Donghwasa Temple

While not as huge and elaborate as Bulgoksa, and while not home to as many or as iconic National Treasures, Donghwasa was in some ways even more impressive. For one thing, it is actually functioning as a temple; monks are everywhere, seemingly heedless of the tourism, going about the business of monking. As I crossed the path of one, he stopped and pressed something into my hand. It was a little rice cake, brown in color, with nuts in it. He didn't say anything; he gave me the gift and walked briskly on. At least I hope it was a rice cake. What a beautiful experience. The feeling of serenity and power that I felt at Bulgoksa was more potent here, possibly due, not to the location, but to my frame of mind. At one point on a simple stone bridge, I was moved to tears.

Which emotion is in contrast to the awe I felt at turning the corner and seeing this:


The Tongil Daegu is one of the largest Buddhas in the world: 33 meters tall. It is not of particular historical import (it was only built in 1992), but is possible more significant for that reason. This Buddha is not an historical artefact; it is a tool in daily use by the monks of the Donghwasa area to focus their peaceful energies and spread them throughout the country. This particular Buddha represents unification, and the prayers that are constantly being focused through it are specifically for reunification with North Korea-not only a beautiful statue, but a beautiful sentiment. This speaks to what in general made Donghwasa more meaningful for me than Bulgoksa: it is real, active Buddhism, not Disneyland.

The tourist in me was altogher forgotten, though. Here's a picture of what the placard claims is Korean National Treasure no. 253, although it does not appear to be on the official list, which would make me irrationally irritated, if true.

That's right, a pair of stone flagpoles.

KSCPP: Fifty Wonders of Korea

Given that the source of this book is The Korean Spirit and Culture Promotion Project, I suppose I should not be surprised that it is entirely lacking in objectivity. The title itself should serve as a caveat emptor. The the volume is so effusive in its praise that it almost feels like it came out of the DPRK, not the ROK. In spite of this, I found the descriptions of certain Korean achievements not only interesting, but breathtaking. I shall no doubt have more to say as I see them in person, but suffice it to say that the slightly less than glorious wonders from my previous post are not on the list in this book. Rather, such things as the Korean alphabet (a wonder indeed, and one of my reasons in choosing Korea as a destination), and the invention of movable metal type--200 years before Gutenberg--deserve the praise, overboard though it goes.

For, while the Korean are good at nearly everything, they are only the best at one thing: recording information. Even the flagship of the Korean economy, Samsung, is only the best at creating memory chips. Their laptops, including and expecially the one on which I am now writing, are brokeass pieces of horseshit. But I digress. The Korean tradition of record-keeping goes back for millennia, at least as far as the Silla dynasty, but it is three elements from the Choson period (1392-1910) that propel them into the lead. The first, and in my mind most impressive item, is the Sillok, the Royal Annals of the Choson dynasty. Get a load of this: the official historian followed the King around everywhere, and recorded his every word, his every move. For five hundred years. Not only were these records meticulous--a total of 1,893 volumes--but they were completely forthright. The king wasn't even allowed to look at the records; nobody but the historians ever even saw them during the dynasty. They were there purely for the sake of posterity. Think how marvelous such a tool would be in any modern government. Every move that the President or Premier or whatever made recorded, every conversation transcribed. How much better than any ethics committee or judicial review. A veritable panacaea. My admiration for this achievement surpasses my admiration for all the architecture in the world put together.

In conjunction with this work are the Diaries of the Royal Secretariat and the Uigwe. The former is a more public, and more comprehensive version of the Sillok. It was kept by the King's staff, so it was not truly objective, but it covered far more than just the King's activities: weather, the goings-on of other officials, etc. The latter, the Uigwe, was a record of all the ceremonies and ceremonial buildings of the Dynasty, from the number of flute players to the stitching on the ceremonial garb. Every brick was documented, which made the reconstruction of certain iconic buildings destroyed during the various Japanese invasions a simple matter. Taken together, these three chronicles constitute by far the most comprehensive, objective, and congruous historical catalog anywhere in the world. Think of the questions surrounding American history, even as recent as fifty years ago. By way of contrast, there is enough information to keep Korean scholars busy for generations upon generations. It would be mathematically impossible to even read a significant portion of this body of work in a lifetime, let alone give it any sort of scholarly treatment.

If I rave a bit about these achievements, it is only because they play to my personal taste for language and information. While art and music are lovely, no single work or body of work has ever blown my mind the way the existence of these works have, and I haven't even seen them yet. It is a pity for the Japanese that the Korean memory is so powerful, for there are plenty of things which they would rather were forgotten . . .

Cheomseongdae and Bulguksa Temple

Korean culture is obsessed with the idea of kibun, often translated "dignity" or "face". This is true for individuals, but especially with the Country as a whole. Koreans are determined to be seen by the rest of the world as the greates, oldest, most advanced, or otherwise best civilization on the planet. Notice that they are not actually interested in being the greatest civilization; they are primarily interested in being seen thusly. Part of this is reflected in their near propagandizing of national features, works of art, or even native traditions. We were treated yesterday to a presentation by a Korean cultural organization about how marvelous Korea is. Of course, they are right to be proud of such things as the Sokkuram grotto, and other marvelous feats of the Silla empire. They go overboard, however. We watched a very slick, professional, ten-minute video, detailed how every stone of the grotto was placed, and how great an achievement this was: making a not-so-subtle point of how superior it is to similar grottos in India or China. It was prefectly convincing, and everyone was left awestruck. After the fifth such video, though, it began to feel a bit too earnest, almost like advertising. The zenith of their hubris came with a video about how Samsung electronics are the best in the world. This was laughable, because each of us was given a Samsung laptop to use, and they are the shittiest shit that ever shat shit.

In the same spirit of Kibun, the Korean government has compiled a list of National Treasures, architectural or artistic wonders that make Korea the best ever at everything. At first I felt like this was hugely convenient to the tourist. I could simply look at the list and start working my way through it. What I didn't realize was that, in the Korean mind, every pebble in Korea is the best pebble in the world.


So the wonders that I crossed off my list are not as impressive as I thought they would be. To begin with, I went to Choemseongdae, a 7th century observatory from the Silla empireand Korean National Treasure #31.




What is impressive about Cheomseongdae is not it's appearance or architectual majesty. It looks rather like an inflated kiln, and is not beautiful. Rather, what is most impressive about the ancient observatory is the stories behind it. Queen Seondeok, the first Korean Queen and the force behind the observatory, is a fascinating figure. She is the Solomon of Korean history, scientifically minded, analytical, and naturally curious. There is a story about her discerning from a picture of Peonies that it was a pity they had no smell. When the seeds were planted and the flowers indeed had no smell, she was asked by her advisors how she knew. She answered that there were no butterflies in the picture. A flawed answer, to be sure, but a marvelous story.


After Cheosongdae, I went to Bulguksa temple. Here the aroma of Kibun was even stronger. There are at least eight here, including these four:

That's right, there are four National Treasures in this picture, not counting me. The beautiful pagodas? No the pagodas are not even authentic. They were rebuilt on the foundation of the old temple in 1966 in an obvious act of Kibun. No, the steps are the National Treasure. Each flight of stairs is a separate entity: The two in the background are Cheongungyo and Baegungyo (national treasure #23), and those in the foreground are Yeonhwagyo and Chilbogyo (#24). What makes these staircases so special? I have no idea. They are unremarkable, but clearly quite old and symbolic. If the United States had designated some old stone steps a National Treasure, Americans would go into fits of laughter.

That said, there is one treasure at Bulgoksa that I found interesting:

This is Dabotap Pagoda (#20). What is interesting about this pagoda is not only that it is made out of granite, a notoriously uncarveable stone, especially this intricately. Rather, its interest lies in the fact that it is utterly unlike any other pagoda in Korea (That I know of, at least). The flatness and angularity of it seemingly lack the grace of other pagodas, and the four stone pillars especially seem to detract from the overall effect, but this is beautifully reflective of a story in the Lotus Sutra, of two different Buddhas facing each other: daeboyeorae and seokgayeorae. Dabotap faces Seoktap (of which I did not get a good picture due to lighting, but is KNT #21), to reflect the story, and nothing could be clearer. Dabotap is as different from the more traditional Seoktap as could be. Yet they face each other silently and without arguing for eternity.

Of the other two National Treasures I saw on this trip it was not permitted to take pictures, but it is just as well. They are two seated Buddhas, Vairocana and Amitabha, KNT #26 and 27, but as the temple was only recently reconstructed, the statues could not possible be very old, and are probably duplicates. There is no mention of it, even on the internet, but I find it difficult to believe that the statues are actually the original ones from the 9th century, since the entire thing was burned down in the 16th century. By way of contrast, I find it easy to believe that the Korean government created replicas and simply does not mention their inauthenticity. Who builds a statue and immediately declares it a national treasure, of great cultural import? Who does that? A little fellow named Kibun.

Michael J. Seth: A Concise History of Korea: From the Neolithic Period through the Nineteenth Century

Allow me to just say that my Aunt Nell is one of the most thoughtful gift-givers I know.

This book was delivered at the perfect time for it (as you may not know, I moved to South Korea this week). Sadly, although well written, it reminded me why I so rarely read non-fiction books. Invariably, I read and promptly forget all but the basic information, information I could just have easily gotten in thirty seconds on Wikipedia. What hadn't occured to me before this, however, was what cognitive processes are behind my preference for fiction.

As a teacher, I am well attuned to the symptoms of cognitive style in students, but I had never bothered to apply that knowledge to myself. I knew on a cognitive level that I was a kinisthetic learner, but that information did me little good, limited as it was to the cognitive sphere. While reading this book, I finally put two and two together. Me reading non-fiction is a fish out of water. Non-fiction is a very auditory experience, words and only words. It must be, therefore, that this is why Robert only reads non-fiction. From a pedagogical standpoint, this is an amazing discovery. I had never read anywhere of a distinction for genre by cognitive style.

The bad news is that I didn't get a lot out of the book itself--certainly not the hours I invested in it. The good news is that I have had a pedagogical epiphany: I could easily assign a fiction story to visual/kinesthetic students, and a non-fiction one to auditory ones as part of an assignment. It sounds too simple to be true, yet I'm sure there's something to it.