Korea and abroad, including Tokyo and London. In April, she developed a project under the title Radio Hue, a radio style sound work that made a multifaceted portrayal of the Seoul art environment of 2004 through interviews and reports with the people working within it, such as artists, gallerists, museum workers and writers.

So there you go. It's certainly a more productive and thoughtful reaction to some of the nonsense produced at English Spectrum than has been generally reported.