PusanWeb Writings - Essays, Fiction, and Poetry from Busan, Korea

Over the winter holiday, I had the opportunity to read some books about Korea. Not only is it interesting to read about things Korean, but it is relaxing to turn over arguments about Korea in a non-confrontational zone. No discussion board, no subway or classroom bravado by supercharged Koreans. Just me and two women. It's no wonder women are smarter than men in Korea. All that listening to soju-soaked twit-chatter should give Korea a Nobel Prize in about another husband's lifespan.

These two books are available in Korean; one is so well-known, most Koreans roll their eyes just as Americans do during discussions of Moby Dick, the other is the oldest and most popular novel in all of Japanese literature. I thoroughly enjoyed both and recommend each. I read many more, but these two are most noteworthy, because they provided insight into the same questions about Korean/Japanese (is that Kapanese or Joryo) society about which I have written before repeatedly.

The first book is The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth Century Korea, as translated and edited by JaHyun Kim Haboush. The Memoirs is actually four different works written by one woman, Hyegyonggung Hong Ssi, a circumspect, scrupulous, unfortunate daughter of a minor provincial aristocrat. The memoirs are, successively, a family injunction, a memorial, a biography, and a historiography. At the center of the collection sits Hong Hyegyong and her husband, Crown Prince Sado. The Memoirs span the reigns of Yongjo, Chongjo, and Sunjo, and the careers of Lady Hyegyong's father, Hong Ponghan, and her older brothers.

Lady Hong Hyegyong was the wife of Crown Prince Sado, who in 1762, was ordered by his father, King Yongjo, to step into a rice chest, which was susequently bound and covered in sod. Crown Prince Sado had been punished by his father for a series of heinous murders caused by Sado's mental illness. Lady Hyegyong and her family, including her son, the future King Chongjo, then became the focal point of factional quarrels at court, each side using the execution of the Crown Prince, to its own political advantage.

Lady Hong, in the first three memoirs, strives to defend her father and brothers against charges of treason and complicity in Sado's execution. King Yongjo had painstakingly managed during his reign to adjudicate amongst four factional groupings of Confucian scholars serving as bureaucrats at the Korean court. Yongjo attempted to educate his successor, Crown Prince Sado, in the royal responsibilities, including allowing him to preside over audiences without supervision and, perhaps too precipitously, naming him regent. Sado's mental illnees, as well as the strain of his responsibilities, may have led him to commit wanton murder of palace attendants, and act in embarassing ways. There may have also been a degree of youthful rebellion to fatherly rule. I also have read of a psychological disease, popularly known as "hwabyong", or "fire disease". As officials within the court, Lady Hong and her family were condemned by other families vying for royal favor as accomplices to Sado's death. Her younger brother seems to have also espoused Christian beliefs.

The last work, The Memoir of 1805 is a defense of her husband. It is a brilliant psychological portrait of Crown Prince Sado, and a revealing exercise in historical writing It also reveals the mind of an extraordinary woman trying to understand some of the most harrowing personal tragedies any spouse or daughter might face. This last work ranks with Hamlet, because it also deals with family and personal tragedy. How does one deal with the fact, that one's husband is insane and criminal, but yet there is no way to divorce him, not only because divorce is a repugnant, impermissible option, but also because the welfare and reputation of one's family depends upon one's sacrifice? But I did not pity this amazing woman, because she managed to survive and instil in her son and grandson her same desire to maintain both her husband's and family's reputation.

One major failing of Haboush's work is, that she does not place the incidents in a broader historical and international context. Successive Korean rulers became less innovative than Chongjo, and Korea descended into isolation and decay. The Memoirs glimpse at the inward-directed character of the Korean government, but a more thorough analysis would be illuminating. Also, another opinion of the cast of characters would be good, if only to avoid partisan bias.

The second book I re-read was The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu, the daughter of a minor aristocrat in Heian Japan. The 11th Century novel, arguably the world's first, revolves around the character of the "shining Genji", the illegitimate son of the Emperor. The novel, like an historical document, depicts the customs of the Heian imperial court. Genji and his male friends compete for mistresses and royal favor in an elaborate game of intrigue and power. But the book has a more serious side. The theme of the book is karma, and , specifically, that bad intentions and actions will affect the lives of others in our own life and in the lives to come. Although the succeeding five novels show much more poignantly how an ancestor's actions hurt his children, in the first novel, Genji's actions affects those around him in a very direct way. Loved ones are possessed and enfeebled by the ghosts of unrequited lovers, and Genji's career is affected.

Although, from a male perspective, The Tale of Genji is almost an adolescent romp, the depictions of possession were more just entertaining, but instructive. Buddhist thinking places emphasis on clearing the mind of earthly attachments before dying. Psychological weights, like regret and vengefulness, keep the dying spirit earthbound and incapable of moving closer to nirvana. But the scenes where Genji's loved ones suffered pain, because of his mistakes, poignantly made this seemingly arcane and academic religious doctrine comprehensible. It is frightening to understand, that every action has a consequence, especially when that consequence involves a loved one.

Has anyone noticed that both these books were written by women? Such acute vision and skill comes only from great trial and suffering. I know I said I had read about Korea, and The Tale of Genji is a Japanese novel. Both works by Lady Hong Hyegyong and Lady Murasaki Shikibu share a family resemblance: both are products of the same misogynistic culture. A female-degrading culture incapable of developing fully, despite women like these. Both works reveal woman-hating worlds and the consequences of male domination, whether it be psychological illness or religious damnation. The evil is selfishness, ruthless exploitation of the weak by the strong, and ignorance. As Korea follows Japan down the path of development first laid out in the Meiji period by unemployed samurai in Tokyo, as chaebol and banks falter, as wealthy Koreans expand their gains, and as North Korea starves, I think of Lady Hong searching for a way to tell her grandson about his grandfather, the murderer, or Lady Shikibu torturing her lead character.