session 6: women of korea

[clay dube]

Here is the second reading. Please post any comments or questions about this session.

[Anonymous]

One theme that is stressed in Lady Hyegyong's memoirs is knowing and accepting one's place in the hierarchy. There are so many different examples of people knowing their place and acting in their predetermined role. Over and over again she writes of her father showing his proper filial duties to the elders in the family, even carrying her maternal grandmother on his back when she was too weak to walk. The mother tries to set the proper example for her daughter when she joins the royal family by telling her not to grieve and by trying so hard not to cry herself. The family does not have its own shrine until after the grandfather dies, because they are poor, but they are grudgingly allowed to come to the more well-to-do branch of the family's. And, as the Crown Princess ages, one can see that she has learned her lessons well and takes her role as a woman and a woman married into nobility as she should. Some details are almost funny-- being given a copy of Elementary Learning, being told not to get rouge on the towels. Others are heartbreaking, particularly the passages where she writes of her grief at losing her first baby and later her husband. I think, as a primary source, it is an excellent illustration of the idea of hierarchy.
edited by rfontana on 8/3/2011

[Anonymous]

Since I accidentally put my thoughts on Lady Hyegyong in the other spot, I will comment on Ho Nansorhon here. I was very glad to see that, of the three handouts we were given yesterday, two concerned women. As Kichung Kim indicates throughout her article, way too little is known about women's lives prior to the twentieth century. As a teacher at an all-girls' school, I am always on the lookout for information about women, particularly primary source information. I really don't think our textbook even mentions a particular woman until Chapter 9 when a few sentences are given to Lady Murasaki. So, please keep it coming my way! More specific to the article itself, it did not occur to me that a woman in this culture at this time could be saddled to a man who was her intellectual inferior. I can only imagine how stifling her married life must have been, and it is no wonder that her poetry was an escape for the feelings she more than likely had no one to understand. Going from her vibrant household to one of a disapproving mother-in-law must have been soul-crushing.

[Anonymous]

The Q&A format of this short session was valuable since it brought the historical context along with the current status, and most importantly--how it has evolved! I appreciated the poems, even though I am not a frequent consumer of poetry.

[Anonymous]

It's quite interesting to read Kichung Kim's writing "Ho Nansorhon and Shakespeare's Sister." I can relate the historical background of Ho Nansorhon to women's lives in Chinese society in sixteenth-century. At that time, the girls from the ordinary family were raised to be a wife, mother, and daughter - in- low. The schools were not for girls. However, for wealthy Chinese family, the maiden trained with Four Arts (琴 qin), qi (棋 qi), shu (书 calligraphy) and hua (画 painting) to gain self-confidence. There were some outstanding female poets in Chinese history.

[Anonymous]

I am very interested in what professor Kim believes the prospects for reunification are? Is the North so intrenched in their northern ideology or could the need for economic development, and regional stability cause reunification?

[Anonymous]

To quickly understand "The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong" I searched online. There is an online article for Korean Studies. I read it before I began to read our handout. I thought it was very helpful for me to understand the historical background of the author Lady Hyegyong. Here is the link: http://koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/ksr98-14.htm

[Anonymous]

The poems of Ho Nansorhon are a great way to expose high school students to asian poetry, particularly because of the comparison to literary forms and figures they may already be familiar with (Virginia Woolf). Great opportunity to introduce poetry in the context of the society the poet lived in. It is easy to feel compassion for the plight of Ho, given her writing brilliance that was underappreciated in a society that placed women into defined and limited roles.
edited by kireland on 8/8/2011

[Anonymous]

I think the thing that struck me the most from the readings and our discussions was the oppression of female intellect and learning. When you see or read about women and their work that is so spectacular and inspiring, it makes you wonder where we would be if women and men had always been considered as equals. If men and women could partner together and share and build upon their knowledge, imagine the advancements we would have already and how much faster we may have been able to accomplish certain things. Ken and I had a conversation about this and discussed why women have typically been inferior, most likely because from the beginning of time, strength was necessary in order to feed and protect your family. Men have been the stronger of the two and therefore, a woman's role is not as important for sustaining life (although definitely necessary for the creation of it!!). As we advance, physical strength, is not as necessary for sustaining life; instead it is intellect, adaptability, creativity. Women are on a more level playing field in these areas, which is why it is now more acceptable and often expected that women be educated and involved in sciences, technology, military, and foreign and domestic affairs. I thoroughly enjoyed the readings and discussions for this section, and although it does make me sad to think about what we could have been if women had always been treated as intellectual equals, I think we are moving in the right direction and hope that people in the future do not read stories like this about women from this era.
edited by kmoore on 8/8/2011

[Anonymous]

The beginning of the Memoir discussed how loving and caring the family was for each other. Then, all of a sudden the mom loses her mom and father-in-law. She was mourning and obviously showed physical signs from her sorrow as she was, "emaciated and weak." I found it cold that her husband thought she was "inconsiderate" for not taking someone elses medicine to fix her mood. He further chose to reprimand her and keep her daughter from her in a time of apparent need for some compassion. After this, the Memoir goes on to discuss how he had lost his own sister and wept for her and felt that others were selfish for not attending the funeral. I just found this to be ironic.
edited by ccable on 8/27/2011

[Anonymous]

As a woman, I'm glad that I live now and not during the 16th Century. It's so hard to fathom that societies used to be so hierarchical that women (unless you were well-born) were excluded from learning to read and write and prohibited from professional and public life. Furthermore, I didn't realize that this was encouraged through the Confucian philosophy. It reads that most Confucian scholars felt it was wrong to, "...encourage his daughter's love of learning and literature."
edited by ccable on 8/27/2011

[Anonymous]

After reading The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong, I marveled at the strong bond of love between the crown princess and her parents. It was heartbreaking when Hyegyong had to leave her natal home for the palace. Her mother sent her letters twice each day after her marriage to the prince; both (Sado and Hyegyong) were only ten years old. The memoirs were written when she was in her sixties and fearful of her declining memory because her father insisted that no written letters be left lying about the palace. Yet, the detail with which she described her life is amazing. There was so much tradition, custom, etiquette, and properness to living in the palace and as the crown princess. I found it interesting that according to custom, a Korean mother and her newborn are forbidden to go out until 21 days after the birth. One really feels the emotions inside the princess's heart and mind. How saddened she was to lose her very own mother. I found it simply cruel that Prince Sado was placed in a rice chest to die because he suffered from insanity. I suppose it was to protect their son, the heir to the throne. The memoir was very long, but a very interesting read.

[clay dube]

Here is the first reading for this session.

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