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Thousand-year border

Today, I want to return to an earlier theme that I like to write about - that of the stability of Korean history. The stability argument runs counter to the general perception of Korean history among the average Korean citizen these days. Of course, the 20th century was not very happy for Korea, with the Japanese takeover, division, war and unresolved division, but if one looks beyond the 20th century - both forward to the 21st century, and back into the 19th century and earlier, leaving the 20th century, the hallmark of Korean history and culture is stability.

2019-03-17 17:41

'Show me the money'

One of the primary cultural symbols of any country are the figures they put on their money. In most cases these figures are historic people. The United States has a law that only deceased people can appear on the money; by contrast a living Queen Elizabeth is on the currency of many countries in the commonwealth (like the Bahamas, where several years ago I visited and was surprised to see the Queen staring back at me when I looked at the new money in my hands).

2019-03-12 11:40

Traditional ancestor ceremonies

I've been writing about the 1688 inheritance document that was one of the first to espouse the disinheritance of daughters. I've written on that aspect of the document the last two weeks. There is more. The document said that daughters would only receive a one-third share of property (compared to the sons), and it also said that daughters would no longer be able to participate in the rotation of hosting the ancestor ceremonies.

2019-02-21 17:01

More on 1688 document

Recently I wrote about the 1688 inheritance document of the Buan Kim family that marked the beginning of the end for female inheritance rights and property ownership rights. In the document the family says “Our family is different from other families.” The document was written mostly in Chinese with some sections in “idu” - the modified Chinese character format that captured Korean grammatical particles with Chinese characters.

2019-02-12 17:39

'Our family is different from other families'

Some years ago, in my study of Korean history and culture, I came upon a document that was revealing on many levels. It was a 1688 will or inheritance document of the Buan Kim family. In the preamble to the document it states they are going to change their procedure of giving property to the next generation.

2019-01-21 17:16

Confucianization in family trees

Korea has known Confucianism for over 1,500 years. But Confucianism in Korea was not always the same kind of Confucianism. Social practices changed over time: initially Confucianism was adopted and adapted to fit Korean society of the Silla period (beginning roughly in the 4th century), but later, Confucianism conformed to the texts on ritual and social behavior and transformed into a totally orthodox - or as one of my readers likes to say - “fundamentalist” style of Confucianism.

2019-01-15 17:25

Changes in Jokbo

Jokbo is the Korean word for the published genealogical tables. The term is well-known in Korea, and for good reason. Korea probably has the greatest concentration of genealogical publications of any country on Earth. In other words, more Koreans are recorded in genealogical books than any other people in any other country on Earth. Koreans publish a lot of jokbo.

2019-01-06 18:03

Korean textbook improvements

Last week I wrote about some of the work I've done over the last 24 years to try to improve American textbooks - specifically, on how they cover Korea. I think I will spend the next 24 years trying to improve Korean textbooks on how they cover - not America - but Korea.

Do Je-hae2018-12-31 17:54

Textbook checkers

I returned recently from Korea where I attended a conference sponsored by the Academy of Korean Studies. The purpose of the conference was to celebrate the 15th year of the “understanding Korea project” - the title of the program aimed at correcting mistakes in foreign textbooks in their coverage of Korea.

2018-12-26 17:12

Sijo conferences

In the last month I've been invited to two, count them! two!, conferences on sijo. The first was in Korea, in the tiny town of Cheongdo, south of Daegu, where a prominent sijo poet and even-more prominent artist, Min Byoung-do, has a studio. He put together an international conference on sijo. And two weeks after that, I spoke at a conference on teaching sijo for secondary school teachers held in Chicago sponsored by the Sejong Cultural Society, based in Chicago.

2018-12-17 17:14

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