Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Aknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Korea in the 1960s
- 2 The Columbans
- 3 Learning the Ropes
- 4 Cultural Adaptation
- 5 In at the Deep End
- 6 The Cultural Experience: Where to Begin
- 7 The Confucian Monolith
- 8 The Chosŏn Bureaucracy
- 9 The Buddhist Ingredient
- 10 Exclusivity Myths
- 11 Chilmajae Songs – Sŏ Chŏngju
- 12 Korea’s Greatest Asset
- 13 Tales of the Immortals
- 14 At the Cultural Coalface: Immersion, Submersion? – Take Your Pick
- 15 Nine Priest Immortals
- 16 Seeking the Way
- 17 For Those of us with Less Than Immortal Status
- 18 Learning Korean
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
13 - Tales of the Immortals
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 April 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Aknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Korea in the 1960s
- 2 The Columbans
- 3 Learning the Ropes
- 4 Cultural Adaptation
- 5 In at the Deep End
- 6 The Cultural Experience: Where to Begin
- 7 The Confucian Monolith
- 8 The Chosŏn Bureaucracy
- 9 The Buddhist Ingredient
- 10 Exclusivity Myths
- 11 Chilmajae Songs – Sŏ Chŏngju
- 12 Korea’s Greatest Asset
- 13 Tales of the Immortals
- 14 At the Cultural Coalface: Immersion, Submersion? – Take Your Pick
- 15 Nine Priest Immortals
- 16 Seeking the Way
- 17 For Those of us with Less Than Immortal Status
- 18 Learning Korean
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Among the Immortals
These I list in the pantheon:
Chŏng Mongju, back to front on his horse;
Tanjong, the boy king, going toward the stars;
Yu Kwan, hands up umbrellaed in the rain;
Kim Shisŭp floating verses downstream;
Wŏlmyŏng, the monk, piping down
the lady on the moon;
Yi Sunshin fighting death's crazy swoon.
What's in a Name?
Myŏngnimŏsu, literally the gargler from the house of Myŏngnim, was prime minister in Koguryŏ (230–254).
My name is nothing special:
it simply means the good gargler.
In the morning I wash in the stream,
fill my mouth with water,
spew it high in the sky
and greet the rising sun
with a flash of laughing teeth.
People liked this,
so they called me the gargler.
In Chinese it is written myong-nim-ŏ-su,
the gargler from the house of Myŏngnim.
I have no other exceptional skill
– once, though, I was prime minister.
Sŏ Chŏngju (1915–2000)The King's Pride
Chidaero of Shilla's thingamajig – if you allow for a little fictive embellishment – was a foot and a half long, posing a major worry to the realm, for neither in mountain, nor field, nor by the sea, nor sequestered on any remote island was a girl to be found capable of withstanding the king's pride. Lo! one winter's day under an old withered tree – this too with a little fictive embellishment – a dung patty big as an hourglass drum was found. It had been made with such zest and whoopee that though two mongrels tug o’ warred and devoured the prize, a sufficiency remained to attest to its magnificent original size. Who had left this giant patty? The question was asked in every corner of every village until finally a diminutive little girl came forward. ‘The one you seek lives over there,’ she said. ‘Wasn't there a stream beside the patty,’ she added, ‘a lovely little stream? Well, the girl you want took her washing there, and when she had washed more than a hundred pieces, she went into the woods and that's what she made.’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- My Korea40 Years without a Horsehair Hat, pp. 224 - 240Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2013