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CULTURAL ADAPTATION

NEW IN KOREA? Feeling the strain? You are much better off than we were. At least you can read Dr Crane’s Korean Patterns (1967). Beg, borrow or steal it. It tells you how the Korean mind works and the areas in which a foreigner must be particularly careful. Insightfully, Crane begins not with relationships, which would be the obvious place to start, but with kibun. There is no English word for kibun, but when you have been in Korea for a while, you’ll know all about it. Kibun controls everything. With good kibun, you feel good; with bad kibun, you feel bad. By the time you motor through the gradations of good, better and best, not to mention bad, worse and worst, you’ll know a lot about kibun. For one thing, you’ll know that it’s not just a matter of your kibun; the other person’s kibun is important too. That’s lesson number one.

Directions

Kibun controls the show.

Rationalize afterwards, if you must.

Don’t shirk the bill, though.

Consequences never go.

And read Yi Munyŏl’s Our Twisted Hero. This book gives the psychology of relationships and consequently of power in Korea. Ultimately, it is an allegory on power, said to be like The Lord of the Flies but really very different. It is an allegory about the abuse of power during the era of the generals in the ’80s, but the way relationships work here shows how they have worked throughout history at all levels of Korean society, from government to hospitals and schools, from crooks to bishops.

Ŏm Sŏkdae, monitor of the sixth grade in an elementary school, rules his class with an iron fist. A sinister, shadowy figure, he terrorizes his classmates into abject submission, reducing them to cringing, fawning pawns. He beats them, takes their money, uses them to cheat on exams, collects ‘dues’, sells preferment and in general insists on being treated as a king. The story is told from the point of view of a transfer student from Seoul who challenges Sŏkdae’s dictatorship. A long, lonely struggle ensues, which ends in the capitulation of the Seoul boy. However, in capitulation, the Seoul boy discovers a new side to Sŏkdae’s corrupt regime: he begins to taste the sweets of special favour and power. The Seoul boy becomes Sŏkdae’s reluctant lieutenant.

A new teacher takes over the class and is suspicious of Sŏkdae. An investigation reveals that Sŏkdae has been cheating on his exams. The teacher gives him a severe beating, humiliating him in front of the class. The boys who had supported Sŏkdae so loyally now turn on him like snakes. The Seoul boy is the only exception.

After Sŏkdae’s departure, the long process of restoring democratic procedures in the class begins. Boys are elected to positions of responsibility and just as quickly deposed; some groups act recklessly, some groups do not act at all. In the end, after much pain and soul searching dignity is restored to all.

Our Twisted Hero shows the boys under extreme pressure: how they react to power and against power, and how their parents and teachers react. Everything here is grist to the mill. The story is extremely well constructed, expertly told, and the characterization is excellent. The only weakness in the story is a rather debatable ending, which sees the hero carted off in handcuffs many years after the main action has concluded. The truth is that in Korea Sŏkdae types succeed. The end was probably dictated by concern over critical reaction to the moral implications of the theme. Despite this flaw, Our Twisted Hero is a considerable achievement. Published first by Mineumsa in Seoul in 1988 just before the Olympics, subsequently Hyperion brought it out in New York in 2001. You will read it in a couple of hours and be rewarded by an enhanced understanding of the power systems that operate in government, business, schools, hospitals, church and elsewhere.

And read Richard Rutt’s Virtuous Women. It’s a rotten title but a great book. Virtuous Women will introduce you not only to the delights of classical Korean literature but also to the intricacies of the search for inner illumination, which in Korea is the distinguishing mark of the cultivated man. The heart of the book is Rutt’s reworking of Gale’s translation of The Nine Cloud Dream, the only great novel in Korean classical literature. A symbolic narrative, it gives you an early entry into the world of personal cultivation and Korean Zen, two ideas that are sides of a coin. I use the term Zen here in the broad sense of inner illumination and insight, what the Koreans call yoyu or largess of spirit. Without yoyu and insight you won’t understand much of what happens to you in Korea. As a bonus, the volume carries a lyrical translation of a p’ansori (folk opera) version of Chosŏn’s great love story Ch’unhyang ka (Song of Ch’unhyang), guaranteed to change your feelings about the stolidness of Confucian culture.

Hŏsaeng’s Tale by Pak Chiwŏn (1737–1805), a noted Shirhak (Practical Learning) scholar and the finest prose stylist of his age, is another must read, especially if you belong to the business world. Hŏsaeng’s Tale maps out the basic strategies for making money in Korea. Copyright considerations prevent me from giving you the texts of Our Twisted Hero and The Nine Cloud Dream, but Hŏsaeng’s Tale is not burdened by such restrictions. Saengwŏn was the Mr title given to someone who passed the minor civil service examination. Mr Hŏ sounded unbelievably stuffy and Hŏ Saengwŏn unbelievably awkward. I avoided the problem by calling the hero Hŏsaeng.

HŎSAENG’S TALE

Hŏsaeng lived in Mukchok Village. The village well was at the top of Namsan valley where an ancient ginko pointed at the sky; the wicker gate of Hŏsaeng’s house, invariably open, faced the gingko. The house was more hut than anything else, a two-room straw affair that had virtually been blown away by wind and rain. Hŏsaeng blithely ignored the ravishes of wind and rain; all he ever wanted was to recite the classics. Meanwhile, his wife, courtesy of her needlework, managed – with great difficulty – to keep food in their mouths. Today she was very hungry.

‘What use is all your reading?’ she cried tearfully. ‘You’re never going to take the state examination.’

‘I haven’t completed my studies yet,’ Hŏsaeng said with a laugh.

‘Can’t you work at a trade?’ she asked.

‘How can I?’ he replied. ‘I never learned a trade.’

‘Can’t you start a business?’

‘How can I?’ he said. ‘I don’t have the capital to start a business.’

She was really angry now. ‘How can I, how can I? Is that it? Words, words! Is that all you have from all your reading?’ she shouted. ‘How can I work at a trade? How can I start a business? Maybe my honourable husband could be a thief?’

Hŏsaeng closed his book and got abruptly to his feet. ‘Such a pity,’ he said. ‘I gave myself ten years to complete my reading; I’ve only had seven….’

Hŏsaeng disappeared out the door. He knew no one in the town, so he paraded up and down Chongno and eventually buttonholed a passerby.

‘Who’s the richest man in Hanyang?’ he asked. Hanyang was an old name for Seoul.

‘Mr Pyŏn!’ the passerby said.

Hŏsaeng quickly searched out Pyŏn’s house.

‘I’m a poor man,’ Hŏsaeng said, bowing politely to Pyŏn. ‘I have no money,’ he continued, getting straight to the point, ‘but I have an idea worth trying out. Will you lend me 10,000 nyang?’

‘Certainly,’ Pyŏn said, and he handed over the money on the spot.

Hŏsaeng left without even saying thanks. Tattered belt, missing tassel, crooked heels, shabby coat, battered hat, runny nose – to the eyes of Pyŏn’s sons and the hangers-on that filled the house the stranger looked like a beggar. They couldn’t make sense of what had happened.

‘Do you know that man?’ they asked when Hŏsaeng left the room.

‘No, not at all,’ Pyŏn said.

‘You throw 10,000 nyang to someone you’ve never seen in your life. You don’t even ask his name. What’s going on?’

‘You wouldn’t understand. A man coming to borrow usually wears his heart on his sleeve. He protests his reliability but has servility written across his face. And he keeps repeating himself. This man’s appearance was shabby, but he spoke simply. He had pride in his eyes, no trace of shame in his face; he was obviously a man who would be content without material possessions. A man like that who says he has a plan wouldn’t be contemplating something small. And anyway I wanted to test him. If I wasn’t going to give him the money, I might ask his name, but I didn’t see much point in asking when I’d already decided to give him the money.’

Hŏsaeng did not go home. Cash in hand he headed straight for Ansŏng. Ansŏng is the crossroads between Kyŏnggi and Ch’ungch’ŏng, the town where the three southern provinces come together. He got himself a place to stay and began buying all the fruit in the locality: dates, chestnuts, persimmons, pears, apricots, tangerines, citrons, everything. To those willing to sell he paid the going price; to those not so willing to sell he paid double the going price. And he stored all his produce. Soon he had all the fruit in the countryside and the gentry discovered they could not hold a feast or offer a ritual sacrifice. So the merchants came back to Hŏsaeng, and the fruit they sold at double the price they now bought back at ten times the price.

Hŏsaeng heaved a deep sigh. The sad state of the country is pretty obvious when 10,000 nyang can control the fruit market.

Hŏsaeng took knives, hoes, and dry goods to Cheju Island where he bought all the horsehair he could get.

‘Soon,’ he said, ‘no one will be able to cover their topknots.’

Sure enough, before very long horsehair hats were ten times the price. Hŏsaeng made a million nyang from his horsehair trading.

One day Hŏsaeng met an old sailor. ‘Do you know of an uninhabited island,’ he asked, ‘where a man might live?’

‘Yes,’ the boatman said. I know of such an island. We got caught once in high winds and rough seas and sailed due west for four days. Eventually we came to an island. It’s about halfway between Samun and Changgi. Trees and flowers in profusion; fruits and berries everywhere; wild animals in flocks; fish without fear of men.

Hŏsaeng was delighted. ‘If you take me there,’ he said, ‘we can both be rich.’

The boatman agreed to take him.

And so it was that on a day when the wind blew fair, the two men rode the wind southeast until they reached the island. Hŏsaeng climbed to the top of a high rock and surveyed the scene.

‘The island is so small,’ he said with palpable disappointment, ‘it’s hard to know what to do. But the soil is fertile, and the water is good. I suppose I can live the life of a rich old man.’

‘But who will we live with?’ the boatman said. ‘There’s no one here.’

‘People gather wherever virtue raises its head,’ Hŏsaeng answered. ‘It’s the lack of virtue not people that worries me.’

Pyŏnsan at the time was teeming with robbers. The authorities recruited soldiers from all over the country to round up the robbers, but the robbers were not easy to capture. The robbers, of course, could not live normal lives. They were forced to hide in remote places, and they were often hungry. Their situation was dire.

Hŏsaeng went to the robbers’ mountain camp and tried to win over their leader.

‘If a thousand men steal a thousand nyang, how much is that a head?’

‘One nyang a head.’

‘Have you all got wives?’

‘No.’

‘Have you land, dry fields or wet?’

‘No.’

The robbers laughed at the incongruity of the questions. ‘If a man had land, wife and children, would he choose the bitter life of a robber?’ they asked.

‘So why don’t you get wives, build houses, buy oxen, and cultivate the land?’ Hŏsaeng asked. ‘You wouldn’t have to suffer the indignity of being called dirty thieves,’ he said. ‘You’d have the pleasures of married life. You could go around without fear of capture. You’d be rich in spirit.’

The robbers were in total agreement. ‘Of course,’ they said, ‘we want that kind of life. We just don’t have the money?’

‘Thieves worried about money?’ Hŏsaeng said. ‘That’s a good one! All right, I’ll give you the money. Come to the shore tomorrow. You’ll see boats with red flags; they’re loaded with money. Take as much as you want.’

Hŏsaeng gave his pledge and left. The robbers laughed. They said he was crazy.

Next day the robbers went down to the shore. Sure enough, Hŏsaeng was waiting there with 300,000 nyang. They were all amazed.

‘General,’ they said, bowing deeply, ‘we await your command.’

‘Good,’ Hŏsaeng said. ‘Take as much money as you can.’

The robbers fell on the bags, fighting with one another to get at the money first. It was purely an exercise in greed; not even the strongest among them was able to carry 100 nyang.

‘I feel sorry for you lot,’ Hŏsaeng said. ‘You’re not much good as thieves, hardly able to carry off 100 nyang; and there’s no point in trying to be respectable because your names are on the thieves roll. There’s just no way out for you. Take 100 nyang each and come back with wives and oxen. We’ll see how good you are then.’

The robbers agreed and scattered, each with a moneybag on his shoulder.

Meanwhile Hŏsaeng prepared a year’s provisions for two thousand people. Then he waited. The robbers returned to a man. On the appointed day, he got them all on board ship and sailed to the uninhabited island. Peace reigned in the mainland; Hŏsaeng had cleaned out all the robbers.

The robbers hewed wood and built houses in their new island home; they wove bamboo and made animal folds. The land was so fertile that the hundred grains grew vigorously. In a single year the fields produced the grain of three years; each stalk had nine ears. The robbers stored a three-year supply of grain, loaded the rest on boats and sold it in Changgi Island, a Japanese territory where the crops had repeatedly failed. They netted 1,000,000 nyang in silver from the relief they provided.

‘My little experiment is over,’ Hŏsaeng said with a sigh.

Hŏsaeng gathered together his two thousand men and women. ‘When I brought you here,’ he said, ‘I thought to make you all rich first and then to set up a new literary and administrative culture. But the land area is small and the signs of virtue shallow. I must leave this place. I advise you to put spoons in the right hands of your newborn; first from the womb should eat first.

Hŏsaeng burned the boats. ‘You can’t leave,’ he said, and outsiders can’t come.’ Then he threw 500,000 nyang into the sea. ‘If the sea dries up,’ he said, ‘someone will take it. 1,000,000 nyang is more money than this place can handle. What would a tiny island do with such a huge sum?’ he said. Then he took all those who could read and write and put them on his ship. ‘The roots of evil must be removed from the island,’ he said.

Hŏsaeng travelled all over the country, helping the poor and the weak. Finally, 100,000 nyang in silver remained. ‘With this,’ he declared, ‘I will repay Pyŏn.’

Hŏsaeng went to see Pyŏn.

‘Do you remember me?’ he asked.

Pyŏn was somewhat taken aback.

‘You don’t look any better now than you did then,’ he said. ‘Did you lose the 10,000 nyang?’

Hŏsaeng laughed.

‘Well-oiled faces belong to wealthy people like you,’ he said. ‘Does 100,000 nyang give knowledge of the Way?’ he said as he handed over 100,000 nyang. ‘It is to my eternal shame,’ Hŏsaeng continued, ‘that I borrowed 10,000 nyang from you. I gave up my reading because of a morning’s hunger.’

Pyŏn got to his feet in amazement, bowed and refused the money. He would accept, he declared, ten percent interest.

‘Do you think I’m a hawker?’ cried a very angry Hŏsaeng. He brushed past Pyŏn’s restraining arm and left.

Pyŏn followed discreetly. From a distance he saw Hŏsaeng disappear into a small, dilapidated straw hut at the foot of Namsan. He noticed an old granny doing her washing at the well and went across to talk to her.

‘Who owns that tiny straw hut?’ Pyŏn asked.

‘It belongs to Master Hŏ,’ she answered. ‘The master was always content to study; he lived a life of poverty. Then one day he walked out the wicker gate and he hasn’t been back in five years. His wife lives alone now. She observes the day he left as a day of ritual offering.’

Pyŏn knew now that the man’s name was Hŏ. He sighed and turned back.

Next day, Pyŏn gathered up the money and went to Hŏsaeng’s house to return it, but Hŏsaeng would not accept it.

‘If I wanted to be rich, would I throw away 1,000,000 nyang and take 100,000? But if you insist on supporting me, that’s fine. Come and see me from time to time. Make sure our grain bin isn’t empty; see to it that we have clothes to wear. I’ll be content with that. I don’t want the burden of material possessions.

Pyŏn tried everything to get Hŏsaeng to change his mind, but it was no use. From then on, when grain or clothes were needed, Pyŏn came in person and helped out. Hŏsaeng accepted his help gladly unless he brought too much, in which case he would frown and say, ‘Are you trying to ruin me?’ But if Pyŏn brought a jar of wine, Hŏsaeng was always very pleased. They would drink until they were drunk.

In the course of a few years, a strong bond of fine feeling grew between the two men. One day Pyŏn quietly asked Hŏsaeng how he had managed to make 1,000,000 nyang in five years. Hŏsaeng told him.

‘It’s easy,’ he said. ‘Chosŏn boats don’t ply the seas; Chosŏn carts don’t travel the roads. Commodities in this country begin and end their lives in the same place. 1,000 nyang is not a lot of money; it’s not enough to get a monopoly on any item. But break it into ten 100 nyang units and you can now buy ten items. Small items are easily handled. Lose on one and make on the other nine. That’s the normal principle of profit; that’s what hucksters do. With 10,000 nyang, however, you can easily have a monopoly on one item. The principle is to get a corner on the market. Fill carts, load boats. If it’s a village, buy the whole village. Catch everything in one tight net. Of the ten thousand species of fish in the sea, get a monopoly on one. Of the ten thousand medicinal herbs and plants used by physicians, get a monopoly on one. When a commodity is concentrated in the hands of one man, the hucksters soon run out of supplies. This, of course, is bad for the people. If the authorities ever made use of my methods, it would be disastrous for the country.’

‘How did you know I’d give you the money?’

‘Anyone with 10,000 nyang would have lent me the money; you weren’t my only hope. I believed in my ability to make 1,000,000. Fate, of course, is in the hands of Heaven, so I had no way of knowing whether you would give me the money or not. But the man who listened to me was fated to be a lucky man because Heaven, not me, was in control of whether he got richer. So why not lend me the money? When money is lent, the money takes over: it creates its own success. Were it up to me personally, who knows whether I would have succeeded or failed?

Pyŏn changed the subject. ‘These days,’ he said, ‘The scholar-officials are intent on wiping out the disgrace they suffered in Namhansan Fortress at the hands of the barbarians. Isn’t it time for high-minded scholars to stand up and be counted? A man of your talent, why bury yourself here?’

‘A-ha! Men have buried themselves throughout history. What about Cho Songgi? He proved himself an excellent envoy when he was sent to the enemy, but he died an old pauper. And what about the hermit Yu Hyŏngwŏn? He could have procured the provisions for the army, but he spent his time idling by the rugged sea. Those in authority will know all about these cases. I’m a man who knows how to buy and sell. The money I made was enough to buy the heads of nine kings, but I threw it into the sea and came home because there was nowhere to use it in this country.’

Pyŏn sighed and went away.

Pyŏn had been on friendly terms for some time with Yi Wan, a minister of state. Yi Wan was a special adviser to the king and he wondered if Pyŏn knew any man of talent who might serve the king. Pyŏn told him Hŏsaeng’s story.

‘Amazing,’ the minister exclaimed. ‘Can it be true? What did you say his name was?’

‘I’ve been acquainted with the man for three years, Minister, but I still don’t know his given name.’

‘He’s obviously an extraordinary man. Let’s go to see him.’

That night Minister Yi sent his soldiers away and set out on foot with Pyŏn for Hŏsaeng’s house. Pyŏn told the minister to wait at the gate and went in alone to tell Hŏsaeng the background of the minister’s visit. Hŏsaeng acted as if he hadn’t heard. ‘Let’s have the wine you brought,’ he said and they proceeded to enjoy the wine. Pyŏn kept mentioning the minister’s mission. He was embarrassed because Hŏsaeng kept the minister waiting outside. For a long time Hŏsaeng made no response, but eventually, late into the night, he allowed the minister to come in. However, he didn’t get up to greet him. The minister was a bit nonplussed at first. He began to explain why he had come. He said he was looking for capable people in the government. Hŏsaeng cut him off with a wave of the hand.

‘The night is short,’ Hŏsaeng said. ‘Too much talk. It’s boring. What did you say your official post was?’

‘I’m a minister of state.’

‘Well then, you have the trust of the country. I recommend Waryong, Reclining Dragon, a man comparable in brilliance to Chuko Liang. Can you get the king to visit him three times in his straw hut and issue a formal invitation to service?’

Minister Yi bowed his head in thought for some time.

‘That would be difficult,’ he said. ‘Can I hear a second proposal?’

‘The word second is not in my vocabulary,’ Hŏsaeng said, looking away from the minister but at the same time unable to resist the minister’s question.

‘Many of the descendents of the Ming lords thought Chosŏn owed them something, so they took refuge in this country, wandering around without much purpose. Would you ask the court to have the royal household give their daughters in marriage to these émigrés? And can you plunder the households of Kim Ryu and Chang Yu and use their possessions to set these émigrés up with material possessions?’

Minister Yi bowed his head in thought for a long time.

‘That would be difficult,’ he said

‘Difficult, difficult, everything’s difficult!’ Hŏsaeng cried. ‘So what can you do? Here’s something really easy. Can you do this?’

‘I’m willing to listen,’ the minister said.

‘Before espousing any great cause under Heaven, it is necessary to conspire with the great heroes under Heaven. If you want to attack a country, you must send secret agents first. Otherwise you won’t succeed. The Manchus are now the lords of Heaven. They don’t have very cordial relations with the Chinese, but they trust us completely. Of course, Chosŏn was the first nation to bow to their dominion. Tang and Yuan of old accepted our children as students and promoted them in the civil service. The Manchus will do likewise. And if we ask them, they won’t forbid our merchants entry. They will accede to our requests because they will see our efforts as motivated by friendliness. So pick your young men. Cut their hair. Dress them in barbarian clothes. The scholars among them can take the examination for foreigners. The peasants can cross the Yangzi; operate as merchants, gather information on the state of the land and conspire with local heroes to turn the world upside down. Thus we can wash away our national disgrace. And if you cannot find a suitable candidate for emperor among the descendants of the Ming, get the great chieftains under Heaven to recommend a candidate. If you succeed, you will have played a master’s role in setting up a great nation; if you fail, you will at least retain your status as elder uncles of the emperor of the land of the white gulls.’

Hŏsaeng finished his long harangue.

Minister Yi said, ‘The scholar-officials are most fastidious about decorum. They’re not going to cut their hair and wear barbarian dress.’

Hŏsaeng was angry again.

‘Who are these self-styled scholar officials,’ he said chidingly. ‘Born in a barbarian land, they boast of scholar-official status. What could be more foolish? The white clothes they wear is the dress of merchants. They wear their hair up, gimlet style, aping the manners of the southern barbarians. What’s all this decorum talk? Fan Uch’i thought nothing of his hair when it came to repaying his enemies. King Wuling didn’t think it shameful to wear barbarian dress when it was a matter of making the nation strong. You want to have revenge on your enemies, you say, but you make a big deal of your hair. In a time that calls for galloping on horseback, brandishing swords, throwing spears, drawing bows, and casting stones, you insist on wide sleeves and decorum! I made you three proposals. You’re not willing to do any of them and yet you call yourself a trustworthy servant of the king. Is this the model of a trustworthy servant? A man like you should have his head chopped off!’

Hŏsaeng groped for a sword to run the minister through. A frightened Minister Yi got quickly to his feet, dashed out the back door and took to his heels.

Minister Yi returned next day. The house was empty; Hŏsaeng was gone.