Korea
We have landed at Incheon, taken a bus onto the ring road that skirts Seoul’s southern precincts, through rush hour traffic glimpsed the capital’s urban agglomeration and then abruptly exited onto Highway 1, the Gyeongbu Expressway. In the gathering dusk we head southward toward Cheongju, at the heart of Chungcheongnam Province, well known for its vineyards, its ginseng fields and hot springs, its beaches and shrines [quotations in italic bold adapted from the Insight Guide; bold quotations, from the Lonely Planet Guide; italics within quotation marks taken from the Korea National Tourism Organization Travel Guide].
MM: Here we are, first thing in the morning, with three lovely members of the Cheongju branch of the KNTO. Please, if you will, tell me your names.
Ms. Woo: [Rises to stand before seated author] My name is Woo.
MM: And your name?
Ms. Sim: [Rises to take her station too] Sim.
MM: I understand that your colleague, who just stepped out for a moment, speaks Chinese. Tell me, what do you do when Japanese tourists arrive?
Ms. Woo: I speak a little Japanese.
MM: Ms. Woo, I’m sure that you speak more than “a little” Japanese. Ms. Sim, you speak wonderful English. Have you studied this language in school?
Ms. Sim: Yes, and on TV. We have veered west and southwest on Highway 21 into the lush terraced valleys and rolling hills of the province.
MM: You should both relax now and have a seat, for we are going to talk about what is fun to do in Cheongju. We have not, however, stopped at The Independence Hall of Korea.
Ms. Woo and Ms. Sim: [Silence.] With its “gargantuan statues” and “full-scale museum” and its “plaza that can hold 100,000 people.”
MM: Surely you can think of something that’s fun. Nor have we visited Dragon Rooster Mountain. At my hotel, on TV, I have noticed that in Korea you have break dancing, rap stars and daily highlights of the previous night’s NBA games. Yesterday evening I watched a documentary about Bon Jovi. Ms. Woo, what kind of music do you like?
Ms. Woo: I like the classic. Nor have we paused to pay our respects at The Hyeonchung-sa Shrine, “dedicated to Admiral Yi Sun-sin, Korea’s great 16th-century naval hero.”
MM: What kind of “classic”? Do you mean, perhaps, classical Korean music?
Ms. Woo: No, I like the western opera!
MM: Italian opera? Nor have we paid a visit to The Onyang Folk Museum in Gongokni, with its “best collection” of Korean folk art “in the world.”
Ms. Woo: Yes. Nor have we paused to enjoy Onyang’s hot springs.
MM: Italian opera! “Which feed their soothing mineral waters.” How romantic! “To several hotels and baths in the area.”
Ms. Woo: Thank you. If you have not experienced a Korean public bath.
MM: Ms. Sim, what do you like? Then take your time and immerse yourself slowly in its almost unbearably hot tub.
Ms. Sim: I prefer the popular song. Afterwards you may hop into its invigorating cold tub.
MM: Do you like Korean or Japanese or western songs? After you have done this a few times, you’ll be ready for anything.
Ms. Sim: I prefer the American! Primed by a stimulating hot bath.
MM: Like Bon Jovi? Cheongju. (By now he is probably too old.) Steeped in the gentle scent of scholarly culture (“Chungcheongkuk-do Tourism”). Which singers do you like?
Ms. Sim: I like . . . I like . . . [In Korean Ms. Sim confers with Ms. Woo before responding.] I like Backstreet Boys. Is home to the “jikji,” the first moveable metal type.
MM: And what about Westlife? Nor have we headed westward to the coast.
Ms. Sim: Oh, good! To Mallipo beach.
Ms. Woo: I love too! Or to Korea’s largest arboretum.
MM: You know, one trouble with these boy bands is that they quickly grow up. I read in the paper recently that a member of Westlife, for example, has left the band: he said he wanted to spend more time with his wife and children. Where the whole maple family is represented. Tell me, Ms. Sim, are you married? With its more than 800 members.
Ms. Sim: [Laughter.] No. And 400 hollies, many of which have been hybridized.
MM: Ms. Sim, you are very beautiful. Korea’s convoluted west coast.
Ms. Woo: She has a boyfriend. Cut by the shallow waters of the Yellow Sea.
MM: I am not surprised. Is dotted with myriad peninsulas.And you, Ms. Woo?
Ms. Woo: I am not so beautiful. And small islands.But I have one daughter.
MM: You are both very beautiful. Bordered by sandy beaches. But tell me, when you have a day off from your jobs here, what do you do for fun? Where do you go?
Ms. Woo and Ms. Sim:[Silence.] And overlooking the quiet pine glens.
MM: Do you, for example, go see a movie? (Here in Cheongju, next to the department store, I notice a big theater complex called “Cine Ville.”) Along this coast.
Ms. Woo:Yes, last weekend I saw “Korea Flag.” In certain areas at low tide.
MM: This must be a Korean film. Tell me, what is it about? Offshore the Yellow Sea exposes great mud flats half a dozen meters beneath the high tide’s surface.
Ms. Woo: It is about the Korean War. And is second in tidal extremes only to Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy.It is about the fighting of our country against North Korea.
MM:Yes, I am sure that it must be a very serious work about a tragic period of your history. Tell me, do you yourselves recall the Korean War?
Ms. Sim: [Laughter.] No, we are too young! We have passed up “Early Printing Museum.”
MM: Have you ever seen M*A*S*H, the American movie?
Ms. Woo: No. [Laughter.] We have never seen this movie. For happy Cheongju itself.
MM: But to be more serious, for a moment: tell me about your clients, the Chinese and the Japanese and the western tourists, for they must inquire about traditional Korean culture, since it is unlikely that most who come to your office are devoted to M*A*S*H or to Westlife. Where do you recommend they go? What is important that we know about Korea? We have passed by Taean Haean National Park, which for some 70 km extends north-south along the Chungcheongnam coast, its waters punctuated by a string of popular beaches.
Ms. Woo and Ms. Sim: [Long silence.] Such as Mallipo and Cheollipo.
MM: If I may ask, Are you Buddhist in belief? Here one finds a variety of marine life.
Ms. Woo: No, I am nothing. And controlled fishing is permitted.
Ms. Sim: Me too. The area is renowned for its seafood.
MM: So neither of you is religious. Here is a much more difficult question, which either of you may answer, if you like: The 200-acre Cheollipo sanctuary.What is the relation between present-day Korea and ancient Korea? Serves to protect 7000 varieties of plants.
Ms. Woo: Korean family is very important. The Cheollipo Arboretum. Is father and mother, and son and daughter, and cousins. Is in fact nurtured and owned by Ferris Miller.
MM: Yes, in Korea your philosophy of the family is based upon the teachings of Confucius. A naturalized Korean, originally from Pennsylvania.
Ms. Woo: But American family: Is just father and mother and son and daughter. Who has lived here for over four decades. You call it “nuclear family.”
MM:Or “single mother”! Some of the plants in Miller’s arboretum are indigenous.
Ms. Woo:[Laughter.] Yes. Whereas others were imported from around the world.
MM: Ms. Sim, two questions: How old are you, and do you still live with your parents?
Ms. Sim: I am 26, and, yes, I still live with my parents.
MM: And you, Ms. Woo, you must instead by now be living with your husband and your daughter, but where are your mother and father?
Ms. Woo: I have left my mother and father behind in Gyeongju and have taken a job here.
Ms. Sim: If I get married, I too will live with my husband.
MM: This seems to me a good idea: to live with your husband, when you get married.
Ms. Sim and Ms. Woo: [Laughter.]
MM: Now which, Ms. Sim, will you choose for your husband, a Korean or a foreigner? Veteran westerners have long favored Daecheon Beach as a seaside resort.
Ms. Sim: [Silence.] For this attractive stretch of sand.
MM: Have you any friends who have married foreigners (from Japan, say, or America)? Can easily be reached from Seoul by bus, train or car.
Ms. Sim and Ms. Woo: [Confer in Korean.] As you near Daecheon town, fields of yellow barley—the staple added to rice or boiled into a drink—cut bright yellow swaths across the summer terraces filled with the waving stalks of rice.
Ms. Sim: I am going to marry a good friend in elementary school.
MM:So young!
Ms. Sim: [Laughter.] No, he and I are same age. Daecheon is in the middle of a lush agricultural area.
MM: Well this is wonderful, to marry an old friend! But it is also known in Korea for its coalmines, situated in the surrounding hills. And where is your friend now?
Ms. Sim: He is in Chojeong. Contributing the base fuel.
MM: And where is Chojeong? From which yondan. Please show me on the map. Or charcoal heating briquettes, are made.
Ms. Sim: Here. Actually Daecheon Beach has unofficially been divided into two sections:
MM: I see, his town is only a few kilometers away. A northern section, called “KB”’ or Korean Beach. When he comes to see you, does he take you to a movie?
Ms. Sim: Yes, of course! And a southern stretch, called “Foreigner’s Beach.”
MM: Now what else must I understand about Korea? I want to know what is most important, for my time is so short. Originally it was a resort for Christian missionaries.
Ms. Sim and Ms. Woo: [Silence.] Missionaries still occupy many Daecheon homes.
MM:Well, then, what about politics? Or their descendents. To speak of a much more serious “nuclear” problem, do you think that North and South Korea can be friends again?
Ms. Woo: Is very difficult question.
MM: Yes. Or they are occupied by.
Ms. Woo:We are the one. Members of Seoul’s banking and diplomatic corps.
MM: You are telling me, if I understand correctly, that the two Koreas are unified by culture.
Ms. Woo: Yes. Or by a more nouveau group of wealthy Korean businessmen. We are equal blood. And government leaders.We think important blood.
MM: Do you feel that China and Japan, Russia and America can help North and South Korea solve this current problem, so that we do not end up having another war? Korean Beach, where discos and wine houses co-exist with sleepy fishermen’s huts.
Ms. Sim: [Laughter.] This very difficult question. Is a non-stop boogie scene.
MM: Politics, Ms. Sim, is of no great interest to you, is it? During the peak summer season. Nor traditional culture either.
Ms. Sim: [Laughter.] You are right.
MM: Tell me, what is important in life? While attractive Foreigners’ Beach.
Ms. Woo: For me . . . family: my daughter’s health and her education.
Ms. Sim: For me . . . relationships.
MM: Yes, I agree. Family and relationships are important. Maintains a residential dignity. And thank you so much for your help with planning my trip!
Yesterday the National Police Agency took action against organizers of candlelight vigils. Coiled beneath a hedge: Protesting the National Assembly’s impeachment of President Roh. A purple watering hose. “The organizers maintain that the protest was a cultural event.” Yuseong. “But the songs sung and slogans shouted suggested it was not.” “Bang Bang,” reads a shop’s sign. Said NPA spokesman. A traditional stone bungalow. Han Jin-hee. Its roof tiled in sea green. “Accordingly,” he added:
On the bus at 10:19 am. “From now on we will crack down on similar rallies.” Thoreau was one of the Transcendentalists, that body of quasi-mystical progressive thinkers who in the 1830s began another revolution in Concord, in American social and religious thought. The smell of liquor wafting through the air. “And will bring criminal charges.” He became a courageous opponent of federal government policies, such as the expansionist war against Mexico and the refusal of Congress to legislate against slavery.
A container truck. Also yesterday at the Korea Air Force Academy. “UNIGLORY” stenciled on its orange sides. Prime Minister Goh. Late model autos: Was honored with a salute. Contra. By 200 cadets. Carnival. The wording of the command. And trucks: That prefaced their gesture. Rhino. Drew keen attention. Granbird. Because this was the first official event that the Prime Minister has attended. A blue-tiled roof in the distance seen over a field. Since he became acting president last week. Trimmed in carmine.
The Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Home Affairs and Air Force Academy. Three half-cylindrical sheds, sheathed in plastic. Conducted a heated discussion. For the cultivation of hydroponic vegetables. Regarding the title “honor.” A green wheelbarrow. Used to address the interim leader. Trimmed in carmine. The solution they finally agreed upon was to replace the title “President.” “JESUS LOVES YOU.” With the title “Acting President,” while omitting the honorific “Sir.” In yellow on a blue background.
The salute to Goh ran: “Driving Emotion.” “To the Acting President.” An all red truck. “Present arms!” His essay, “Civil Disobedience” (1849) was to become an inspiration to twentieth- and twentieth-first century non-violent protesters. An Optima. From British Fabian Socialists. A Sonata. To Mahatma Gandhi. An Eclipse. And Martin Luther King, Jr. An Insight. Dismayed at the rapid commercialization of life, Thoreau preferred to subsist on odd jobs, helping out in the family pencil factory and working as a surveyor.
∞
“The universe is both chaotic and homogeneous, expansive and stationary.” In black jacket and white gloves a workman steadies a silver ladder. “The cosmos grows.” Diagonally cutting across a glass door. “Fluctuates.” Onto whose surface red letters have been affixed. “And eternally reproduces itself in all possible forms.” Behind him, at the curb, a yellow crane rises from the bed of a blue truck. “As if adjusting itself.” In black sweater and blue jeans, black, white-striped running shoes. “To all possible types of life.” A teenage girl steps to the silver counter to place her order. (Andre Linde.) Behind the counter a teenage boy in a red cap with a blue bill responds. (“The Self-Reproducing, Inflationary Universe.”) Behind them both, on the other side of the window, a red light turns to green. (In Understanding Cosmology.) A girl wearing a purple parka strides across the white, zebra-striped black asphalt toward “Pizza Hut.” (From the editors of Scientific American.) Whose white letters are outlined in black. (Warner Books.) Underlined with a yellow dash. (New York.) The “i” of the “Pizza.” (2002.) Has been “dotted” with a green acute accent.
∞
As you scale the stone steps of the Banya hillside to Gwanchok-sa. To bring about the rapid expansion. All the superlative descriptions you’ve ever heard regarding the 1,000-year-old Unjin Miruk. Inflationary theory adds. (The largest stone Buddha in Korea.) A new element to cosmology. Stir you with anticipation (Insight Guide). Drawn from particle physics: Your curiosity is piqued, when. The “inflaton” field. At the top of the flight of stairs. In modern physics. You first glimpse the monolith. The elementary particle, such as the proton or electron. Through a clear horizontal window of the temple. Is represented by a quantum field. Its face all you can see. Which resembles the familiar electric, magnetic and gravitational fields. Of this “Buddha of the Future.” The inflaton field imparts an ‘antigravity’ that stretches space. “Its eyes peer back at you through the holy sanctum.” (Martin A. Bucher.) “In its awesome totality.” (And David N. Spergel.) “Its disproportionate massiveness.” (“Inflation in a Low-Density Universe.”) “Its crown, oversized hands and extended earlobes.” (In Understanding Cosmology.) “The Gwanseum Maitreya represents a more highly evolved spirituality.”
∞
But what happened before inflation? Korea has such a large population of azaleas that it is quite often impossible to cross forest clearings without trampling them. How did the universe actually begin? You will also see wild weigela, spiraea, viburnums, hydrangeas, boxwood, Daphne and a host of other plants (Insight Guide).
∞
The universe appears to have emerged from a singularity, a region of infinite curvature and energy density at which the known laws of physics break down. Korean roadsides in the autumn are iced. And may be superceded by some bigger, better, more powerful theory. With a beautiful floral froth of lavender, pink, white and deep red cosmos. What is this theory? They sway in the wind, these blossoms of the cosmos. A consideration of scale yields a clue. I count 26: Near a singularity, space-time becomes highly curved. Nine have white petals and golden aureoles. Its volume shrinks to very small dimensions. Behind them, six, in pink. Under such circumstances. (Three beside another three.) One must appeal to the theory of the very small. Their heads bobbing harmonically.
∞
Oddly enough, the azalea, which covers every hillside and fills every untilled field, is not the national flower. The long cosmos stems are deeply rooted and will not yield. That official honor was bestowed instead upon the Rose of Sharon. Out of the near ground expands a field reaching toward, and beyond, the horizon. Known in Korean as the mugunghwa. Sunlight pours down upon it. Symbolizing the people’s resilient spirit.
∞
Two red blooms stand between the nine in the near ground and their six more distant cousins. “According to the picture afforded by quantum cosmology.” Two more reds recede from the six pink blossoms. “The universe appeared from a quantum fuzz.” In the distance, full-moon-like. “It tunneled into existence.” Blooms a white cosmos. “And then evolved classically.” Alongside another, now a faintly brilliant red. “The most compelling aspect of the picture is this:” Beyond: colorful galaxies of efflorescence. “The assumptions required of an inflationary universe scenario.” Expanding into the multiverse of all nature. “May be compressed into a single simple boundary condition.” The cosmic dimension. (Jonathan J. Halliwell.) Five green poplars sway before a lake. (“Quantum Cosmology and the Creation of the Universe.”) Framed by the notch between two breast-like foothills. “For the wave function of the universe.” Shadowy mountains beyond.
∞
Kwangju arrival/arrival of spring, late morning goldfish pool observation, municipal plaza. The art of paper making in ancient Korea. The water is in motion. Developed to such a high level. Swirling about with golden, white and brindled carp. That Korean paper was considered superior to Japanese as well as to Chinese paper.
A small orange fish with white markings ventures toward author, seated on the marble rim of the pool. Like Buddhism, the art spread from China to Korea and from there leapt to Japan. Two boys in blue jackets lean over the edge to fish the pool’s surface with white plastic cups. In Korea the principal ingredients were water and wood pulp.
To the southeast, from elsewhere in Korea, were brought the ttang tree’s trunk and branches. On the opposite side of the pool have arrived. Mulberry stems. Two middle-aged men in black shiny loafers and black leather jackets. And bamboo stalks. In desultory fashion, liquor on their breath, they comment upon the fish beneath their gaze.
The products of the art included: A longer dominant yellow fish, a smaller fish with black markings. Wrapping paper. A schoolgirl, in official uniform (brown jacket and rust-colored skirt) opens her cell phone and talks to a friend for a moment. Paper for brush painting. Then turns and, using her phone as a camera, takes author’s picture.
At the corner of the pool decorous topiary shrubs partly conceal the statue of a man and a much smaller woman. Paper of 1000 years. Four military police stride past in lock step wearing freshly laundered camouflage. Paper for calligraphy. A white, an orange and a golden fish swerve toward author, then swerve away. Paper for ondal floors.
A little girl in bright red hooded parka, its arms striped in white-bordered black, takes a seat on the pool’s rim. On her back in pale blue is a Mickey Mouse school bag. Her brother, in goldfish orange jacket and gold-rimmed glasses, takes a seat next to her, nestling his black schoolbag in his lap. He turns his back on his sister to peer into the pond.
Author closes notebook. Bamboo paper. “The Meaning of Life Collections,” read the letters embossed on its golden cover. Algae paper. “Let it be,” read other letters in silver. Bark chip paper. “Good life, good feeling, good communication.” Recycled paper. “Enjoy your youthful days.” Preparing to depart, he puts away his pen.
Sunday stroll. “Around 32 AD.” Through streets of Chungjangno. “Hecataeus, a Greek historian, traveled to Alexandria.” The city’s lively shopping district. “Capital of the Ptolemaic kingdom.” Filled this afternoon with promenading teenies. “To codify at the behest of Ptolemy I an historical past for the newly founded Egyptian state.” Its shops denominated in English: “So as to create a Hellenistic-Egyptian pharaohship.”
World Language Institute. “The resulting four-volume work.” “Your English Paradise!!” “Was also designed.” A globe has been turned to its western hemisphere. “To edify and instruct Ptolemy I.” North and South America represented in silver. “By providing him with a model.” Australia has been squeezed into the picture. “Of enlightened monarchy.” Spelled out in a grey red on a milky blue banner: “WORLD.”
SK Telekom. “In line with the ecumenical spirit of Hellenism.” Inside, someone is seated before a computer. “Hecataeus set about dismantling cultural boundaries.” Next to her sits a fax machine. “Which had emerged in Egypt.” Perched atop a hard drive. “As response to the Assyrian.” Across the street, in small caps: Fashion. In large caps: Time Zone (II). “And Persian empires.” Bags, Beauty, Under Wear.
“The gist of his argument was:” Saera Since 1978. “That the world’s cultures are interrelated.” (A store for women’s shoes.) “And that Egypt was the source of them all.” Across the alley: Time-Hof. “For it was from Egypt.” (A coffee shop.) “That colonizers had set out to the ends of the earth.” Chinese Restaurant. “Greece itself owed its origins to Egyptian immigrants.” Its freestanding gold characters above a brown ground.
“Ptolemy I.” Uno & Uno. “Was doubtless delighted with this historical construct.” (A shop for leather goods, its tiled floor being mopped by a 30-year-old woman in red shirt, cream sweater and green Levis.) “After all, it was nothing.” Across the street: “But the proclamation of the cultural supremacy of his territory.” A Pharmacy. “Over all other areas of the Hellenistic world.” Its products labeled half in Korean, half in English.
“And it provided him with the legitimization that comes from a return to origins.” Its principal sign spelled out in Hangeul. “But above all.” Board.Game Café, reads a sign high overhead. “Hecataeus made an invaluable contribution to cultural continuity.” PlayStation, the advertisement continues. “He urged the Ptolemies to see themselves as inheritors of this most ancient culture.” (Jan Assmann, The Mind of Egypt.)
Busan calendar, yeogwan wall: Confucianism. Sun Day. Buddhism. Moon Day. The art of war. Fire Day. A written language. Water Day. Bureaucratic organization. Wood Day. Painting, sculpture and architecture. Gold Day. And various social practices. Earth Day. Were all introduced from China during the Three Kingdoms period (Lonely Planet).
On the main avenue of Busan. Under the unified Silla rule. A handsome emporium. Buddhism flourished. Stocked with the fabrics required to produce hanbok. As rulers lavished funds on temples and images. (Plus many beautiful examples of the traditional garments themselves.) And dispatched monks to China and India to study the religion.
After most of the stores along the busy boulevard have already closed their doors. The epitome of Silla Buddhist art can still be seen. This elegant store remains open. In the Seokkuram grotto, for example, near the former capital of Gyeongju. Its interior ablaze with color. Which was begun, along with the nearby temple of Bulguk-sa, in 751.
Above, in a window lit by modern inset ceiling lamps. Silla maintained a tributary relationship with the T’ang, thereby preventing Chinese domination. Against the wooden background of an ancient Korean house. The T’ang administrative system became the model. Whose windows imitate the use of translucent paper. For the Silla’s state structure.
Five outfits: By the late 8th century. An embroidered chogori (blouse) in white. The growth of the royal clan. And a chima (skirt) in watery magenta. Led to intense internal rivalries. An all-white hanbok embroidered with floral designs. As the aristocracy came under attack from the lower echelons, who felt they were being excluded from power.
The shoulders of the second garment have been covered with plaquettes. Large landowners refused to pay taxes. Shaped like silken, embroidered armor. Some farmers turned to banditry for survival. Its skirt has been layered with several diagonal folds of fabric. While wealthy merchants added a further disaffected element to the opposition.
At 7:00 pm the street is cold and already dark. Under the strain of these conflicts, the Silla government grew weaker and weaker. Author has placed his notebook atop the granite ledge of the subway entrance. Major revolts broke out as early as 768. Busan’s rush hour traffic has finally abated. In 780 the king, Hyegong, was assassinated.
Three remaining headless models. From this chaos. Are all adorned with chima. Rebel chieftains rose up and struggled for position. The color of venous blood. Until the appearance of Wang Kon. Their chogori in cream (with a black bow); emerald (with an eight-sided piece of embroidery); white (with a shawl in maroon, lemon and green).
Busan National Ferry Terminal, 12:01 pm, March 23, author seated beneath enormous electronic board displaying: “Vessel Name” (in orange), “Departure Time” (in red). Ever since human residency began here in the Neolithic era, Busan has been a center for logistics. “Destination” (in orange), “Arrival Time” (in red). The Port was opened in 1407, and the International Harbor was established in 1876 (Busan Guide). “Remarks” (in green). First-floor view of the sea blocked by surveillance apparatus, locked door.
Author to fourth-floor observation deck for a broader view. A stronghold of global exchange. The near shore is edged with high-rise apartments. An oceanic city. Before which barges have tied up. And a cultural destination. Their hulls black, their water lines red. Located at the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. A skiff with a crane on board makes its way out from the dock into the larger expanse. It is 428 kilometers from Seoul. A Coast Guard boat in grey hull and white superstructure glides in for landfall.
The day is misty and cool. Two hours by plane from Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo. The sun has just begun to cast shadows. Busan’s yearly mean temperature is 15 degrees centigrade. Under author’s immediate purview a dark green plastic canopied staircase leads from the terminal to the water’s edge for New Arcadia, Gold Coast, Perestroika departures and arrivals. The city is blessed by nature. For boarding the Royal Ferry and the Seolbong. And by its harmonious relationships with sea, river and mountain.
The actual “Seolbong” has tied up beside our dock. “Harbor Logistics Industry.” Which is piled randomly with small containers in orange, in yellow, in blue. Busan is the central harbor. Above the far shore rises a grey mountain. That connects Northeast Asia with Europe and North America. Culminating in two peaks, surmounted by signal towers. It is the third largest Asian harbor after Hong Kong and Singapore. Two gulls fly out over the water’s surface, followed quickly by a dark, more hesitant pigeon.
All three veer and return to shore, as a tug, lying low in the water, heads towards us, its wake a gauzy white froth upon the smooth grey-green surface of the bay. The sun has grown slightly warmer again, though a breeze has also picked up pace, causing author’s notebook page to lift itself, flap against his writing hand and fall back once more into place. The largest ferries moored in the harbor have been painted white, their smokestacks blue, their names and ports of origin lettered in black. A solitary gull squawks.
If you’ve ever taught English at a private institute, you probably know some fifteen-year-olds like Harry, Melissa and Kain. Fresh, inquisitive and capricious, they are irrepressible. Depending on the day, they may charm you or drive you to the edge of sanity. It is their youthful voices that I hoped to capture, when I arranged to interview them. On a Saturday afternoon in their hagwon classroom, we sat down over a box of fried chicken and a bottle of warm cola. I tried every trick I know to get them to tell me what was on their minds.
This is what they had to say (M. R. Bradie, “Heads of the Class,” in The Beat):
MRB: What’s your daily schedule like? Neighborhood scene, Jongang-dong District, Busan, author seated atop a low wall, observing street corner traffic.
Melissa: I usually get up at 7:00. The sound of a jackhammer interrupts the relative quiet. At 7:50 I take the school bus. A FamilyMart truck arrives to make a delivery, its motor idling. I arrive at school by 8:00. A silver van revs three times before starting off. My first class begins at 9:30. Clumpity-clumping over the new cobblestone speed bump.
MRB: So what do you do for your first hour and a half at school? The intersection, in disarray, is being reconstructed: new tile sidewalks, new curbs, new paving stones.
Melissa: Sleep. The undercourse of cement, laid yesterday, having dried by this morning, now allows for traffic to pass along the main thoroughfare.
MRB: You sleep at school? An unmarked white van passes, followed by a black Lexus.
Melissa: Yes. A girl in a baggy lavender sweater, jeans splayed over the tops of her shoes.
MRB: So what is your nightly study routine like? Encounters her boyfriend.
Harry: I usually study or watch TV. In the middle of the street. And play games at night. He on his cell phone to her, she on her cell phone to him.
MRB: How long do you study for? Workmen are struggling to lay underground electrical and telephone cables, one of them feeding line through a square portal left in the dry cement.
Harry: About one hour. Another peering with frustration into a second square portal.
MRB: Where do you study? Businessmen in black suits, black topcoats, with or without briefcases. In front of the TV or in your room? Are returning to the office from lunch.
Harry: I study anywhere. Four girls, all friends, all seventeen years old.
HRB: Which are your favorite subjects to study? Three with their hands in their hooded-sweatshirt pockets, also returning from lunch break.
Kain: My favorite subject is English. Pause on their stroll and step inside the FamilyMart.
HRB: Why? A siren ululates up the boulevard behind us.
Kain: It’s interesting. Past the basement McDonald’s on the corner. I love learning new things. Past the first floor Lexus show room. New words.
Melissa: Math. Huge, fat red-white-and-blue electric barber poles. It makes me feel good when I get the answers right after working hard on the problems. Slowly rotating.
Harry: I like all the subjects. Advertise an innocuous coffee shop.
MRB: How are your parents involved in your studies? A white taxi lets off a passenger.
Harry: My parents never stop thinking about my grades. Two twenty-somethings with long, thin black hair click past on their high heels.
Melissa: When I get home from hagwons, my mom asks me stuff like if I studied or what kind of things I learned and all. A red, a green and a blue ball on a sign overhead.
Kain: My parents talk about education with me. Advertise a billiards parlor.
MRB: How often? The straw-hatted worker finally desists.
Kain: Usually every day. His jackhammer silenced for the time being.
Choson. Park Hotel Coffee Shop. The earliest name for Korea. Before a highly polished wooden table. Established by a legendary founder. Author has taken a seat. Tan’gun. To await the expensive coffee and toast that he ordered upon entering the shop. About 4000 years ago. The music is western, the décor Korean. It denotes “morning freshness and calm.” A gauzy “tree” stands next to his table, constructed of white fabric, gold paper and real sticks painted silver and sprayed with glitter.
Behind a large coffee-making apparatus two uniformed waitresses in identical hairdos are having a tête-à-tête. Author. (Edward B. Adams.) Sits beneath a one-story-high overhang in a two-story atrium. (In his Korea Guide.) Where the hotel’s Korean guests lounge in sofas. (Seoul International Publishing Company.) Among a group of three businessmen one dressed entirely in black talks too loudly on his cell phone. (1976.) His repartee concluded, he turns to address his three colleagues yet more vociferously.
From a semi-recumbent position on a divan a 35-year-old in short haircut smirks at author. Early records present Ung. Having for fifteen minutes awaited the arrival of a woman and her husband. A god who visited earth. He now arises from his sofa and gesticulates with both hands. In the regions of the Ever White Mountain. Speaking even more demonstratively, he badgers the husband. Along the Yalu River banks. Holding in the air, by its other extremity, at a nearly 90-degree angle, a lighted cigarette.
Ung is said to have transformed a bear into a woman. The husband scowls at his wife, who had momentarily threatened to enter the “conversation.” Later he married her. Now the loudmouth, lowering his cigarette to 75 degrees, takes a puff, spreading all four fingers across his face as he does so. Their offspring was Tan’gun.
Removing his hand, he proceeds to hold the erect cig in his teeth, again at nearly 90 degrees. After the son assumed leadership of the primitive clans. Behind this threesome. In 2333 BC. Silhouetted against a red ground. He established a capital at Pyongyang. An amorous western man and woman in dishabille fondly regard one another.
Above, in the hall’s second register, illuminated by a large window, hangs a modern Korean painting. “Koryeo” means “high and clear.” Showing two long-limbed, seated girls. It symbolizes the country’s towering peaks. Facing us, the nearer girl has raised one knee, as the other girl gazes off into the distance. Clear blue skies and rushing streams.
Both sensuous creatures have lifted to their lips black serpentine flutes. This landscape has earned for Korea. Despite the traditional costumes that they wear, the artist has contrived to show us all four bare, mountainous, pink-nippled breasts. The nickname of Switzerland. In a blackened earthenware pot sit two fat ears of corn.
“Chiness [sic] Restaurant,” menu in English and Korean, with emphasis upon native cuisine. After the martyrdom of the official Yi Ch’a-don in 527, who prophesied that after he died his blood would run white as milk to illustrate the truth of the Buddha, the faith prospered throughout the Silla kingdom. The interior has been organized into two parts: The golden age of Buddhist art glittered and waned in the eighth century. An elevated parterre. Silla succumbed to Goryeo in 936. With low tables for diners seated on the floor. And Buddhism became an influential faction at the royal court. Plus an ordinary parterre.
During the next several centuries. With five tables for four. Then, in 1392, the famed General Yi (Taejo) wrested the throne from a corrupt monarchy to establish the Yi dynasty. Only the lower parterre is currently being occupied. Subsequently, Buddhism fell into disfavor with the rising popularity of Confucianism. Author takes a seat at one of the five tables. As a result, many temples were destroyed. At the only other occupied table. Japanese armies under Hideyoshi later marched across the peninsula. Three Korean men in their early forties have finished their meal and are well into their cups. To complete the destruction.
The threesome stares at author. Before entering a larger temple the visitor will pass through a gate called Four Heavenly Kings. Author stares back. The images on this gate represent mythical rulers in the four corners of the universe. The Korean men are drinking rice wine from a brown bottle. Usually they are depicted as crushing the enemies of Buddhism. One has been topping off his rice wine with a bottle of beer. On one side a ferocious figure holds a dragon. Setting the green bottle back on the table, he stares at author again. On the other, a fierce figure holds a pagoda.
His milder companions await his judgment of the foreigner. Across the aisle a third figure holds a sword aloft. A waitress arrives to take author’s order. Occasionally at the larger temples you might find a gate in honor of the Bodhisattvas. Author continues to contemplate the laminated menu. One is called munsu posal. Having decided, he points at the entry for fried rice with pork ribs. The other is called pohyon posal. Waitress counters by pointing at another entry, thereby giving author to understand that pork ribs are not available. The munsu rides a tiger, whereas the pohyon rides an elephant.
Having exhausted their curiosity with regard to this blond, business-suited customer, the alcohol-dazed trio returns to earlier activity. Including recent renovations, there have been 23 reconstructions of Bulguk-sa. Which include TV viewing, drunken reverie and occasional outbursts. Bulguk-sa is today but one tenth the size that the original temple had attained during the height of the Silla Empire. The orange-capped man nearest author turns about to view again the virtual drama in historical period dress unfolding at its boringly predictable emotional pace on a tiny out-of-focus screen.
The balance and symmetry of its former glory are still to be discerned, however, in its walls, bridges, pillars and pagodas. The restaurant interior has been decorated in the by-now-familiar haphazard Korean mélange of incongruous elements. It is no exaggeration to say that Silla was responsible for the most beautiful works of classical art in East Asia, ones that differed both from the ornate, often fantastic concoctions of China and from the sentimental, pattern-ridden products so common to Japan. Drunkenly the two lesser companions bob and weave as slurred statement meets with slurred riposte.
So cluttered is the table in front of it that the water cooler is no longer accessible. Though Bulguk-sa is not typical of most Korean Buddhist temples. Old clothes, cooking utensils, condiment jars, a week’s worth of newspapers, all have been piled above and below the bottle. Which still maintain an aura of calm serenity. Nor is the large refrigerator standing behind it accessible either. Nevertheless, to visit Gyeongju and not tour the famed temple of Silla’s “Golden Age” would be unthinkable. A huge watch made of wood, its hands stopped, hangs beside the ice box, whose contents can only be guessed at.
The grotto known as Seokkuram was built by Kim Dae-song, who is also credited with building Bulguk-sa. On the wall opposite have been arranged without decorum: The relief image of the eleven-headed Goddess of Mercy. A Hangeul menu of dishes in black on orange, their prices listed in red on white. It holds one spellbound. The numerals reading vertically from top to bottom. Considered the most beautiful figure in all Korean art. A tall mirror reflects the front window and door. This kwanseum posal is slender. Of the restaurant itself. Its astonishingly realistic details elegantly organized.
A calendar next to the mirror depicts a traditional Korean courtyard with its grand entranceway. Its fluid garments and adornments are arranged in loops, cross folds and knots. Resting on the floor, leaned against the wall. Its supple feminine form contrasts abruptly with the fear-evoking guardians positioned on either side of the grotto’s portal. Is an elegant group portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Eight heavenly Palbu-ing. In a gilt frame. And two scowling Inwang. Epitomizing the civilized pastoral imagery of European Neoclassicism. Threaten to strike or at least terrify intruding evil spirits.
Twice Kim Sang-oon, a schoolteacher, invites author to dinner and, beforehand, to visit his studio at the middle school. In the same time frame MM undertakes a brief study of Bulguk-sa and visits the great Buddhist temple. A graduate of the local college of fine arts, Mr. Kim works in watercolors, pastels and crayons to produce landscapes, still lifes and portraits.
MM: We are on our way, now, to the middle school and are talking about the glorious Silla Dynasty, the period in Korean history roughly contemporary with China’s T’ang Dynasty. Departure by Bus #10 from Gyeongju, 11:30 am, March 26.
Mr. Kim: In this period Gyeongju was the capital of Korea. We are traveling down a cherry-lined boulevard, the branches beginning to bud.
MM: And when did the Silla come to an end? Sprays of forsythia, bordering the sidewalk, are also blooming.
Mr. Kim: A thousand years ago. We have reached the silted riverbed.
MM: The dynasty lasted for a very long time, didn’t it? A farmer works at cultivating an ancient field with his red roto-tiller.
Mr. Kim: Yes, for over nine hundred years. As women in red headscarves plant petunias at the base of the cherry trees already planted in the sidewalk. Over there is a tomb. We have reached a sign that reads Cheonduk / Bulguk-sa and take the road for Cheonduk.
MM: Tell me about this city street that we are traveling along. We are passing the Golf Practice Range, the Club Habana; suddenly the Hotel Concorde looms into view.
Mr. Kim: Long ago the important person passed here. Our bus driver is causing his vehicle to move very swiftly. But the common person was not allowed to travel along this road. Off to the right a pink pyramid makes its appearance.
MM: So, the road that preceded this modern highway was an exclusive route for the king and his royal retinue. We have been noticing many luxury hotels, including the Hotel Hyundai, the Gyeongju Hilton and the Wellich Choson Hotel.
Mr. Kim: Yes. At last we have exited the touristic zone.
MM: We are skirting a major group of mounded tombs where the kings of the Silla were buried. As we begin our ascent into the mountains we unaccountably pick up speed.
Mr. Kim: Yes: Blocking both lanes of the highway. Left, a king. Are identical silver Hondas. Right, a king. Moving at a more leisurely pace than our bus.
MM: I see. A Buddhist swastika points us toward Bulguk-sa. In the single mound that we are looking at two kings, you say, were buried, side-by-side. We have reached a “T” in the road. Let me ask you, do you find these tombs beautiful? We descend from the bus.
Mr. Kim: Very beautiful. Some tombs have mathematical lines, x and y, curving like the shape of life. At last we are ready for the steeper ascent on foot to the Buddha Land.
MM: How interesting. As we arrive at the renowned temple complex we enter through the Heavenly King Portal. In many respects, then, the design of the Silla tombs was comparable in complexity to the design of the great Egyptian tombs. Presided over by the Four Guardians carved in wood, whom author has been reading about.
Mr. Kim: Over there is stone-built tower for searching the stars. Nothing has prepared one, however, for the enormous size of these wooden figures.
MM: Yes, this is the famed observatory, isn’t it? (Incidentally, the one with the sword is merely grasping it by the hilt, not holding it aloft.)
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Mr. Kim: Now we arrive at my house, the second my house [sic]. The clear day could not possibly be more bracing.
MM: So you have two houses! Sunlight is glittering on the sands of the pathway before us.
Mr. Kim: Yes, but another person is living in this house. Puffy white-and-grey cumulus clouds float overhead. He is my student. Pine and fruit trees intermingle.
MM: You are renting out this house and living in another. The steady wind is audible in the upper branches of deciduous trees that have just begun to leaf out.
Mr. Kim: Yes, my new house ten minutes by car to the west. Whose pale green exudes an aura of natural but unearthly elegance. Let us get out of the car.
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MM: Yes, by all means. We have paused before three soft drink machines. I would love to see this traditional Korean house. One is labeled “Pocari Sweat.” [Mr. Kim opens the gate to his house, allowing us to enter its courtyard.] Another reads “Chilsung Cider.”
Mr. Kim: My student is a Buddhist painter. A third machine bears but the trademark “Samsung,” a faded color photo of the temple framed above its offerings of coffee and cocoa.
MM: What kind of paintings do you paint? The stairs to the temple have been blocked.
Mr. Kim: I am only still life and landscape. Accordingly we must skirt its facade and enter its courtyard by a side door, so as to face the great pagoda called “Bulguk-sa Dabotap.”
MM: Do you paint in the western style or in the traditional Korean style? The green-painted overhang protects us from the bright sun and affords us a clear view of the temple.
Mr. Kim: Western and Korean. Its complex iconography (of the four directions; four lions; four lotuses) is described on a plaque.
MM: I very much look forward to seeing some of your work.
Mr. Kim: Next we will go to my school.
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MM: Author takes seat on the interior ledge of Ja-Ha-Moon (Golden Purple Gate). You say that from the window of your office here we are looking out upon an area that, during the Silla Dynasty, was the king’s forest.
Mr. Kim: As two pretty Korean girls in magenta and yellow sweaters photograph themselves and their boyfriends. A famous poet describes it as a “half moon.”
MM: A little girl in brown velvet winter dress, pink slippers, a pink “Hello Kitty” in her hair is holding her father’s hand. What level are the students in your school?
Mr. Kim: The “Ja-Ha-Moon,” it is said, was constructed about 750 AD. The students are from the middle school on one side and the high school on the other.
MM: One must climb the Chong-Un-Gyo (Blue Cloud Bridge) to enter the Ja-Ha-Moon, the middle gate leading to the Buddha Land. From the window I also see a statue. Including the Dae-Ung-Jon. Can you tell me whom this represents? (Great Enlightenment/Virtue Hall.)
Mr. Kim: This is Subong, nickname of the founder of the school. In which is enshrined a statue of Sakyamuni Buddha.
MM: And the plaque next to him, I suppose, commemorates his founding of the school. (The historical Buddha who lived in India over 2,500 years ago.)
Mr. Kim: In 1937. That time very difficult, time of Japanese occupation. “Ja-Ha” denotes the golden-purple splendor shining from the Buddha, which hangs mist-like about him.
MM: But now you have a very beautiful new school building to replace the older building in the Japanese style, and I notice that its grounds are elegantly landscaped.
Mr. Kim: I am cultivating these plants myself.
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We have entered the school’s marble lobby and are looking at a very large ink-brush painting. On the opposite side of the courtyard stands the pure “three-storied stone pagoda,” based on the belief that Dabo Yeorna.
Mr. Kim: This is the Buddhist temple called Bulguk-sa. (Prabhutaratna-Tathagata.)
MM: It is a very famous temple. And Seokga Yeorna. Here it is represented during the wintertime. (Sakyamuni.)
Mr. Kim: Have you ever been? (Saddharma-Pundarika.)
MM: No, I have not yet had a chance to visit it. Are preaching side by side. (Perhaps some time in the next two days.) And verifying their doctrines. Now we have arrived at your studio, which is very large and handsome. Behind the great hall, at the far end of an austere courtyard, stands the Moo-Sul-Jon.
Mr. Kim: [No comment.] (“No-Word-Hall.”)
MM: And in front of your school you have a baseball field, where I see that your very skilful high school team is practicing, never dropping a fly ball. A “Hall for Lecturing.”
Mr. Kim: [No comment.] And this is Namsam Mount. Though a place to give lectures on the Sutras. Very important in Silla dynasty. It is called “Moo-Sul,” because we find it impossible to express and reach the essence of the Buddha’s teachings.
MM: From here you can see history. Or the depth of Truth through the means of language.
Mr. Kim: Yes, it is like a museum.
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MM: Speaking of museums, it would be very nice to see some of your work. To either end of the cool wood-pillared, wood-floored hall are paintings of the Buddhist Heaven.
Mr. Kim: Thank you. The first embodying an image of Sakyamuni. Here is a painting of a landscape and over there, on the other side [of the horizon in the painting], is another city. The second serving as backdrop to a statue of what appears to be Kwan Yin.
MM: Where the golden light, you say, is coming from another city, is that right? Five Korean ladies in their mid sixties enter together.
Mr. Kim: Yes. In lavender, red and white. Here is a winter view. In rust and blue jackets.
MM: With no foliage on the trees. Side by side they begin to perform their obeisance.
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Mr. Kim: And here is a pine tree. Behind two pink-parkaed, brown-silk-skirted ladies, the cuffs of their pantaloons showing, author mounts to Gwon-Eum-Jon (the Shrine of Avalokitesvara, or Perfect Compassion).
MM: Yes, a pine tree in the foreground and the sea in the background. ("The one who listens to the cries of the world.”) This is a marvelous work. She stands in three gold dimensions. So beautiful. Before a two-dimensional representation of herself. It seems to me that you are a very accomplished artist. The latter centered within an enormous mandala. More Korean, perhaps, than western, for you employ such bright colors, even in the sky: Author takes seat on the porch of the temple. Yellow, red, green, blue. To face backwards toward the entrance.
Mr. Kim: Yes. To either side of which blossoming trees have been arranged. My work of art is from nature. Above the fruit trees rise flat-topped pines. But color from my heart. Surmounted by the pure blue sky.
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MM: You have also been showing me many studies of flowers. We descend a steep stair to the Bi-Ron-Jon (The Vairocana Buddha Hall).
Mr. Kim: Yes. This one not finished. (In which the Buddha Sitting Statue has been enshrined.) Maybe in summer. (National Treasure No. 20.) The Bi-Ron is said to embody.
MM: These are all such wonderful works. The virtues of Truth.
Mr. Kim: Many paintings is locate [sic] at my house. Wisdom. My paintings very big.
MM: I understand: And Cosmic Power. We have seen but a small selection of your work.
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MM: You have mentioned North Korea and the problem of its reunification with South Korea. How can we solve this problem?
Mr. Kim: North Korea economic system very bad.
MM: But now North Korea has nuclear weapons. So this is no longer merely an economic problem, is that correct? Do you feel that China and Japan, Russia and America can help North and South Korea solve their mutual problems?
Mr. Kim: Is very difficult. Six countries.
MM: So many countries meeting at once!
Mr. Kim: Yes.
MM: Why do you think it is that North Korea and South Korea cannot solve these problems by themselves?
Mr. Kim: Problems?
MM: Yes, the problem of reunification, the problem of economic aid, the political problem of reconciling communist and capitalist systems, the problem of nuclear proliferation, the threat of military action by the North against the South?
Mr. Kim: The problems? Ha-ha. Is very difficult. I want. Generally, most Korean people want reunification. First of all, we do not have same economy. As you know, South and North Korea very difficult.
MM: Under these circumstances, do you think that other countries might be able to help North and South Korea solve their problems?
Mr. Kim: No, no . . . Yeah. Mmmm . . . I don’t know.
MM: During the Korean War, for example, the Americans helped the South Koreans solve a problem, didn’t they?
Mr. Kim: Most [South] Korean people like the Americans.
MM: I notice that you have just received a call on your cell phone.
Mr. Kim: Yes, my wife is calling me.
MM: And you have been telling her about your plans for this evening.
Mr. Kim: Yes, is very nice. Come back home. Is very midnight [sic]. She understand.
MM: Your wife understands when you come home late, that you have been working, right?
Mr. Kim: Yes. So I likes her.
MM: Did your wife also attend the university?
Mr. Kim: Yes, Korean Language University.
MM: And is she also a teacher?
Mr. Kim: No, she only teach her children. My wife’s hobby is reading. She don’t like outside. Only keeps house. Children and her husband. Sometime she write essay.
MM: Does she publish her essays?
Mr. Kim: Yes, her essays is for the broadcasting.
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MM: Because your city is a cultural center, not only for Korea but for Asia in general, you have many tourists coming from around the world to visit its monuments: In the obscurity of the temple’s interior its lower folds are gleaming with the sunlight streaming through its portal. From Italy, from Kazakhstan (you tell me), from America. As are the silver vessels situated in the foreground before the altar.
Mr. Kim: Yes. It is 1:30 pm.
MM: So it should not be surprising that your point of view is international, that you are so tolerant of the foreigner’s misunderstandings of Korean culture and politics. I am very glad to have made your acquaintance and most grateful for the hospitality that you have shown me here in Gyeongju.
Mr. Kim: Thank you.
As author is passing the final shrine, on his way toward the exit from Bulguk-sa, its attendant receives a call on her cell phone. Incense pervades the hall’s interior and drifts through the portal into the courtyard. The attendant arises to pad about in her black slippers and grey nun’s habit, all the while continuing her conversation. As we are leaving the grounds we pass the Sarira Pagoda with its nine lotus petals. Here the first nun’s conversational partner becomes identifiable by the cell phone pressed to her ear. The second nun smiles at author.
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Mid-afternoon view of Hyeonsan River from the foot of Seoman Big Bridge. During the reign of Adalla, the eighth king of the Silla Dynasty, a couple named Yun-Oh and Sae-Oh lived on the shore of the East Sea. Our view down-river of Yeongil Bay is obscured. When Yun-Oh was gathering seaweed one day. By the new Sport Center and new Culture & Art Hall and on the far bank. The rock he stood on began to move. By Pohang Iron and Steel (POSCO). (Samguk-Yusa, Historic Record for the Three Kingdoms of Korea.)
The rock itself carried him across the sea to Japan. POSCO is one of the world’s top class iron companies. The Japanese recognized Yun-Oh as a man of extraordinary power. Since 2000 it has annually produced 27,730,000 tons of steel. So they caused him to ascend the throne of their country. Supplying low-priced, good quality steel to Korea’s ship building industry. Ten brick smokestacks, striped red and white (not counting another freestanding stack farther off), rise from the base of the production site.
Meanwhile, Sae-Oh wondered why her husband had not returned. To her automobile makers. Cottony smoke is emerging from half a dozen smaller stacks. To her machine and electromagnetic industries. “POSCO” read the letters on a large tank. The firm is equipped with a smelting furnace and a production line for steel manufacture. “INI” (Incheon Steel) reads a nearby tank. Heated steel, thick steel panel, cooled steel, electric steel panel. All she found were his shoes, sitting on top of the rock. Stainless steel.
When she too climbed upon the rock, she too floated to Japan. A long blue-grey shed parallels the far bank of the river. The Japanese people took Sae-Oh to their new king and pronounced her Queen. Tall yellow A-cranes span the roadway alongside the blue-grey building. The Sun and the Moon ceased to shine on Silla. Author sits on the bridge’s chilly pylon. Because Yun-Oh and Sae-Oh, a court diviner revealed. His notebook open, his pen bobbing. Had taken the spirit of the Sun and the Moon with them to Japan.
King Adalla sent an envoy entreating the Japanese to return the couple. Author considers turning back from the chill. King Yun-Oh refused: “The will of heaven brought me here.” Instead he continues to write. Instead he offered a gorgeous piece of silk woven by the queen. “I will finish this notebook page.” The envoy asked that King Adalla offer the piece of silk to Heaven. He says to himself. King Adalla followed Yun-Oh’s wishes, and once again the Sun and the Moon commenced to shine as they had before.
A man-made revetment shelters the near bank. The piece of silk was cherished as a national treasure. Paved at its flattened crest in gravel. The palace vault where they stored it became known as the Queen’s Vault. Three fishermen’s dories have been pulled up on shore. The place where King Adalla had held the ceremony became known as Do-Ki-Ya, the Field of the Great Ceremony. A fisherman patiently mends a net suspended from sticks stuck in the sand. Or Young-Il-Hyun, the Province Where the Sun Was Welcome.
Today we continue our journey onward from Pohang to Gangneung. When a Korean is fraught with wanderlust or feels like hiking into the beauty that has inspired classical paintings. By way of Heunghae, Jangsa, Yeongdoek, Hupo, Pyeonghae. He heads northeast to the land “where men and mountains meet.” Jukpyeon and Inweonin, Samcheok, Donghae and Jeongdongjin. It is good for the soul to escape into nature’s purity.
As we leave Pohang in the direction of Heunghae a convoy of eight tanks rumbles past with their lights on, heading south. The situation remains stable despite the nation’s first presidential impeachment. It is 8:00 am. Prime Minister Goh Kun, who took over state affairs after President Roh Moo-hyun was suspended from office. Within another ten kilometers. Also confirmed that the government would maintain its current foreign policy in accord with the Seoul-Washington alliance. We encounter another convoy of troops. Within two kilometers another dozen troop-transporters stream past. “I have reviewed reports concerning security on the Korean Peninsula,” Goh told senior officials. Led by a jeep with red and green lights flashing. Defense Minister Cho Yung-kil and General Kim Jong-hwan, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On the modern highway, bounded by guardrails. Told Goh that they have stepped up anti-terrorism measures at major facilities. Our fellow travelers are driving white, silver, grey, dark blue and black sedans. “The Foreign Ministry will implement its diplomatic plans as scheduled and strengthen efforts to resolve pending security issues.” Daewoo, Hyundai and Kia, Honda and SsangYong. “Such as the North Korean nuclear standoff,” Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon reported.
At Jangsa our first view of the sea: This is the northeast province of Gangwon. The bay gracefully opening up, as we descend upon the coast. Where a happy wanderer can bask on a lake or a seaside beach. Only to rise with the cliffs and look down upon terraced fields. Or hike through wispy mountain mists to a 15th-century Buddhist shrine scooped out of granite. Or survey stands of pine upon a rocky coast dotted with fishing villages.
Above Yeongdeok we exit the expressway, still under construction, to parallel its course on a much older road. Of old Korea was called “sam chon li gum su gang san,” or the land of “3,000 li of rivers and mountains embroidered on silk.” We observe as the mountainside along the new highway is graded and terraced. In Gangwon from the North Han River to the Demilitarized Zone and the East Sea. High above, two backhoes work together. This adage rings true. Meanwhile, below, three old women labor to plant the spring crop in a freshly tilled field. You will find a superb scenic tapestry delicately shaded with silken green rice paddies. We travel through a hinterland of agricultural activity. Swaths of amber grain. On the road we encounter eighteen-wheelers. And pointillist vegetable patches, winding hither and thither along cold blue rivers and craggy ravines.
As we approach Pyeonghae we return to the coast. Orange roof alternates with blue. Pausing at Hupo, we take a coastal by-pass to Jukpyeon, Inweonin, Samcheok and our final destination, Gangneung. The grassy grounds of a high school are still sere with winter cold and drought. Pink, white and yellow blossoms, however, flourish in the forest. A dark green truck approaches, heading south. In white on emerald an official highway sign reads:
SAMCHEOK 98
DONGHAE 106
Shamanistic spirits are a remnant of the time when Korea’s rivers, trees and mountains were alive. We race down a mountain into a village. Since mountains dominate the peninsula. Traverse its length in the blink of an eye. The Mountain Spirit was regarded as the most important of the shamanistic deities. Only to reascend its rocky slope. People in Gangneung and Young Dong have always believed in Guksasonangsin. Author fastens his seatbelt as the bus begins to swerve around hairpin curves. This shamanist god defends those who live in such high and holy places. The views down onto the coastline of the East Sea have suddenly become much more dramatic. While most young people look upon shamanism as an irrelevant superstition, still a core of rural, older, traditional Koreans maintains a deep respect (if not a deep-seated belief) in the Mountain Spirit. According to the Chugangjip tales, in Young Dong a sacrificial ritual for the Mountain God was held each spring. (Quotations in bold.) People drank and danced for three consecutive days. (From History and Background of Gangneung Danoje Festival.) In addition, the History of Goryeo relates that a sacrificial rite was held on Daegwallyeong when Wang Sun-sik conquered Sin Kom during the reign of the first king.
According to a more detailed topography, our route along the eastern extremity of Gangwon Province has also taken us through Uljin, Junjeong and Wondeok, Jangho, Maeweon and Gyeoga, Dongmak and Objun. In Haksan have been found traces of Kulsana Temple. But we have yet to reach Samcheok, the “City of Caves.” Along with the Sokchon Well, where Bomil’s mother conceived him, after she swallowed the Sun that was floating in her water bowl. What the map and the guidebook describe less accurately are the intervals of landscape and activity in between the toponyms: Bomil, a fatherless son, had survived his ordeal with the help of a crane. The flat yellow fields, whose soil has been turned but not yet planted. When he grew up, Bomil left home to study in T’ang Dynasty China. The ribbon of newly laid expressway concrete not yet traveled upon. After he had returned home, he was highly reputed and respected as a venerable monk. The solitary middle-aged woman in mauve silk jacket, red-billed visor and baggy black pants trudging homeward. It is said that, after he passed away, he became Sonangsin guarding the Gangeung and Young Dong areas. A sign reading (red)“AutoOasis”(green). And assuming a permanent seat on Daegwallyeong Mountain.
At most Buddhist temples in Korea a small shrine commemorates the Mountain Recluse, who sits on a hill behind the main temple (Insight Guide). Samcheok’s cherry blossoms have fully opened, attracting a swarm of bees. Look inside and you’ll see a brightly colored painting. The Bike Plaza is open for business. Of an old, bearded, white-haired man with a mountain tiger. “OPEN,” reads a sign across from the National University.
Donghae quickly follows, its urban signage even more fully Romanized and Englished: “Car Audio System,” “GM Daewoo,” “Tires and Auto Parts,” “Food,” “Room,” along with other universal modern necessities. An entire row of twenty vehicles, backed up for a traffic light, does not diverge from the present-day automakers’ black-silver-grey-white palette. “Pizza City,” “Police Enforcement,” “Super Clean +.”
“Combo!” Lunar Landscape or. (Lotteria.) Raspberry Jam Stain (The Korea Herald)? “Burger/barbecue/fish filet + Pepsi = 3,200.” Random Landscapes, at PKM Gallery: Secom professional security car departing Dongincheon’s “shopping street.” There’s More Than Meets the Eye. In fashionable sea green and pale blue stripes: Moon Beom’s paintings conjure anything from Chinese landscapes to jelly. Departs, revealing a sign. Oscillating between abstraction and representation. For “Dream of Spring.” Moon’s conceptual pieces change, depending on which word in his exhibition’s title you choose to emphasize. A shop called “Indian” is displaying T-shirts out front, in peach, grey, mauve and cream. If you choose “random,” his paintings are nothing more than the slightly cleaned up, haphazard marks of an oil stick. In the restaurant’s window: a Plexiglas box with artificial grass, real spring blossoms. A compact bar of oil paint, smeared on a wood panel.
Salesperson nervous about author activity. Some of these shellacked “paintings.” “30% Sale.” Look like accidents. Next door. “Sorrento” (an Italian restaurant). For example: Tiny spruce trees in white planters have been strung with tiny white bulbs. “Slow, same #7124.” A window display of “Italian” ingredients: Could either be raspberry jam smudges. “Kraft” Parmesan cheese, “Figaro” green olives, “Publix” linguine, “Badia” pimenta negra. Or smeared lipstick. Tilted toward the sidewalk viewer. While “slow, same #2024.” Two plates of: Monochrome acrylic and polyurethane. Spaghetti and clams, spaghetti and ham (prosciutto). Where metallic blue paint puddles up on the surface. Interior view of lavender tablecloths under glass, white ceramic salt-and-pepper shakers atop them: Resemble a sloppy paint job for a Cadillac. White wooden chairs in ruffled rung-length dusters; a white-clad chef at work, glimpsed over/past the white counter.
Likewise under the “random” interpretation. Across-street view of “ASK” (blue) “enquired” (gold), which is showing British flag sportswear: The spray can, fish and ping-pong ball. White blazers with wide blue stripes. In his C-print photographs (check out the basement). Next door: “[windmill logo] NOTO / rest in classic.” Are found little more than a random sampling of objects. We move along to “F Sharp,” which has gone out of business; across the street: “1492 Miles” and “FNC Kolon / Fashion and Culture.” You have a much richer variety of meaning, if you choose to put the accent on “landscapes.” “KIKI” (black with red diamonds dotting the “I”s). The paintings on the first floor. “Hair & Make Up” (in red). Morph from the decorative paisley motifs of Toile de Jouy fabric into lush, elusive. “http://www.kiki.co.kr” (in black). Landscapes with waterfalls, trees and clouds. “Beauty parlor” (in Korean), repeated (in Chinese).
The swirls and smudges of mint green and raspberry red in “slow, same #7126.” “EZIO Collezione.” Resemble a far-off galaxy in an Isaac Asimov novel. “40% SALE.” All the while suggesting traditional Chinese scroll painting. (The sale also announced in Hangeul.) The objects found in his photographs. Bald, almost featureless manikins (shoeless too, with incompletely articulated toes). Start to form relationships with each other. Before the three shops are parked three sedans. Creating visual games. In white, in metallic beige, in olive green. In his C-prints. Rich girls gaze down from Sorrento’s second floor tables onto the street below. Titled “An Anarchist.” Venus has risen high in a smoky black, cold sky. A mackerel seems to be swimming in a sea of blood. Kiki hair is using “L’Oréal Professionel Paris” products. Calling to mind the political “red herring” syndrome. Pastel dyes and Diacolor tints. Of the Cold War era.
Yet as soon as you start to get carried away with flexing your descriptive muscles. A “Nuancelle Fruit Acid Hair Manicure” display of Apricot, Soft Vanilla, Milk Tea, Smoky Ice, Sweet Grape . . . Moon’s paintings seem to turn back into nothing but cold, unmoving pools of color. The “Diacolor” display of hair samples in “Mahogany, Mahogany Copper, Praline Chestnut, Chocolate, Copper . . .” However suggestive his show’s title may be, his works seem to restrict viewers’ random interpretations. A pretty stylist, in black zip-up top, wedgy black shoes, looks at author/looks away, her lips in bright pink. Moon said at the preview of his show that he didn’t intend his paintings to be landscapes. Her pale face otherwise free of makeup. They just happened to end up looking that way. Now the manager of the shop, in chestnut bouffant, copper blusher, cherry lipstick, steps toward the window to evaluate author’s activity/intentions.
Exactly what Moon’s work is depends upon your point of view — “Chaste” (Jewelers) is showing delicate (and expensive) necklace-earring sets, a silver chameleon, diamond encrusted double heart pins. Whether you think his paintings are just oil stick marks on a piece of wood. Across the street another two-story restaurant (this one Japanese), next door to which “PAT” is offering pastel jackets over horizontally striped shirts (for thin girls), its logo a cute tan rhinoceros. Or lush, inventive landscapes. Two Korean businessmen hustle past, topcoatless, each wearing a tie with gold designs. As an artist who has worked since the 1980s. Author stands to regard “Fila,” which is showing its line of athletic wear. Moon seems remarkably adept at reinventing his media. The block concludes with “NII” (“New York Ivy League Institute”); “Harris Tone”; and opposite: “Rapa Club,” which, like “Plus One” (a former restaurant) has closed. Whether it’s photography or painting.
Followed by “TBJ,” whose Hanguel-less sign advertises “Knit,” “Shirt/T-Shirt,” “Jumper,” all in white prices/black names on a seasonally appropriate light green ground. He oscillates between using controlled and chance processes. “TBJ shoes” are displayed in a vertical rack: little slippers in pink, chartreuse, orange and ’50s black-and-white, all except the last with floral interiors. Suggesting that he’s moved beyond. “Sieg,” next door, is showing pinstriped suits. The confines of purely abstract or purely representational art. Across the intersection “KOOLHAAS,” whose two A’s are inner-lit red. Both seem incapable of creating new images. Has displayed on the side of the building. For abstract art isn’t really exciting anymore. The flags of Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden. And representational art has simply become a ruse. All labeled in English. Painting an object doesn’t make the depicted reality any more real.
Author, forced to retreat by this chilly March 30 evening, takes refuge in a coffee shop. It’s the ambiguous area in between that he highlights in such an exciting way. Another café across the way, called “Shai,” advertises its offerings with a neon sign, whose “coffee” (carmine), “&” (pale yellow), “drink” (green) are joined as one word. Moon puts viewers in the impossible position of making up their own meanings. The café’s black glass reveals nothing inside. Reminding us that reality is just a blink away. The manager of our own coffee shop crosses the street and disappears into “Shai.” His paintings suggest a motley of visual scenarios. “Head,” “Bunbuster,” “EXR.” So next time you see an iridescent puddle of oil at the gas station. A dark green car reading as black; a black car reflecting the red, yellow and green neon. You’ll be sure to do a double take. In this coffee shop real white-painted branches in a bronzed wicker basket bloom with pink fabric roses.
Sea view, 6:00 am, Jeju City. From a crack betwixt heaven and earth the mountains arose and water flowed. Six-lane lightly trafficked highway leading to industrial port, vehicles descending toward three-ampoule flashing yellow light, pausing to continue in the chilly sun-not-yet-arisen breezy ambiance, past crane activity, the hum of unloading/loading blue and orange containers. Thus was the new world order established.
But others say that the goddess Seolmundae Halmang created Jeju Island. A white-jacketed red-capped cyclist, his bike strapped with double black rayon long-distance packs. So the story goes: Labors uphill past roadside-seated author. When this giantess looked at the island. Whose head must swivel 180 degrees. In the midst of the ocean that she had just created. To describe him. She decided that it was altogether too flat.
The harbor view is broad. The heaven-sent dew was blue. Illuminated increasingly by in-drenching light. The earth-originating dew was black. The sun has still not appeared over the hilly, cloud-encumbered horizon. Together, in this version, they combined to form all living and non-living things. “S-Oil,” reads the only English sign, bent around the surface of a white two-story cylinder. But others say a star was the first thing created.
One of a dozen oil tanks seen through the dark green roadside pines. Many stories have been handed down on Jeju regarding such matters. In a stiff breeze the flag of Korea flies. But I prefer the one about Seolmundae Halmang. (Or rather flaps.) The earth goddess. Atop a Maritime Authority building. Because the island was too flat, they say, she decided to make a mountain in its middle, which they call Halla.
Its green window shades uniformly half drawn down. A holy mountain high enough to pull down the Milky Way. Its courtyard sparsely occupied by silver, white and black sedans. She made this mountain, they say, by transporting dirt in the folds of her skirt. Contained within the white parking spaces. For so long that she wore a hole in it. Painted on its asphalt surface. Till the dirt leaked out to create 360 volcanoes.
A wider view takes in a golden patch reflected onto the sea from sun-lit cumulus. If this goddess were to lie down, with Halla as her pillow. Its wispy underbelly shaded grey. Her legs would reach Gwantal Island. Like fibrous homemade paper. If she were to stand, she could set one foot down on Gwantal and the other on Marado, to wash her clothes in Daejeong-eup Sea and hang them out to dry on Wudo Island.
Day has arrived but with no diminution of the chill, the wind, if anything, picking up, not dying down. In Gojiletdo by the Hannae River, which runs through Ora-dong of Jeju City. Light glimmers off the slick green painted surface. There’s a rock shaped like a hat, imbedded in a big hole in the ground. Of a tennis/basketball court. According to legend, this was the very hat that Seolmundae Halmang used to wear.
How do revolutions occur? We concluded the previous chapter by describing the transition from normal science to crisis. In Kuhn’s story large-scale change usually requires both a crisis and the appearance of a new candidate paradigm. A crisis alone will not induce scientists to regard a large-scale theory as “falsified.” We do not find the categorical rejection of one paradigm without the acceptance of a new one.
At the entrance to the stacked cargo container portion of the port stands a small guardhouse in Silla style. Ninety-nine sharp stone protrusions shaped like a crown surround the summit of the Sungsan sunrise peak. Its tiled, peaked roof from any single perspective does not allow us to see how many sections it has. One of these protrusions looks like a candlestick, and some say the Goddess used it while she was sewing.
Seolmundae Halmang had a single wish. In his own Preface to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn qualified his claims about the role of crisis. She always wore cotton clothes and worked very hard. He here maintains that crises are the “usual prelude” to revolutions. However, she told the people of Jeju that she wanted to wear proper underwear at least. But even that claim is controversial.
She told them that if they would make her the garments that she needed out of silk. Kuhn’s emphasis on crises seems driven more by the demands of his hypothesized mechanism for scientific change than by historical data. Then she would build a bridge, so that everyone could walk to the mainland. Now suddenly the sun breaks forth—its orb still not visible—to illuminate in yellow light the long reinforced breakwater.
Along with the tops of two white ships and a fishing boat passing behind them, its brown and yellow sides emerging into view. To make such underwear for this massive goddess 100 rolls of silk were required. Kuhn’s story demands crisis, because only a crisis can loosen the grip of a paradigm and make people receptive to alternatives. Though the people needed the bridge, they were only able to collect 99 rolls of silk.
The direct sunlight has ceased for the moment. Since the underwear could not be completed, neither could the building of the bridge. “S E Chang,” read white letters on the black hull of a ship moored along a concrete apron crowded with smaller ships, in orange, in green, in white. To this day the traces of the bridge remain at Jocheon-ri and Sincheon-ri. A green cargo truck drags green cargo up the hill, as an orange ship departs the port.
The Goddess was proud of how tall she was, and she liked to test her height against the ponds on Jeju. The sun has returned, but a chilly wind persists. However, no body of water was found as deep as she was tall. Author prepares for descent to the harbor, both to exercise and to reduce his exposure. Finally, having heard that a pond at the summit of Mulgangolorum never went dry, she tested its mist-covered depth.
A white tanker, “S K” in red on its side, passes along the harbor road. At once it swallowed the goddess. Notebook pocketed. She never returned. He follows the sidewalk down past umbrella pines. Some say that she drowned in a pond connected to the bottom of the sea. A little white lighthouse on the edge of the cliff receives the direct rays of a yellow sun still not visible. Others, that the goddess returned to her underwater home.
People in different paradigms cannot fully communicate with one another, for they use key terms in different ways and therefore speak slightly different languages. Moreover, when they do communicate, they use different standards of evidence and argument. Accordingly, they cannot agree upon what a theory is supposed to accomplish. No one has yet had much success in developing a good model for scientific language.
At the base of the lighthouse two arms of a radar antenna are scanning the sea. Should a scientific theory be required to make causal sense of why things happen? As heavier trucks, in black, white and orange descend toward the harbor. Should we always hope to understand the mechanism’s underlying events? At the end of the six-lane highway lies the white-capped sea, its dark blue roiling beneath a lighter sky.
Or can a theory be acceptable, if it merely offers the mathematics to describe phenomena without making causal sense of them? Having reached the foot of the hill author takes a seat in a brand new pocket park, sheltered from the wind; brown-painted concrete imitation logs, their bark only half convincing, support the pavilion’s roof. A famous example of this problem concerns Newton’s theory of gravity.
The great physicist offered a mathematical description—his famous inverse square law—but not a mechanism for how gravitational attraction works. Around a pole circles a concrete bench, its surface painted in imitation of sawn planks, scored to indicate the tree’s growth rings. Indeed, Newton’s view that gravity acts instantaneously and at a distance seemed to be hard to supplement with a mathematical formulation.
The floor of the pavilion’s concrete has also been scored, in imitation of individual paving tiles. Was this a problem of Newton’s theory? Round about have been planted many trees. Or should we drop the demand for a causal mechanism and be content with a mathematical formalism? Both coniferous and deciduous. Would it be scientifically acceptable to regard gravity as simply an “innate” power of matter?
Each freshly planted tree has been braced with three pieces of freshly cut lumber. The early eighteenth century argued about this a good deal. Thereby attesting to the great labor of the gardeners. Kuhn’s view is that no general answer is possible. And the landscape architect. To the question of whether scientific theories should provide causal mechanisms for phenomena. Who have designed and executed the park.
During the earliest part of the twentieth century there occurred a similar, though smaller-scale debate within English biology. In the latter part of the nineteenth century a group called the “Biometricians” had formulated a mathematical law that they thought described inheritance. They had no mechanism for how inheritance works, and their law did not lend itself to supplementation with such a mechanism.
In 1900 the pioneering work done by Mendel was rediscovered, and the science of genetics was launched. For about six years, though, the Biometricians and the Mendelians conducted an intense debate about which approach to understanding inheritance was superior. Cherry trees are blossoming as though it were spring. One of the issues at stake was what kind of a theory of inheritance should be the goal.
The Biometricians thought that a mathematically formulated law was the right goal, whereas William Bateson argued that understanding the mechanism of inheritance was the goal. In the short term, the Mendelians won the battle. In time the two approaches were married; modern biology now has both the math and the mechanism. But during the battle considerable disagreement arose as to what constituted a good theory.
As we reach “Jeju Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre.” Kuhn’s discussion of incommensurability is the main reason why his view of science is often referred to as “relativist.” The sun at last emerges over the top of the hill to begin thawing author’s numb fingers. Kuhn himself was shocked to have his work interpreted as relativist. A guard at the gate stands immobile, half his body in light, half in shade.
What is relativism? The sun passes behind a cloud. This is a chaotic area of discussion. Illuminating its edges. Roughly speaking, relativists hold that the justification of a claim, or the applicability of a standard, depends upon one’s point of view. Author takes up a position before a bulletin board, pretending to read the notices in Korean posted by the “National Police Agency,” the only three words in English.
Such a claim might be made either generally. We have reached the “Hangman Fire Station Branch.” (“All truth is relative.”) On the other side of the green-painted tennis/basketball court. Or in a more restricted way, about art, morality, good manners, or some other domain. Its sign has been fashioned in the shape of Jeju-do itself. The “point of view” might be that of an individual, a society or some other group.
In its glass-enclosed bulletin board is a poster. If people differ about the proper standards of some domain, this itself does not imply that relativism is true for that domain. In one, red-shirted—not firemen but—marathon runners. Some people might be just wrong. Are making their way up a pathless grassy course. It is also important to realize that someone who argues that morality “depends on the context” need not be a relativist.
Though he might be. “Jeju 119 Orum Marathon,” reads the caption. This is because a single set of moral rules (or rules of reasoning) might have had built into them some sensitivity to circumstances. The lead runner, #13 on his black shorts, wears a floppy-brimmed camo cap and a red shirt reading “Giant” on its arms. A set of moral rules might say, “If you are in circumstance X, you should do Y.”
Other runners follow in his wake against a hilly green background. This is not relativism, even though not everyone might be in circumstance X. Another poster shows a blue-clad, blue-capped, blue-shod boy extinguishing a white fire. In this case we are mostly concerned with relativism as it applies to standards. He is using the blue fluid that issues from a white fire extinguisher.
More specifically, we are concerned with standards governing reasoning, evidence, and the justification of belief. The poster has been chalked in blue, white and black by a child. And the “point of view” here is that of the users of a paradigm. One who perhaps had only blue, white and black chalk. Is Kuhn a relativist with regard to these matters? Anther poster shows two dedicated firemen clad in faded red uniforms.
The answer is that it’s complicated. This poster is followed by another, at the bottom of the case, that represents missing children. Kuhn had a subtle view that is hard to categorize. Followed by a notice for the “Foreign Workers Centre.” And is also bound up with the question of how to understand scientific progress. “Medical Care,” “Learning Korean,” “Working Problem,” “Domestic Problem,” “Individual Problem.”
Kuhn said a few, rather different, things in the final, somewhat puzzling pages of Structure.
MM: Tell me, what are the differences that you have noticed between Seoul, where you say that you lived for some time, and Jeju City? He said, for instance, that our present paradigms have more problem-solving power than did earlier paradigms.
Young-jay Lee: In Seoul are very many people living, and the roads are always in traffic jam, but in Jeju you can get clean air and nice landscapes and the pure water. This claim Kuhn made when confronted by the question of how to understand progress in science.
MM: But I can’t help noticing that at the moment we are stuck in a Jeju City traffic jam, and there is a big bus in front of us coughing out noxious fumes. Kuhn gave two very different kinds of explanation for the apparent large-scale progress that we see in science.
YJL: [Laughter.] We are in the rush hour now, but normally traffic is good. And these two explanations are intertwined with each other in complex ways.
MM: Do you prefer a city that has a lot of culture and heavy traffic, or a city that has light traffic and less culture? Kuhn’s first explanation was an “eye of the beholder” explanation.
YJL: That depends. Science will inevitably appear to exhibit progress, because each field is based on only one paradigm at a time. Everything has its strength and its own drawback. The victors after each revolution will naturally view their victory as progressive. Here, it is true, there is not much access to culture, but the many natural views are good. And science is insulated from any outside criticism. By comparison Seoul is better in cultural affairs. Happy celebrations of progress on the part of the victors will not be met with any serious objection. You can meet many great and gorgeous people in the capital. This deflationary explanation of the appearance of progress is consistent with a relativist view of the changes between paradigms. But here the artists, the philosophers, their way of thinking is more narrow, and this means that you are isolated, if you are coming from the outside world.
MM: To change the subject slightly: Kuhn also developed a second, very different account of the appearance of progress in science. Which do you think is more important, art or reality?
YJL: In my view, both are important. This one seems to conflict with a relativist reading. But for me I can’t choose between them. Here Kuhn argued that science has a special kind of efficiency. Anyway, as for myself, probably some mysterious force, as it is called, led me to come here. And this efficiency results in a real form of progress across revolutions. I didn’t come here on purpose. The progress is involved in problem-solving power. Something just happened. The number and precision of solutions to problems in a scientific field tend to grow over time. I was unemployed in Seoul, and suddenly there was a job open. It is hard to reconcile this claim with his discussion of incommensurability in earlier chapters.
MM: Before we get too personal about your life or too specific about your current position, let’s consider the street scene about us. There he said that revolutions always involve losses as well as gains. At 7:00 pm it is after dusk, the street is filled with colorful traffic, and along the sidewalk the neon signs have been turned on. He also said the standards that might be used to classify some problems as important and others as unimportant. Let us, for a moment, consider this as a work of art. Tend to change when revolutions occur. Can we regard reality as art? So we should be skeptical about whether the measurement of problem-solving power that Kuhn envisages in his final pages is compatible with the rest of the book.
YJL: That depends upon what you think about art. For example, the American philosopher John Dewey said that reality may be considered art if the relation of all its parts is perfect. If our later paradigms have more overall problem-solving power than our earlier ones. Take for example, the Japanese tea ceremony; if everything is perfect, it can be regarded as art.
MM: Dewey, then, was emphasizing the principle that Aristotle calls harmonia as opposed to the principle that Aristotle calls mimesis, the representation or imitation of reality. Then it seems that we are entitled to regard the later paradigms as superior.
YJL: Yes, I think so. And this takes us in the opposite direction from relativism.
MM: Do you feel that you could make a work of art out of our present experience, a drive this evening down this main boulevard of Jeju City? Clearly Kuhn’s aim was to work out an intermediate or moderate position, balancing the claims of both extremes.
YJL: Yes, if I can feel something perfect in the experience, then it may be considered as a work of art. People will be arguing about this for a while to come.
MM: Well, as I look out the window, right across the street—we are stalled in traffic again—I see a sign that reads “Daimant Wedding.” So far I have been mostly discussing the comparison of different paradigms within science. Would this represent what is “perfect” for you? What about the comparison of science with entirely different approaches to knowledge? A well-cut diamond, after all, is a perfect thing, isn’t it? Here Kuhn is sometimes read as a relativist, but this is clearly a mistake. And some people think of weddings as very beautiful. Kuhn thought that the overall structure of modern scientific investigation gives us a uniquely efficient way of studying the world.
YJL: Yes, as the greatest art of one’s life! So if we want to compare scientific procedures of investigation with nonscientific ones. In fact, it’s great performance art! It is clear that Kuhn thought science was superior.
MM: So, in your view, life, then, is performance art. He was not a relativist about this issue.
YJL: Yes, our life is a performance. And this is perhaps the most important issue.
MM: Let me ask you something else: What do you think of the democratic idea that every man is an artist? This concludes my discussion of incommensurability and relativism.
YJL: In the modern age, every person can be an artist, whereas earlier people felt that only a genius could be an artist, and it was impossible for ordinary people. There is, however, one more issue that is often grouped with the problem of incommensurability:
MM: Now, let’s bring the question closer to home. You by profession are an art critic. May we say that every man is also a critic? And that is the “theory-ladenness” of observation.
YJL: I agree with this too.
MM: Oh, you do?!?
YJL: Yes, it is easy to complain. So we may say that everyone is a critic.
MM and YJL: [Laughter.]
MM: Then to be a critic, for you, is to complain! Kuhn argued that we cannot think of observation as a neutral source of information for choosing between theories.
YJL: Yes, we might say that.
MM: You mean you wouldn’t complain if I said that.
YJL: [Laughter.] No.
MM: But to be more serious, for a moment . . . Because what people see is influenced by their paradigm. We know of course that the word behind the modern English word “criticism” is the Greek word for “judging.” About the same time Kuhn, along with others, developed radical views concerning observation itself.
YJL: Well, criticism means several things. This is an important topic. It has the function of judging, and of complaining, and also of description or evaluation, and interpretation. As it challenges empiricism in a fundamental way.
MM: So what, may I ask, in your own criticism do you strive to accomplish? This topic will be taken up again in Chapter 10.
YJL: I mostly . . . compliment the artist.
MM: Well, thank you!
YJL: [Laughter.]
Clouds surround Halla most days. From ancient times people hesitated to climb her slopes, because they regarded the site as a holy place. They would also predict a good harvest and the coming of storms by looking at the shapes of the clouds coiled around the mountain as well as the ones on top of the mountain. We arrive at Jungman Resort by car and decide to stop for coffee at the Silla Garden Hotel.
There is a ceremonial platform used to give religious services to the heavens on the north side of Baeklokdam, which is the summit. In the mountains were many different animals, such as wild boar and deer, badgers and various kinds of fowl, such as pheasants and five-colored woodpeckers, finches and eight-colored birds. First, however, we take a walk in the beautiful gardens, mounting to Honeymoon Lane.
It is said that Bulrucho, the herb of eternal life, grew there. One leaf of this plant alone will enable a person to live forever, and Yeongi mushrooms also grew here. The gods would ride white deer and eat these plants. Also, in every valley there grew flowers and herbs with mysterious hidden fragrances. After posing for many photographs, we return to Badang Lounge to take seats in the rattan chairs of its lobby.
It has been said that if woodcutters, herbalists or hikers who are in the mountains shout too loud or do something wrong, then a thick mist will envelope them, causing their way to be obscured, because, they say, Halla Mountain is a place where the gods live and play tricks with the clouds and the wind, so that mere mortals cannot approach easily. We order cake for Hari, black coffee for Madame Moon and YJL, iced coffee for MM.
In summer the gods would take strolls to look at beautiful flowers and send out white cumulus clouds from the deep caves in the mountain. If the deer that they had been riding grew thirsty, they would take them to Baeklodam and allow them to drink the clear sky-blue water. The lobby floor is paved in beige marble; tan chairs have been set on beautiful brown rugs, rectangular tables in blond wood arranged before them.
This is why the name Baeklokdam came to be, because it means a lake where white deer come to drink. In olden times, when Seolmundae Halmang created Halla Mountain, the uppermost part was a sharp peak. And here is the reason why Baeklokdam became a round sunken lake. Holes have been made in the floors to accommodate the trunks of slender trees, stationary in this, our own luxurious, breezeless, climate-controlled ambiance.
One day a hunter climbed Halla Mountain to catch a deer. When he spotted his prey, he ran after it with his bow and arrow held high. Meanwhile the frantic deer escaped, managing to hide in the robes of the Lord of Heaven, who had come down to Halla Mountain so as to enjoy a nap. Expensive grey and blue cushions adorn grey fabric sofas, situated under the glow of inset ceiling lamps high above.
Unaware of the great god’s presence, the hunter had shot an arrow at the deer. Unfortunately, the arrow flicked the buttocks of the Lord of Heaven. So enraged did he become that he grabbed the peak of Halla Mountain and threw it westwards, where it landed and became Sanbang Mountain. Bordered by regular rows of reddish-orange plants, eight little fountains, each with a ring of twenty pipes, are musically gurgling.
We now reach Lakatos’s principles of scientific change. Restaurant interior, sparse clientele, the last client departing to leave author alone for uninterrupted program of research. To Lakatos a research program is roughly analogous to a Kuhnian paradigm. Available equipment: TV; a ten meter long, one meter high menu extending between exterior wall and inset kitchen; a horizontal photographic mural of the misty blue lake in the crater of Halla Mountain; restaurant paraphernalia. The big difference is that there is usually more than one research program per field at any given time.
What we actually find in science, according to Lakatos, is competition between research programs. Cooking utensils visible within the kitchen: a huge silver whisk hanging on a cream tiled wall; a large aluminum pot sitting on the floor; another, balanced on the stove, blue and orange flames bathing its underside. This is essential to rationality and progress. Eating utensils, stacked on shelves in an open pantry to one side of the kitchen: sectioned plates in blue molded plastic; white bowls turned upside down. He applies this rule to everything from physics to the social sciences.
Red rubberized handles of scissors protrude from a white container fashioned from a cut-off plastic bottle. Imre Lakatos had a remarkable life. A dispenser of cleaning fluid for tabletops, counters and walls. Born in Hungary, he joined the resistance to the Nazi occupation during World War II. In the dining area: a white touch-tone phone; a stainless steel case for cups; a symmetrically designed refrigerator for kimchi. After the war he worked in politics and was jailed for over three years by the Stalinist regime. It is 6:56 am, says the upper-left-hand corner of the TV screen.
Lakatos left Hungary, made his way to England, and eventually ended up at the London School of Economics. But the TV itself. Working with Karl Popper. Is showing midday scenes from Sudan, as a reporter brings to a close a background piece on the Sudanese life style, its quick montage overlaid with a generalized commentary: He often claimed that his main ideas were implicit in Popper. A charcoal stove; sacks of rice being downloaded; two donkeys harnessed to a cart; a man shoveling wind-blown sand away from a wall. It is better to consider Lakatos’s ideas in their own terms.
As the sands begin to swirl again, the camera pulls back, the narrator’s voice ceases, the tones of drum, flute and gong commencing. Let us look at his conception of change within research programs. We cut to a three-shot of the news anchors, each ready to introduce a new story, thence to the introducer of the next segment: The first rule is that changes should only be made to the protective belt, never to the hard core. Three Korean girls bow their heads and cover their faces as policemen conduct a KTV raid. The second rule is that changes to the protective belt should be progressive.
It is 7:02 am. A progressive research program constantly expands its application to a larger and larger set of cases. A digital calendar for October has its “18” highlighted in red, then rotated up and out of the frame. Or strives for a more precise treatment of the cases it currently covers. A still photo of students at their school desks is palely superimposed over statistics: 11.1% emphasized. A progressive research program is one that succeeds in increasing its predictive power. More hallway, more classroom imagery; the principal responds to a question; then back to the anchor. It is 7:04
A girl and her boyfriend have entered the restaurant. In contrast, a research program is degenerating if the changes that are being made to it. (Having taken a seat in front of author, they unaccountably move to sit at the table next to him.) Only serve to cover existing problems. On the coral and dirty pink checkerboard floor tiles beneath their table two cigarettes have been crushed and lie desultorily, their ashes scattered between them. If they do not extend the research programs to new cases. The morning news cuts to a story concerning the presence of Korean troops in Iraq.
Lakatos assumed that all research programs are faced with anomalies. In her red plastic-coated apron, diagonally striped brown-and-yellow blouse the restaurateuse lifts a piece of meat from the boiling oil of her wok. A degenerating research program is one that is falling behind. Using a pair of large wooden chopsticks. Or only barely keeping up its attempt to deal with anomalies. The TV screen shows (from the pitcher’s perspective) a Korean baseball player getting a base hit. A progressive research program fends off refutation and also extends itself to cover new phenomena. It is 7:09.
Now let us look at the higher level of change in Lakatos’s system. The young couple chows down: The change, that is, at the level of the research programs in any given scientific field. The white-athletic-suited guy, on a stainless-steel bowl of glutinous dumplings floating in broth; the black-jacketed girl, on a cutlet immersed in gravy, accompanied by a multitude of condiments and side dishes. For Lakatos thought that, in principle, we could measure how quickly a research program is progressing. In the guy’s right hand are both a pair of idle chopsticks and the spoon that he’s using.
Meanwhile, on TV, two robots are being caused to wrestle on the floor by a man seated in a chair, a radio control in his hand. Each field will have some programs that are progressing rapidly. A thin plant in a rather elegant vase upstages the volcanic lake mural. Some that are progressing slowly. A white two-liter plastic jug of “Gold” [red] “Mayonnaise” [black].” And others that are degenerating. Behind a rank of containers with handles, including a rice cooker and a large soup tureen, an air conditioner sits also idle. So you might think the next rule for Lakatos would be obvious:
“Choose the most progressive research program.” On the wall, above author’s head and to his right, in a gold frame with maroon mat, is a three-dimensional fish. To do so would establish a decision procedure for scientists looking at their whole field. The girl, without saying a word to her boyfriend, pushes back from the table, stands up, and prepares to leave the restaurant. It would give us a way of deciding who is making rational or irrational decisions. Which causes the guy in the training suit to take a long look at his girlfriend and, finally, to decide that he should do likewise.
But that is not what Lakatos said. Author orders a second cup of coffee, which arrives in the same small green cup. For Lakatos, it is acceptable to protect a research program for a while, even if it is degenerating. An ink brush drawing of a branch of fruit with leaves, labeled “Jabtku,” has been inset in sepia on a beige ground. It might recover. The cup of coffee has been prepared with a minimum of coffee, no sugar and no cream. This is even the case when another research program has overtaken it. Eager to finish his task, and lacking the language to complain, author decides not to.
The history of science contains instances of research programs recovering from temporary bad periods. Within a refrigerated case, its side accessible through sliding glass doors. So a reasonable person can wait around and hope for recovery. Are visible plastic bags of frozen French fries, zip-locked bags of other food, two Teflon containers. How long is it reasonable to wait? None of the latter reveals its contents from this perspective. Lakatos does not say. “Hite,” says the green lettering beneath a Hangeul inscription at the refrigerator’s white, diagonally green-striped base.
Feyerabend swooped on this point. Atop the case sits an upside-down black motor scooter helmet, its straps dusted with white flour. For it proves to be the Achilles’ heel in Lakatos’ whole story. Surrounding it is a clutter of objects, consisting of a large square calculator stuck into another cut-off plastic bottle. If Lakatos does not give us a rule for when a rational scientist should give up on one research program. A bunch of desk calendars stuffed into an openwork plastic container. And switch to another program. A half-eaten plate of dumplings. Then his theory of rational choice is empty.
Is there, then, a third rule that tells us how to handle decisions? Piled account ledgers. Not really. A turquoise plastic tray. Lakatos did say that the decision to stay with a degenerating research program is high-risk. Whose contents from this angle are also unidentifiable. Nonetheless he still might advise the rational scientist to stay with a degenerating research program. Behind author’s back the morning’s first municipal bus, having stopped before the restaurant to take on a passenger, shifts gears, accelerates and groans up the rather steep hill toward a major intersection.
But only if he or she is willing to tolerate high risk. On TV, at 7:38, we are being treated to the antics of a group of orange-suited soldiers. Lakatos is right that different people can reasonably have very different attitudes toward risk. Who have somehow been induced to take part in a jump rope competition. But he did not follow up on this suggestion so as to close the gap in his theory. Overly energetic, they are collectively exhibiting a lack of decorum, encouraged by the program’s announcer, who corrals several soldiers into jumping over a single rope like school kids.
The appearance of order and methodological strictness in Lakatos’s philosophy is much undermined by his failure to say something definite about this crucial point. The TV news broadcast concludes with a pullback shot that reveals the word “WIDE,” its “W” in orange, its “I” in black, its “D” in green, its “E” in blue. Feyerabend saw a mismatch between the rhetoric and the reality of Lakatos’s views. The next segment, a news magazine, begins exactly at 7:50 with a very brief documentary of Korean vacationers setting out on a leisurely climb up the 2000-foot “Halla San.”
This is a good place to emphasize the vast difference between Lakatos and Kuhn with regard to underlying attitudes. Author for the first time glances over his shoulder at the traffic descending the hill (a silver off road vehicle) and mounting it (a white truck). Kuhn has confidence in the shared standards implicit in paradigms. “Samsung,” say blue letters almost included in a white ellipse against a uniformly blue ground. And the ability of science to find a way forward after crises. A black van descends, passing an ascending red truck, whose driver glances through the window at author.
For Kuhn, once we rid our scientific picture of several myths, the picture we are left with is fundamentally healthy. Once upon a time, in the land of Ju-nyeon, there lived an old couple. They had a lot of land, money and servants and nothing to complain of. There was, however, one problem. Kuhn trusts science left in the hands of implicitly shared values. They had no children. Lakatos wants to have the whole enterprise guided by methodological rules. Even though they were close to the age of fifty.
So, they donated rice to a begging monk, prayed for 100 days at a temple and begot a daughter. Let us not worry further about the oddities in Lakatos’s view. They called her Jacheongbi. Instead, let us ask: Because they had prayed and asked for a child. Does his picture of the structure of science have any useful elements? Years passed, and when Jacheongbi turned fifteen she met Mun Wang-sung, the son of the Lord of Heaven, who had come down to study the mortal world at the public clothes-washing site.
Once we ask this question, I think it is clear that the basic idea of competing research programs is a useful one. They fell in love at first sight. Jacheongbi asked Mun Wang-sung to take her older brother with him to pursue his studies. But she also wanted to tag along herself. Her parents tried to dissuade her, saying that a woman’s life would be hard if she had an education (like modern Korean women), but Jacheongbi disguised herself as a man and followed Master Mun anyway, posing as her older brother.
From that day on, the two of them ate from the same pot, slept in the same bed and read together at school. Before long Master Mun grew suspicious of Jacheongbi’s reading voice, but there was no way that he could tell whether Jacheongbi was a man or a woman. Furthermore, he could not even begin to compete with her excellence in her studies. Certainly there are some fields where this seems a far more accurate description of what goes on than Kuhn’s paradigm-based view.
One day, Master Mun thought of an excellent plan to determine the gender of Jacheongbi. Psychology is an obvious example. He made a bet with her: that he could pee further than she could. Jacheongbi was worried about what might be the outcome, but she gave her consent nonchalantly, as if there were nothing wrong. Current work in “evolutionary psychology” looks a lot like a research program in Lakatos’s sense. So one moonlit night the two of them agreed to have their contest.
When Master Mun wasn’t looking, Jacheongbi cut a stick from a bamboo tree, inserted it in her pants and pushed with all her might. Master Mun, though he happened to win the context, was still very impressed by his opponent’s virility and at once gave up all his suspicions as to Jacheongbi’s gender. Instead, the two friends returned to their studies and redoubled their efforts to succeed. We might also consider the possibilit