자살

An ardent scholar of Korean Studies will very soon come upon this sad mystery: 자살 suicide; a sad mystery, for the precise social determinants have yet to be elucidated. (Jin-Won Kwon et al 2009). The epidemiology is well-appreciated.

While a fuller understanding is being searched for we must be solicitous for mental wellbeing throughout the Peninsula in all its contemporary aspirations, prosperity, and social change.

In the third and fourth stanzas of the 애구가 I think the sentiments expressed have a diagonal address for this sad mystery, not in a sentimental way, but emboldening

가을 하늘 공할한데 높고 구릉없이
밝은 달 우러가슴 일편단심일세

이 기상과 이 맘으로 충성을 다하여
괴로우나 즐거우나 나라 사렁하세

Grateful Acknowledgement

Jin-Won Kwon et al 2009

Kakao Corporation

Kbear.com

United Kingdom Health Education Authority of 1997

통찰력이눈

통찰력아는 Discerning 

Since the Feast of Saint Bruno 

The Oak are gilded with highlights 

The Ash foliage fallen 

With a mysterious grey-green hue 

The Corvids span the

Sky at dusk in plainsong 

토지

Saints Michael Gabriel and Raphael Archangels

The lections for this Feast today open with Dominus regnavit! Exsultet terra, lætentur insulæ multæ (LH IV:1242)

This rich Psalm (96 (97)1) strikes me as an admirable pæan for the Korean Peninsula and its Islands. The imagery of rock formations about Jeju, and their volcanic origin fill the polyphony of this praise.

쌀

쌀

Rice in Korea is hallowed. I listened to a Rice Farmer attired in a rich fabric neck scarf with floral motifs. He wore the traditional Rice Farmer's smock dyed a deep indigo-ultramarine. To shade him from the manual toil beneath sun in a clear sky he had a traditional white woven hat which had served many harvests. The hat was woven in white natural fibre. Its workmanship was exquisite. Despite its many years of shading, the farmer had cared for it with respect. Respect and workmanship bequeathed a magical beauty to both farmer and sun shade.

The Rice Farmer in his eighth decade spoke with magical enthusiasm. He shut his eyes frequently as he recounted fortunes of past harvests. His face and hands bore the blemish of working in sun and in all weathers.

Behind the Rice Farmer the rice in a midday breeze swayed and flexed pregnant with its prolific crop ready to be cut and gathered by hand. Green and emerging gold kernels contrasted with the Rice Farmer's rich peony neck scarf, and emphasised his robust health.

Community Rice Festivals in Korea celebrate such mystery of the human hand in agriculture, making me yearn for intimation of this magic.

The Rice Farmer preached the perfect homily of Ecological Education and Spirituality mentioned by HH Pope Francis in his Encyclical Laudato sì.

And the place of Rice in Korean Nutrition in all probability explains why, despite the Nation's seventeen-fold increase in GDP in four decades, the total dietary fat intake is a thirtieth of the possible intake predicted by the pattern exhibited in Asia (Soowon,K et al 2000).

Rice is justly celebrated in Korean Music and Dance, a certain conduit of Ecological Education and Spirituality.

사람

Persona

고요함

  Stillness

가을 Autumn

Festival D'Automne

In the Le Monde supplement for the fesival September 9 to December 31, there is a generous account of Professor Unsuk Chin 진은숙 and the anticipation of her Silence des sirènes. Marie-Aude Roux relates how the professor ages her compositions with a five year maturation, just as the master 먹 maker, ages his ink sticks for five years.

I think there is a parallel between Professor 진은숙 Unsuk Chin's music and the calligraphy of Master Ho Deuk Kim 감호득

Dancing Grandmothers

Is the title of a choreography by 안은미 Eun-me Ahn to be performed this autumn in Paris. Grandmothers, younger adults, and adolescents perform this dance, in an unexpected exchange of generations for Korean Scociety.

가을

Autumn. M Philippe Mesmer, and Mme Rosita Boisseau sketch that spirit of the peninsula which must have part in the artistic narrations of these artists. Mystery, societies of dance, agrarian ritual, nature, shamanism, ritual song defy strict composition in any art form.

Autumn has powerful impress on the Korean artistic psyche.

뽕너모 Mulberry

Things Korean

The late Tea Master of a metropolitan museum invited a volunteer to join the tea ceremony. None of the South East Asian visitors could be persuaded, and so I joined the Tea Master for the first tea ceremony. The impact of the ceremony impressed itself on me long after the event, and lastingly so. The Tea Master had shared with me his intimate wisdom of Korean Teaware. This was twenty years ago.

I frequently studied the collection of Korean exhibits in the Samsung Gallery, the Korea Foundation Gallery: Royal Gold of the Three Kingdoms Period, Funerary Stoneware, Celadon Tea Bowls, Koryŏ Dynasty Amitābha Sutra, Lacquer Sutra Box, Chosŏn Dynasty Guardian King Paintings, Punch'ŏng Bowl, Folding 'Ch'aekkŏri Screen, Korean Art layout of a printed page.

The Michaud photo-essays on Korea were classic.

Korean Calligraphy has always held me in awe.

The Three Friends of Confucian Scholars: pine, prunus, and bamboo.

The Four Gentlemen: bamboo, orchid, plum blossom, chrysanthemum.

An ink painting The Pilgrim returning in the rain, by Kyomja Chong 1752.. as time passes the poet is deep in a scroll of verses. The murmuring of the rain heralds the apricot blossom..

For all this, it had not occurred to me to study Korean.

A Prompt to Study Korean

Recently I added a subscription to a Sino-Korean photo-essay on Male Photography. Some of the compositions were clearly influenced by Confucian-Tao sensibilities. To evaluate the legend I needed to master Korean.

Contiguous material on Korean Culture, likewise required fluency in Korean, since translations were fluid.

Many texts by Korean Women are self-translated. Their bilingual publications are available for closer study, and appreciation. Korean Men have self-translated their texts too, but, for the moment, Women display an acute literary mastery. An independent reader must be fluent in Korean.

The Magic of 한골

Korean Script 한골 offers a feast for calligraphic invention, and personal expression. A legacy of mediæval King Jejong the Great, immortalised by the exiled Confucian Scholar Kim Jeong Hui (1786-1856), and electrified by such practitioners as Byoung Chul Park, not to mention the arresting geological topography of the sea-bound peninsula which inspires with its dark volcanic remnant about the coastline.

Digital Media

Of all South East Asian Languages, Korean must be one of the most richly provided for in digital resources.

Musicology

Traditional Korean Music, with its instruments has a rich patrimony.

UNESCO

So much in Korea has yet to be appreciated more fully. The peninsula is among the most dense in UNESCO Heritage provision.

But why Mulberry?

뽕나모 Not simply in the wonder of 한지 Hanji Mulberry Paper for Calligraphy, and for so many other uses, the mysterious ink dark vinous hue of this fruit is a symbol of Desire. Watching a Master Hanji maker will impress this fact; Hanji paper that waits for the creation of another Master, the 먹 Meok maker of pine soot ink, seasoned for five years, to give its fluid and scented magic to receptive Hanji paper, in the enthusiasm Master Ho Deuk KIM demostrates in his Korean Ink Art. 한지 Hanji Paper and 먹 Meok Ink constitute a mysterious all-sufficient companionship, which, like Korean, has boundless possibilities.

A Journey of Study

This treasure chest impels my study of Korean.