Korea University

One would have thought we were at Duke University  looking by looking  at our surroundings!  Korea University is built on a hillside with beautiful shade trees and massive granite halls of learning.  It was a wonderful setting for the series of lectures we will be attending this week. 

The morning was spent in a Korean language seminar.  We learned King Sejong's writing system, which was originally called "The Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People" - turns out it does make a lot of sense and is fairly easy to figure out.  Evidently some of the world languages that do not have a writing system are adopting Hangul script as a way of putting their language to paper because of its clarity and logic.  Fun facts:

• Korean is the 11th most spoken language in the world! (80 million speakers)
• King Segong secretly used dissection (which was illegal in Korea at the time) to study the throat and tongue in order to understand how sounds are generated
• Largely because of their writing system, based on phonographs rather than ideographs, the literacy rate in Korea is about 98%

After a formal welcome luncheon at the university we had a lecture on Korean traditional arts.  Our erudite lecturer, Moonjung Choi, explained Korean art from ancient rock carvings to Joseon dynasty paintings of the 1700s.  It's interesting to note that Korea has served as a transmitter of culture from China to Japan.  She noted that whatever art trend appeared in China one century would appear in Korea the next and would finally appear in Japan the century after that.  We also learned how Buddhism affected Korean art, giving way to more simple, frugal, and noble ideals of Confucianism during the Joseon period.  I love it when I can connect what I'm seeing in art to what was happening in history at the time.  Because Koreans identified Buddhist art with the corruption and extravagance of older dynasties, Confucian pottery tended to be white (purity) and undecorated (frugality).  When decorations are found on ceramics from this period, they are of bamboo (which grows straight up without branching off - loyalty), pine trees (which are evergreen and never change - fidelity) or plum blossoms (which bloom in the early spring when it's still frosty - perseverance)... all Confucian values.

Our final lecture was an entertaining, witty, and interactive one by Professor Andrea Eungi Kim on the symbols, language, norms and values of Korean culture.  Interesting tidbits from this lecture include that Christianity is the most prevalent religion in Korea.  He explained by having ritual feasts on the death of ancestors, Koreans "become one" with the ancestors and he drew a comparison between this and the Eucharist, which also guarantees spiritual immortality.  Another topic was the Confucian ideal, including an overwhelming emphasis on education.  Teachers are held in high esteem and apparently Teachers Day is as or more important to Koreans as Mothers Day - teachers are showered with gifts from the students and parents!