Korean Beauty

294 Pages·124.652 MB·English

by  Seo Kang-soo (Ed.)

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Korean Beauty

Contents Korean Beauty
4
Yeobaek
9
Chagyeong
49
Meot
89
Gyeopchim
129
Haehak
161
Yunghap
193
Korea Contemporary
234
Appendix
241
Korean Beauty
Lee O-Young
Around the turn of the twentieth century, Westerners flocked
to Korea on hearing rumors that there was gold in the ground.
Although many failed to find it and went home, they did not
regret the experience, because they knew, in the words of one
missionary, that “the gold lay not in the ground of Korea, but in
the hearts of the Korean people.”
In the secret of the gold that lies hidden in the heart, one of the
cryptic symbols on the treasure map is meot. And this book has
been made to help decode that symbol. The word meot may
sound strange if you are not Korean, but once you learn its
meaning, you will be able, like those Westerners of a century
ago, to dig out the precious gold that lies deep in the hearts of
the Korean people.
Actually, even native-born Koreans can rarely give a clear
answer if you ask them what meot is. They know that meot is
4
similar to mat (taste), and they know what has no mat and what
has no meot. But all you can do is to taste the meot for yourself
in the uniquely Korean objects, customs, and behaviors that
appear in this book.
The beauty of Chinese ceramics lies in their substantial size
and mass, while Japanese ceramics are distinguished by colors
as brilliant as a red stingray. But with Korean celadon vases or
Joseon Dynasty porcelain “moon jars,” the beauty lies in the
gentle curves. Is it the beauty of the curve, then, that defines
Korean meot? And even then, what is the beauty of the curve?
When driven by function or efficiency, human beings make a
straight line. That’s why most man-made objects are formed of
straight lines, in contrast to the curved lines of nature. Whether
you see it with your eyes or feel it with your heart, a straight
thing is not natural.
In straight things there is no change or movement. Like direct
sunlight, a bald straight line has no shade. In a word, Koreans
would say that anything functional, efficient, unnatural, and
bald has no meot. A footpath has meot, but an expressway has no
meot.
In today’s parlance, meot is analog rather than digital. It has
something ambiguous and irregular about it. It cannot be
5
quantified in numbers or weighed in a scale. That’s why one
Japanese ceramics expert who loved Korean pottery said
that the beauty of Korean ceramics lay in “the presence of
regularity within irregularity and the flow of perfection within
imperfection,” for “regularity without irregularity is merely
mechanical, while irregularity without regularity is nothing
but chaos.” Thus, meot is born when regularity and irregularity
are in harmonious balance. The Japanese expert admitted that
Japanese ceramics “sometimes lose vitality through the habit of
seeking only perfection.”
Here we can find another definition of meot. Japanese ceramics
have no meot. The reason why Korean ceramics have meot is that
they don’t lose their vitality.
Nowadays, the business people and tourists who come to Korea
are interested in the “Miracle on the Han River” that produced
the country’s successful industrialization. But if they spend a lot
of time with Koreans and encounter traditional Korean culture,
they may find, like their forefathers a century ago, that the real
gold of Korea lies not in the ground but in the hearts of the
people.
A tourist map is not enough. Let someone arriving in Korea
for the first time, or someone who has lived here for years,
or indeed someone who was born Korean, hold this book in
6
their hands; for when they do, I believe they may find that
mysterious and fantastic Treasure Island, the land of meot.
7
88
Yeobaek
Lee Joon