Yangdong

On one of our last days with the Lamsons (spelling? - they were the older couple who tagged along with us the first two week of the trip), we went to the village of Yangdong (양동). It was a miserably rainy day so we didn't get out of the van and look around much. But we did make two stops while in the village.

The first was to the home of the village chongson (총손) or the leader of Confucian ceremonies. He's the grandson of the choson Dr. Peterson met on his first ever visit to the village. The grandfather loved being the choson and took great pride in his role in the community. His son inherited the title from him but found the mantle of choson to be more of a burden than anything. The village is in agreement that the stress of being choson killed him. Now his son, the grandson, is in his forties and is planning on expanding the role of the choson. Like his grandfather, he takes pride in what he does, but he's currently building on the traditional responsibilities by teaching the Confucian classics to locals who want to learn. When we arrived to his home he was just finishing up a lesson. We sat and talked for him a little while - his wife made us some meshyu (매슈), a kind of plum juice, which was served hot and like a tea. It had a strange taste to it - it smelled kind of like sweet and sour sauce but with the emphasis on the sour. Our stay was brief because the choson had to go teach a class at the local university.

Our second stop was to an elderly couple who lived on the other side of the village. The harabeoji (할아버지 = grandfather) was the one who allowed Dr. Peterson's 1999 study abroad to stay in an abandoned house in the village. The study abroad after that planned to use the same house to live in, but a recent trend of moving out of cities to stay in the countryside meant that there were no more empty homes in the village. So the harabeoji invited the group to stay in his home, with his wife making breakfasts and dinners (when they were home). Since we were in Korea of course we had to visit the old man. We all squished into his little bedroom/living room, each of us sitting in a cramped cross-legged position for about an hour. He talked about a lot of things with Dr. Peterson acting as translator when he could get a word in edgewise. The thing about the visit that impressed me the most was when he explained the thank you letter he was writing on behalf of his grand-nephew. As yangban (Korean aristocracy), they still practiced the traditional Confucian wedding protocol. The grandfather had already composed a letter of proposal for his grand-nephew which was given to a suitable young woman's family. The family then agreed to the match and sent a letter back conveying as much - so now the grandfather is composing a thank you letter for the bride's family. He pulled out the paper he was working on - it was a big sheet of old-fashioned paper folded accordion style so as to create columns in which to write in hanja top-down and right-left. Because the younger generation is losing interest in learning hanja, the grandfather was the only one in the family who could compose the necessary wedding documents. The old man STILL has his own proposal letter that he wrote himself to his now wife. It was super cute to see how far his proposal had taken him: on the walls were photos of him and his wife when they were younger and a photo of their only grandson when he was a baby, and in the corner was his wrinkled little ol' wife sitting in the corner listening faithfully to her husband. I found this little tidbit of Korean wedding tradition to be so interesting that I decided to read more about it in my book on Confucianism. This reading has blossomed into the topic for my paper/project which is Confucianism's influence on gender (specifically women) roles in early Korea.

Speaking of yangban, here's a fun fact I learned this morning during a phone call home: my bon-gwan (본관) or the "tribal origin" of my particular branch of the Lee family is in Jeonju. Jeonju is located in SW Korea in the area of the former Baekjae (백채) kingdom. According to wikipedia, Jeonju is one of the two biggest bon-gwans for Lee's. Basically... I AM A YANGBAN! WOOT! It feels good to know that if someone asks me what my bon-gwan is, I can say "제 본관은 전주 이씨입니다!" (I am a Jeonju Lee!).

The first photo is from the covered outdoor room where we ate lunch in the village.

Cheonmachong

We visited Kyoungjoo a second time to see the tombs of various royals. This particular tomb photographed above is called the "Flying Horse Tomb" or Cheonmachong (천마청). The Hanja (한자) or Chinese-based characters above the tomb spell this out from right to left.

The entirety of the area that includes the Cheonmachong is called Hwangnamri Gobun-gun (황남리 고분군). Two of the six gold crowns found in all of Korea are located in this park of tombs. The Cheonmachong tomb includes one of these two crowns. The name "Flying Horse Tomb" is evidence of pre-Buddhist shamanism in the Shilla kingdom. Exhibited in the artifacts excavated from the Cheonmachong are the three imperial symbols of Japan, which are the sword, the mirror and the stone. The sword was buried with the king, the mirrors and stones are used to decorate his gold crown. This gold crown that I speak of is not a very practical accessory. Because of it's fragility and size, it is thought to be a funerary accessory only. The mirrors are in the form of small, flat gold discs hanging off all over; the stones are jade cut and smoothed out to look kind of like cashews. There are many different ways to interpret the meaning behind the shape of the jade: many people believe that they are to symbolize fetuses thus showing the importance of fertility. Others think that the jade looks more like claws - bear/tiger claws fit with the shamanism prevalent in Shilla at the time, as Japanese and Korean shamanism originates from Manchuria/Siberia and includes bear/tiger worship.

On our way into the tomb, we were passed by a HUGE group of obviously American college-aged students. We were all blown away by reverse culture shock but Dr. Peterson was smart enough to chat up some of the students and find out where they're from and what they were doing in Korea. Upon entering the tomb, he began to give a brief but interesting lecture on some of the artifacts on display and the history behind the tomb. At the end, he said "I've sung my song - now it's time for you to sing me a song". Apparently these students were a choir from Concordia, MN performing in Korea. After a little bit of hesitation, the soloist began the choir's a'capella rendition of Arirang (아리랑), a Korean song with a beautiful, haunting melody and filled with Korean patriotism. It was the most amazing performance I've ever witnessed. The acoustics in the tomb were fantastic, and as the choir sang I couldn't help but feel my emotions stirring. All of us were clapping and cheering at the end - I felt blessed to be in the right place, at the right time and with Dr. Peterson who has managed to turn this whole trip into a cultural adventure.

Update

Sorry it's been a while since my last post - we've been busy lately and I'm several posts behind. I want to make sure that if I post something, it's something meaningful and well presented!

To tie you over until my next REAL post, here are some pictures that didn't make it on to previous posts.

Hae-insa

On Tuesday the 10th we went to Hae-insa (해인사) - it's one of the 3 treasure temples in Korea along with Tongdo-sa (통도사) and Seongyo-sa (성교사). The beauty of this place was almost destroyed during the Korean War. Major Kim Youngwan (김영환) was given the order to bomb Hae-insa but upon approaching the drop zone he decided to call off the attack because of his memories of coming to Hae-insa with his mother when he was a little boy. Instead he dropped the bombs elsewhere (probably in some rice fields) and returned only to be court marshaled for disobedience. He was imprisoned for the duration of the war - but luckily someone remembered him and decided he should be recognized for his patriotism in preserving Korean history. He was court marshaled again but was found innocent the second time and made a general.

Within the temple there is a "maze" - originally there were just the words to a Buddhist poem written in such a way that the only way to follow the path was to be able to correctly read the verses. To make the path more accessible to the masses, the monks created a physical path that does not include the words of the poem, but they can be found on a plaque nearby in Chinese and Korean. Being able to walk through the maze is a form of meditation and many of the people visiting Hae-insa participated in it - as did we! 

The temple at Hae-insa keeps the dharma (the law) on wooden blocks - this is part of the 3 baskets/treasures known as the Tripitaka. The other 2 treasures are the life of Buddha and how to live in the monastic order. The life of the Buddha is depicted through paintings all around the outside of one of the shrines, as well as in a mural-type painting inside. The man usually referred to as the living Buddha is Siddhartha Gautama, a Nepalese prince. The life of Buddha begins with his mother conception dream which involved a white elephant. When the Buddha was born, his mother gave birth standing up and holding on to a tree for support; rather than coming from the womb, the baby came from underneath her arm and was more like a miniature man than a baby. He stood upright and possibly declared something (Dr. P can't remember). As a young prince he went out about the city and saw 4 disturbing things: poverty, age, death and disease. This made him want to be more liberal in helping people overcome these things. His father wanted him to be conservative and concerned more with matters of state than social welfare. To escape the smothering influence of his father and seek out enlightenment, the Buddha and his servant climbed upon a white horse that flew over the palace walls. At first the Buddha tried aestheticism which involves extreme fasting, but it didn't work for him. Before obtaining enlightenment he was tempted by 3 beautiful women but because of his enlightened-ness he was able to see them as the ugly demons they were.