Panel One: CULTURAL BORDERS
Moderator: Wayne Patterson
Visiting Professor, Harvard University
Hyun Choe, University of California, Irvine
Citizenship and Nationhood in the Republic of Korea
This paper discusses the formation of the concept of the citizenship in the Republic of Korea (hereafter, the ROK). Pointing out the limitations of culturalist explanatory schema, I argue that politico-economic factors like state interest, economic considerations, diplomatic relations and international (or transnational) institutions better explain the changes of the citizenship boundary in the ROK. Through examining the formation of the definition of the citizenship in the ROK, this study aims to widen the understanding of the foundation of nation-states in non-Western countries as well as contribute to the theoretical discussions on nation-states.
The ROK is very homogeneous both culturally and ethnically, which has a long history dating back over a thousand years. This homogeneity is the crucial condition for the ethnic understanding of the nationhood among Koreans. Koreans developed their national identity in the struggle against Japanese colonialism from 1890 to 1945. Therefore, in order to build up a nation-state, nationalists had to generate a powerful and totaling discourse on a fixed identity and historiography. In result, the Korean nationalism highly emphasized the Korean blood, language and ethnicity. Finally, South Korean government has highlighted the ethnic-centered concept of 'the Korean Nation' since its birth in 1948 as a way to emphasize the imperativeness of reunification of the two Koreas and to complete building a Korean nation-state. In the ROK, the ethnic-centered understanding is still a dominant way of conceptualizing the nationhood both among populace and intellectuals. In addition, only paternal lineages of ethnic Koreans are regarded as Koreans because of a strong Confucian tradition.
Indeed, the ROK did not allow citizenship to other ethnicity such as Chinese third generation. In the same vein, they did not give the citizenship to the alien husbands of Korean women and their children. On the other hand, the ROK gave citizenship to overseas Koreans more or less freely, though it did not accept the dual citizenship.
However, there have been some changes in recent years. The ROK has begun to loosen the boundary of citizenship toward ethnic others in the territory while tightening its regulations toward overseas ethnic Koreans. In addition, despite a strong objection from the Confucianists, the ROK has recently changed gender-biased naturalization policy.
Then how can we explain such changes of the citizenship policy in the ROK? As mentioned above, I attempt to explain these changes based on the changes in political and economic factors rather than cultural factors. According to my research, international human rights code, feminist movement, political pressure from the neighbor countries, and economic considerations have all contributed to the recent changes of the definition of citizenship in the ROK. This paper is a part of a my larger comparative project that focuses on the role of economic considerations, diplomatic relations, international institutions and culture in defining the boundary of citizenship in the ROK and in the PRC.
Sachiko Kotani, California State University, Hayward
Colonization, Migration, and Japan: Life Histories of Elderly Korean Immigrants
This study explores the life-long relationships between elderly Korean immigrants and Japan, by examining how elderly Korean immigrants in the United States recall their colonial experiences. Using in-depth interviews, participant observation, and a questionnaire survey, the focus is placed on the context of their personal life histories and how their individual colonial experiences along with their migration experiences have affected their views and ways of associating with Japan. The subjects for this study are members of the East Bay Korean-American Senior Citizens, Inc., a local non-profit institution for the Korean elderly in Oakland, California. Though of varied backgrounds, the experiences of Japanese imperial rule of Korea (1910 to 1945) and migration to the United States are common characteristics of the subjects.
By analyzing the oral histories of place-based memories, which were related in Japanese by members of the senior center, the study shows that various social, cultural, psychological, and geographical ties with Japan still remain in the minds and behaviors of these elderly Korean immigrants, despite their strong awareness of the historical injustice of the colonization and their Korean heritage in the midst of contemporary American society.
This study also reveals the complexity of this phenomenon. The personal bonds with Japan through shared and empirical memories of places, events, culture, and people coexist with their political and collective pain and hatred toward Japan, which ruled and exploited Korea for 36 years. What Japan stands for varied depending on each study participant's life path and residential history.
Moreover, not only do many of the elderly Korean immigrants have various feelings for and continuous interests in Japan, but it is revealed that those who have Japanese language skills have exploited their language abilities and knowledge of Japanese culture to make themselves more competitive and take advantage of opportunities in the labor market, leisure, and education following migration to the United States. Thus, the results of this study highlighted the toughness of elderly Korean immigrants as cross-cultural survivors. The Korean immigrant elders have survived the many periods of political, economic, and social turmoil associated with modern Korean history by migrating and adapting to other dominant cultures.
Yang-Im Lee, University of Stirling
Organizational Culture From A Korean Perspective
There are many views as to what organizational culture is and how organizational culture is formed. Furthermore, two different viewpoints, the inductive view and the deductive view, need to be taken into account. The 'inductive' view relates to the approach which suggests that organisational culture starts in each section or department within an organization. For example, Handy (1986), and Rosenfeld and Wilson (1999), explain that the relationship between organizational culture and the social network of a labour force within an organization is of paramount importance, and have identified organisational culture by using four different structures; 'power-culture', 'role-culture', 'task-culture', and 'person-culture'. Shein (1984, 1992) and Hofstede (1996, 1997) have different starting viewpoints, and approach the subject matter from a different perspective which encompasses national culture and its relevance.
In order to understand what organizational culture is and how it has developed (both in a domestic environment and the international environment), it is important to have a wide knowledge and appreciation of a country's history, culture and the values and beliefs held by people in society. The reason why this is the case, is that local staff are important assets of an organization and have views which are shared by other members of society. Therefore, the organization can be viewed as an extension of society, and the relationships which exist in society also exist within a local organization.
Several management academics have undertaken research of a comparative nature and this is to be applauded. In some cases, academic researchers have applied Western management concepts to study Korean organizational forms of managing, and this has been placed within a specific context. It is importance to remember, however, that Korean organizational cultural value systems are heavily influenced by the Confucian value system and because of this, Korea can be considered unique. Another influential factor is the role that Buddhism has played in shaping Korean society and the Korean value system.
Korean organizations have developed rapidly over the past thirty years and are now subject to further change and development. The Korean government has played an influential role in Korea's development and the relationship between government and industry is also going through a process of change, so the current period of transformation will effect future government-industry relationships, and the way in which Korean organizations are managed and controlled.
This paper focuses on Korean national culture and how it affects Korean organizational culture. Furthermore, attention is paid to important issues such as leadership style and the recruitment and selection of staff. A number of theoretical insights are highlighted and links are made with historical factors which have shaped the Korean value system.
Panel Two: KOREAN LITERATURE
Moderator: David R. McCann
Professor, Harvard University
Christopher Hanscom, University of California, Los Angeles
Aesthetic Resistance: Tracing the Path of Mediated Desire in Pak T'aewon
Pak T'aewon (1909-1986) is generally considered, along with Yi Sang (1910-1937), one of Korea's pioneering modernist authors of the 1930s. Particularly in regard to his experimental use of language and his close attention to the technique or style of his writing, his work is seen as representing one of the new strains of literature that emerged out of the "realism" of the 1920s, and stands at a crossroads of the problems that surrounded Korean literature in the first half of this century.
It is the experimental nature of his early works, evident in a careful use of language-from the inclusion of extra-narrative elements such as classified advertisements and numeric equations, to a frequent lack of narrative center or use of multiple or divided points of view-and the descriptive, panoramic quality of his later works which encourage the almost exclusive characterization of Pak as a "stylist" or "modernist" author preoccupied with aesthetic concerns. Those critical works that have been published on Pak's fiction have tended to focus on these "modernist" tendencies, a continuation or extension of the evaluative categories and predispositions already present in late 1930s criticism of his work. The crucial point to be taken from these critical evaluations is that, both in the 1930s as well as currently, his early writing is almost unilaterally considered a-political. Some of these evaluations stem from leftist critiques of his work, while purely modernist critiques bound it within stylistic constraints, resulting in a foreshortened perspective on the content.
This paper intends to problematize just this putting aside of political or interpretive elements present in the text in three of Pak's works: Scenes from the Riverbank (Ch'onbyon p'unggYong, 1933), A Day in the Life of the Writer, Mr. Kubo (Sosolga kubossi ui iril, 1934), and the short story "Fatigue" (P'iro, 1933). A close reading of these works, alongside research into secondary sources including contemporaneous responses as well as current critical studies, will emphasize Pak's role in the modernist movement while historically contextualizing his literary production. In an attempt to perform a more nuanced analysis, an analysis that goes beyond generic or thematic categories, I will focus in particular on Rene Girard's concept of "triangular" or "mediated" desire as a tool with which to discern a critical operation in Pak's work, especially in the case of his short story "Fatigue." I will argue that Girard's model is applicable to Pak's colonial-period work when extended to include the provision that in the literature of the colonized the mediator of desire must remain invisible, and that the exposure of mediated desire-production lends Pak's work, in part, its resistant character. I will then move on to an examination of Ch'onbyon p'unggYong, taking note of South Korean critic Ha Chongil's location of a utopian "moral community" in the pages of Pak's major work and the exclusion of the "contaminant" of desire that this sort of bounded space necessitates.
Grace E. Koh, University of Oxford, UK
Literary Criticism in the Koryo Period
The application of modern western literary theories and criticism in the analysis of pre-modern Korean literature presents problems in the study and understanding of its traditional framework. Studies using external theories often neglect internal traditions, and result in awkward interpretations that displace a literary work from its historical and cultural context. While criticizing the limitations dictated by the use of Western references, many of today's scholars employ them in their studies. Moreover, while scholars acknowledge the existence of sihwa [poetry criticism], a traditional form of literary criticism that emerged and developed with the thriving literary activity in the Koryo period (918-1392), few seem to refer to them in studies of pre-modern literature.
My paper will discuss how the function and form of literature were perceived and appreciated in the Koryo period, focusing on the traditional views pertaining to literary meaning, creativity, and form based on major works of sihwa. My paper will also discuss the value of works of sihwa as critical reference sources to traditional Korean literature.
Joanna Hwang, University of Sheffield, UK
Rethinking the Analytical Criticism of Korean Fiction in the 'West'
This paper explores the discourse needed in the study of contemporary Korean narrative fiction in the 'West' in order to justify the study of Korean fiction not only as a tool in the study of social sciences or social anthropology, but also as an art form in its own right. Modern Korean fiction, especially that of women, has been covered in various institutes of Korean Studies largely because of its ability to describe or redescribe the society from an author's perspective, which often represents the view of the 'silenced' disenfranchised strata of the society. This tendency can be seen in the number of so-called "images of" studies, in which characters in a narrative are analysed and studied as real life people whose social qualities can be drawn out of the text. However, this kind of study - albeit important and interesting in its own way - carries the danger of scholars treating Korean fiction and literature in general as mere sociological datum, and thus obscuring the artistic qualities of it.
Over the past decades a growing number of critical works which aim to apply Western literary theories have been published in Korea. However, it is striking that even though an ever increasing number of Korean works of fiction are being translated and published in various 'Western' languages, critical and analytical study of contemporary Korean fiction in a Western language by a Western researcher remains next to non-existent. This must be considered as a serious shortcoming, especially as such critical studies already exist in the field of Japanese Studies. Therefore, the suggestions presented in this paper are raised and discussed not so much out of a complete lack of critical material and research on Korean fiction in general, but out of the striking absence of critical study of Korean literature in the West by Western scholars. Consequently, this paper will aim to contribute to the contemporary debate over how the study of Korean fiction could be enriched by using the existing 'Western' interpretative models in dialogism with the cultural particulars that render most foreign theories inapplicable as ready-made analytical frameworks for the study of Korean fiction.
Kyoo E. Lee, London University, UK
Sex and the City: The Female Gaze, Resilient Body and Urban Desire in the Poetry of Ch'oe Yong-mi
"At first sight", says poet Hwang Chi-u, "the poetry of Ch'oe Yong-mi is provocative. Somehow, she startles us; yet, we are still tempted to follow her through to the end. This guiding light of temptation takes us to a place where life-supporting stuff such as ideological faith or love has left us behind; and suddenly, the light goes off (1994)". Indeed, the poetry of Ch'oe is rather shocking, and shockingly "honest (Kim Yong-taek, 1994: 121)". Why her poetry comes as a shock: this is the question my paper seeks to answer. And the text to be discussed is her first anthology that muscled into contemporary Korean literary scene in 1994, At Thirty, The Party is Over.
My immediate aim here is to introduce the poetry of Ch'oe to a wider range of readership outside Korea; although very little can be said in the given space, a close reading of her text, I hope, may also help us understand the on-going "postmodernist" or "new-age" trend in Korean literature that started, roughly speaking, from the late 1980s, coinciding with the end of the military regime and the beginning of a democratic era, i.e. with the disappearance of the enemy and the appearance of a lost generation. Do fight, nevertheless: this, as I read it, is a hidden impetus of Ch'oe's poems that is brimming with visible bodies and carnal desire; and many of her poems are almost pornographically lucid, i.e. "honest", expressions of that natural, intuitive anger, the anger of being lost, the anger that is neither a nostalgic absolutism nor a "feminist" complaint in the narrowly politicised, "bitchy" sense of the word. It is in this vein that I suggest, with Ch'oe Sung-ja (1994), that the poetry of Ch'oe Yong-mi is, and is to be read as, "a kind of fighting record". Our poet is a postmodern fighter, and what she fights against is nothing other than herself, her postmodern self; this is best illustrated in the inaugural poem, ironically entitled, 'At thirty, the Party is Over', in which the poet's "I" is torn between two choices: either heading home just like others, or staying there, preparing for another party, all alone, all over again. That which is made explicit in the course of such "bloody struggle" (Kim: 122) is nothing but the nothing, the misery of being reduced to nothing, often cushioned by the inward smile of postmodern cynicism, e.g. "Tell me, so what? ('At Thirty')". Exposed in her poems are not only the playfulness of, but also the relentlessness of, such "postmodern madness ('The Hunger of a Survivor')", in other words, the symptoms of postmodern Korea; often portrayed in her poems with visual precision and dramatic humour is the post-capitalist urban fatigue of Seoul, the place the poet refuses to leave, nevertheless. Ch'oe's weapon is then, one can say in this regard, the poignancy of microscopic realism, another example of which, more recent, can be found in Ha Sung-nan's novel, The Woman Next Door (1999).
Obscurity is not only the opposite of clarity, but its opponent. The exacting edginess of Ch'oe's poetic sentiment, as I shall highlight, is a focused articulation of female desire which recognises the disgusting truth of carnal violence as well as, alas, its fatal attraction. A hard woman is always a trouble; added sensitivity makes her a hard-core poet. And this sort of woman, I should like to welcome.
Panel Three: MODERN KOREA
Moderator: Sung-Yoon Lee
Assistant Professor, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
Daniel H. Kim, University of Washington
Informal Institutions as a Hindrance to Economic Recovery: The Unwritten Collusion of Banks and Corporations to Thwart Reform in the Post-Crisis Milieu
The surprising upswing of the Korean economy mere months after descent into its most acute relapse ever engaged a great debate among scholars of Korea. One camp applauded the reform mandate engineered by the leaders of the IMF, while others argued that new regulation without any enforceability is a meaningless entity, one that devolves into mere formality. Ironically, the principal critic was Chief Economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz - the very leader of this call for change in the Asian financial sectors. Warning not to mistake the latest resurgence of growth in GDP as a measure of full recovery, he was decidedly skeptical about the longevity of Korea's sudden spike in performance and cautioned against the effectiveness of "half-way" measures that are short-term solutions, superficial in nature and deleterious when forecasting onto a longer time horizon.
Like Stigliz, I disagree with the notion that new laws, regulations, policies and other institutional changes guarantee effective reform. Corporations, banks, and government institutions - absent the credible threat of punitive retribution - will still engage in behavior that is identical to the kind that threatened Korea's livelihood before 1997, and still does to this very day. The purpose behind this paper is to assess the reform proposals and formal changes to the economic system that have arisen from the aftermath of the 1997 currency depreciation, and in the process hope to understand "informal" signals in the Korean economic sector that supercede law and policy, and drive the system of exchanges that affect economic shifts. By doing so, I endeavor to build a new conception of the Korean financial structure that more accurately pin-points key levers and mechanisms that have heretofore been overlooked by other scholars.
The scope of this paper will remain focused on the exchanges that occur between corporations and their major lending banks. These ties are important to focus on since banks, which had once been conduits for government industrial policy, can now act as fulcrums of reform. As the power of the Korean government to subsidize debt-burdened conglomerates has been limited by the various IMF reforms, a central question is whether banks can now assert themselves as a class with its own interests that can conflict with the government's support of inefficient or failing industries and foster market-oriented improvements. The ability to achieve this has many ramifications - credit can be allocated to more efficient industries, banks can issues warnings to delinquent creditors which in turn can result in stricter corporate governance, boosted profitability and efficiency of non-performing companies, and the long-awaited development of capital markets in Korea can finally blossom. Regardless, banks will play a critical role in the future of the Korean economy and reformers must pay special attention to the unique environment that banks now find themselves if they want to implement change that will be effective and long-lasting.
Danny Damron, Purdue University
Korean Democracy: A Case Study of the Freedom of Dissent
Ideally, a democratic society functions best when its citizens participate in the formulation and implementation of public policy. In terms of liberal democratic theory, the ability of citizens to participate in an informed way in that process, in turn, can dramatically influence the effectiveness of a democracy (Diamond, Linz et al. 1995, 6-7). In other words, liberal democracy (in the sense of being contingent on informed choice) functions best when citizens are free to speak, discuss, and debate (Sen 1999). This freedom must extend beyond the freedom to express opinions about the inconsequential and mundane aspects of public policy. It must include the freedom to voice disagreement with actions and opinions that are central to government and society (Dahl 1971, 4; Dahl 1998, 86-87; Cohen 1971, 141, 153). In the end, the extent to which citizens and groups of citizens can disagree with government behavior and policy determines, in part, the nature of democracy.
In light of the importance freedom of dissent plays in the development and maintenance of democracy, many scholars have argued that Korea's prospects for movement toward the liberal democratic ideal are somewhat bleak (Hahm 1997; King 1997; Steinberg 1991; Shin and Shyu 1997; Steinberg 1997; Kim 1998; Steinberg 1998). They point out that traditional authoritarian political values restrict freedom of dissent, especially in the area of government application of the National Security Law (NSL). In the years following the 1987 democratization, human rights organizations have more actively applied pressure on government to change the application of the NSL. While it is unclear whether that pressure has had a direct influence on the application of the NSL, it is clear that human rights organizations and other citizen groups have experienced increased freedom to voice concern about a formerly taboo topic like the NSL. This change may indicate further growth of freedom of dissent and by extension, consolidation of democracy.
This paper investigates the nature of the democratic voice of human rights organizations with regard to laws that restrict civil liberties and political freedoms. In addition, this paper looks at the ways in which human rights organizations specifically voice NSL application preferences and at the ways they negotiate meanings of the NSL that may have been different from the past. Finally, this paper concludes that while freedom to criticize government application of the NSL has improved, there are limits to that criticism and those limits restrict democratic consolidation.
Tae Yang Kwak, Harvard University
Belief and Betrayal: Koreagate and Korean-American Relations in the 1970s
From the inception of the Republic of Korea to the present day, America has had enormous influence in Korea with its political clout, military support, and great financial resources. Although the Korean-American relationship has always been unequal, Park Chung Hee, through agents such as Tongsun Park and Sun Myung Moon, recycled America's own resources in attempts to influence American public opinion. Through Korean-American partnership in the Vietnam War, Korea was making transitions from a client state to allied nation, but American policy-makers acted with little sensitivity to this process of transition. As Korea was increasingly coming to its own, the views and aims between Korean and American policy-makers became increasing incompatible. At a time when Korea had 50,000 of its own forces in Vietnam, and were at a heighten sense of concern over their own security and the commitment of the United States, Nixon unilaterally withdrew a division from the Korean peninsula which sparked a concerted influence campaign in the United States by the Park government. Despite a number of indications there were extra-legal Korean influence activities in the United States, Washington officials did nothing because of a permissive attitude toward the allied Koreans because of Korea's continuing role in Vietnam and Nixon's East Asia policy, which were precisely the predications for Park's influence campaign in the first place. Early action on the part of Washington officials would have diverted the years of bitterly strained Korean-American relations during the course of the Koreagate scandal investigations. Even during the investigations, when Washington officials were lamenting the betrayal by a "friendly ally," investigators tried unsuccessfully to subpoena, extricate, and conduct testimony under oath of such Korean officials such as former Ambassador Kim Dong Jo, in blatant disregard for Korean sovereignty.
As a result of the investigations, the distinction between the good of the country and the good of the Park administration became an increasingly important issue within the circles of power in Korea. Additionally, when KCIA operatives began returning to Korea and a number of KCIA officers began defecting during the investigations, KCIA moral and confidence in Park at home suffered a serious setback. Less than one year after the conclusion of the Fraser investigation on October 31, 1978, Park Chung Hee was assassinated by KCIA Director Kim Chae Kyu on October 26, 1979. Within a month Ambassador William Gleysteen sent off a hurried cable to Washington titled, "Charges of U.S. Complicity in President Park's Death." The American government and the Fraser subcommittee could not have known that the latitude they afforded the Park regime, both with respect to his actions in Korea and his influence activities in America, and the nature of subsequent investigation and criticism of Park contributed to the demoralization and loss of confidence in Park among key elements within the KCIA and eventually lead to his assassination.
Panel Four: PRE-MODERN KOREA
Moderator: Eugene Y. Park
Assistant Professor, University of California, Irvine
John M. Frankl, Harvard University
Images of "The Foreign" in Pre-Modern Korean Fiction
There is an undeniably large and intimate relationship between history and literature. Hayden White and others have investigated it in one direction, commenting on the interpretive possibilities of history as prose narrative. The approach need not be so unidirectional; narrative prose fiction, properly interrogated, will also reveal to us much about history. This paper will examine the relationship between literature and history in both directions. It will begin by examining historical records in order to expose the fallacious nature of the characterization of Korea as a "hermit nation." From there it will progress to works of prose fiction and explore the ways in which Korea's historical awareness of and interaction with "the foreign" were represented in literature.
The geneology of the term and idea of Korea as "hermit kingdom" is fascinating but ultimately fallacious. The first work to label Korea a hermit was written in 1882 by William Elliot Griffis and rather bluntly titled, Corea the Hermit Nation; incidentally and ironically, Griffis had never been to Korea and 1882 was the same year in which Korea signed a treaty of amity and commerce with the United States of America, its first treaty with a Western nation and its first official recognition of a new international order.
From this time on, however, writers have continued to project a very subjective late nineteenth century snapshot of Korea as hermit, both backward into history and forward into the future. The simple fact, however, is that the various kingdoms and people who existed on the Korean peninsula prior to the late-nineteenth century had a long history of intercourse with other nations. And, given such intercourse, it is only natural that these other nations would manifest themselves in Koreans' discourse.
The undifferentiated term, "the foreign," is deliberately employed in this paper to include such variegated literary themes as Korean protagonists journeying and settling beyond Korea's borders (Hong Kiltong-chôn), Korean protagonists journeying beyond Korea's borders but returning (Ho Saeng-chôn, etc.), and Korean protagonists' embarking upon "dream journeys" (mongnyu), in which the protagonists, often foreign themselves, live in or travel to foreign countries (Kuunmong, etc.), to name but a few. The unifying strand among all of these works is the clear awareness of and concern with a foreign other--be it place, person, or both--from some of the earliest examples of Korean prose fiction.
This paper will eventually comprise the first part of a larger study that will explore the representations of the "West" in general and "America" in particular as they appear in early twentieth century Korean fiction. In a very general sense, such representations might be viewed simply as another example of the continuity between the pre-modern and modern in Korean literature, as delineated by scholars such as Cho Tong-il. This study will argue, however, that such surface-level thematic continuity is greatly overshadowed by much deeper differences. And this is where it diverges with the work of Cho, and where history and literature truly converge. The absolute violence and totality of the changes engendered by Korea's encounter with the West in turn gave rise to radically different literary representations of "the foreign."
Lori A. Chu, University of Hawaii
Indian Influence on Korean Buddhism and Korean Kingship
For over a thousand years there was direct contact between Korean and Indian Buddhist monks. There was an interactive process between the participation of Korean monks in development of Mahayana doctrine and Korea's political relations shaped in part by earlier Indian political thought.
The transmission of Indian thought, co-incidental with Chinese mediation, influenced the development of Korean kingship at a crucial period of state development. Monks played a pivotal role as rulers combined their earlier role of Shaman king with that of Buddhist ruler. The particular emphasis on national protection as an attribute of Buddhism developed out of the Indian concept of kingship and particularly the Indian Buddhist concept of the Chakravartin King.
The concept of the Chakravartin king combined with the older concept of the Shaman king to establish the foundation of syncretization as a basic element of Korean religion that included elements of Indian thought, Buddhist doctrine, and shamanistic and Taoist practices. Use of the doctrine of Upaya permitted ahimsa, or non-killing, to be interpreted as condoning the concept of killing in defense of dhamma even to the extent of creating monk armies. Indian ideas of the Chakravartin king resulted in a Korean identification the king with Buddha himself. Each of the three kingdoms regarded itself as a potential Buddha land.
Coincidental with, and supportive of, the formation of the new states Korean monks made a significant contribution to development of Buddhist thought through sutra translation and writing of commentaries. Vedic and Confucian piety converged in the Ksitigarbha cult and expounded the merit to be gained by promoting Buddhism. It also syncretized Buddhist compassion with the indigenous belief in the Shamanistic trip to hell. Maitreya, originating in the Indian Mitra, played a prominent role in development of the Hwarang, or Flower Knights, of Korea. The Hwarang embracement of Maitreya worship utilized elements of Confucian and Buddhist thought while Wong'gwang's precepts show some reflection of the Bhagavad-gita. Hwarang precepts are also credited with promoting Buddhism as a means of national protection.
Consideration of Indian as well as Chinese influence provides a new perspective on doctrinal development. It also provides a somewhat different perspective on the importance of Buddhism as a means of national protection and contributed to the concept of Korean kingship as differing from that of Chinese kingship. Looking at Korean history from this perspective, the peninsula appears as an active participant in the religious and commercial activities of Asia rather than as a passive recipient of Central Asian and Indian cultural elements already modified in China.
Panel Five: COLONIAL IDEOLOGIES
Moderator: Vipan Chandra
Professor, Wheaton College
Chiho Sawada, Harvard University
On the Wings of Susanoo: A Trickster Deity, the Imperial Diet, and Debating the "Korea Problem" (1919)
On four occasions between March 12 and 24, 1919, members of the Lower House of Japan's Imperial Diet met to debate a petition submitted in response to the March First demonstrations in Korea. What did the petition contain? It called for somber rites at the Korea Shinto Shrine in Seoul, to propitiate Susanoo the trickster storm god and brother of Imperial Japan's titular deity, the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami. During these sessions, Representative Ito Tomoya of the Constitutional National Party chastised the Government-General of Korea for falling down on the job. Colonial officials, Ito declared, obviously had not tried hard enough to teach the Korean people essential history. According to Ito, back in the age of the gods Susanoo soared across the sea to propagate the seeds of Civilization on the Korean peninsula. Japan's annexation of Korea was, therefore, a natural return to the great civilizing project that Susanoo had begotten in the hoary past.
Was this the best the Imperial Diet could do in the face of the Korean peoples demands for dignity and national self-determination? Little wonder, one might say, that the Diet is rarely accorded much weight in studies of Japanese colonial policy and practice. In my presentation, I explain how there was much more at work than is apparent at first glance. Taking the Susanoo deliberations as a point of departure, I shall argue that a new generation of Korea hands had emerged in the House of Representatives. I argue, moreover, that these young legislators played a critical role in setting an agenda for colonial policy reforms that would culminate in the "cultural policy" (bunka seiji) of the 1920s.
Ellie Choi, Harvard University
Revisiting Yi Kwang-su's Minjok Kaejoron
In May 1922, Yi Kwangsu (1892-1955?) initiated a fierce debate on one of the most controversial issues in Korean history by publishing the "Minjok kaejoron (Treatise on the Reconstruction of the Nation, Kaebyok). The Kaejoron was instrumental in driving a wedge between nationalist who advocated a gradualist approach to autonomy through cultural programs and Marxist radicals who rallied for immediate overthrow of the Japanese capitalist oppressors through revolution. Critics regard the treatise as an early indicator of Yi's later collaborative activities, all the more unforgivable because Yi Kwangsu had been the promising young author of the 2.8 tongnip sonon (the February 8, 1919 Tokyo Student Declaration) and an active member of the Shanghai Provisional Government. Most focus on the Kaejoron's relevance to contemporary debate in colonial Korea and attempt to pinpoint seminal influences on Yi's kaejo ideas. On a macroscopic level, however, since the Kaejoron presupposes that ideas, not material conditions, inform reality, it challenges the very tenability of historical materialism as a means to interpret human progress. Articles debating the Kaejoron usually gloss over the influence of Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), the man Yi Kwangsu himself cites several times in his essay, despite the French thinker's obvious impact on Yi and contemporaries who studied abroad in Japan. It is only after the end of the Cold War and the subsequent demise of Communism that we have the hindsight to reevaluate the Minjok kaejoron and the influence of "conservative" thinkers like Le Bon, not only in relation to Korean history, but also within a larger global context of the postcolonial discourse of nations. Consideration of the problematics of Yi's vision for reconstruction necessitates a reevaluation of the relationship between modernization, national building, and colonization - and invites a reassessment of the issue of collaboration for the intellectually as well as the politically oppressed.
