I. Introduction

TRANSACTIONS ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY Korea Branch Volume 93 – 2018 1 COVER: The seal-shaped emblem of the RAS-KB consists of the following Chinese characters: 槿 (top right), 域 (bottom right), 菁 (top left), 莪 (bottom left), pronounced Kŭn yŏk Ch’ŏng A in Korean. The first two characters mean “the hibiscus region,” referring to Korea, while the other two (“luxuriant mugwort”) are a metaphor inspired by Confucian commentaries on the Chinese Book of Odes, and could be translated as “enjoy encouraging erudition.” SUBMISSIONS: Transactions invites the submission of manuscripts of both scholarly and more general interest pertaining to the anthropology, archeology, art, history, language, literature, philosophy, and religion of Korea. Manuscripts should be prepared in MS Word format and should be submitted in digital form. The style should conform to The Chicago Manual of Style (most recent edition). The covering letter should give full details of the author’s name, address and biography. Romanization of Korean words and names must follow either the McCune-Reischauer or the current Korean government system. Submissions will be peer- reviewed by two readers specializing in the field. Manuscripts will not be returned and no correspondence will be entered into concerning rejections. Transactions (ISSN 1229-0009) General Editor: Jon Dunbar Copyright © 2019 Royal Asiatic Society – Korea Branch Room 611, Christian Building, Daehangno 19 (Yeonji-dong), Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-736 Republic of Korea Tel: (82-2) 763-9483; Fax: (82-2) 766-3796; Email: [email protected] Visit our website at www.raskb.com TRANSACTIONS Volume 93 – 2018 Contents The Diamond Mountains: Lost Paradise Brother Anthony 1 Encouragement from Dongducheon 19 North Korean Fragments of Post-Socialist Guyana Moe Taylor 31 The Gyehu Deungnok Mark Peterson 43 “Literature Play” in a New World Robert J. Fouser 53 The Architectural Roots of Myeongdong Cathedral Nate Kornegay 67 Jejueo, Korea’s Endangered Language Moira Saltzman 73 The Jeju Fish Wars Robert D. Neff 85 Exploring Manchocheon, Seoul’s Underground River Jon Dunbar 97 Coveting the Dragon’s Pearl Fred Jeremy Seligson 137 Grit and Enterprise Matt VanVolkenburg 149 Annual RASKB Reports 169 Recently Published Books in Korean Studies 179 RAS Publications 187 THE COUNCIL OF THE KOREA BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY [As of May 2019] HONORARY PRESIDENT Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador Simon Smith OFFICERS Brother Anthony, President, Ms. Suzanne Crowder Han, Vice President, Rev. Steven Shields, Vice President Mr. Hank Morris, Treasurer / Auditor, Ms. Yonjoo Hong, Secretary COUNCILLORS Mrs. Bae, Sue Ja, Ms. Betsy-Gay Kraft, Mr. Peter Bartholomew, Ms. Cheryl Magnant, Mr. Patrick Bourgo, Mr. John Nowell, Ms. Yeri Choi, Mr. Hank Morris, Mr. Jon Dunbar, Mr. Andrew Salmon, Ms. Jennifer Flinn, Mr. Fred Jeremy Seligson, Mr. Jun Byung Geun, Mr. Jun (Yong-Kyun) Shin, Mr. Jang Sung-Hyun, Mr. Matthew VanVolkenburg, Mr. Jaebum Kim, Prof. Michael Welles, Mr. Robert Koehler Honorary Councillor: Dr. Lee SeUng (Seoul Cyber University) General Managers: Mr. Tom Coyner & Ms. Yeri Choi (2018) Program Coordinator: Ms. Hong Jung-wook (Joanne) (2019) Room 611, Christian Building, Daehangno 19 (Yeonji-dong), Jongno-gu, Seoul 110-736 Republic of Korea Tel: +82 (0)2 763-9483 Fax: +82 (0)2 766-3796 Email: [email protected] Homepage: www.raskb.com 4 The Diamond Mountains: Lost Paradise Brother Anthony The Diamond Mountains is the English name often used, perhaps more in earlier days, to designate Geumgang-san, the vast rocky massif in the south-eastern region of North Korea. The Japanese call it Kongō-san. From early times, its isolation and beauty attracted Buddhist monks who founded a number of large temple-monasteries as well as many smaller hermitages there. During the Japanese period, the mountain was promoted as a tourist site, and westerners took advantage of the easier access and facilities for accommodation that resulted. It lies not far from the coastal port of Wonsan, with its beautiful beach, where many western missionaries and other residents had summer cottages. From there it was an easy journey. Alas, all but a couple of the temples and hermitages were completely destroyed during the Korean War, mainly in deliberate bombing by the UN forces, based on reports that the temples were being used to house North Korean military units during training. One of the first western writers to publish an account of a visit there was Charles William Campbell, who arrived in Korea to serve as British Vice-Consul in September 1887. On the last day of August 1889, he set out on a journey through northern Korea toward Baekdu-san. The journey lasted until November 6 the same year. The journey is described in a white paper published by Parliament in 1891 and in the paper he gave to the Royal Geographical Society in London in January 1892, “A Journey through North Korea to the Ch’ang-pai Shan.” Like those who followed, he was scornful of Buddhist monks but could not deny the beauty of the mountain’s temples: “As for the scenery of the Keum Kang San, I can thoroughly endorse the praises of the natives. My route followed a rough torrent winding up the west slope to the water-shed – which is 4200 feet above sea-level and the highest point reached by me in the journey across Korea – and descended the eastern flank by a wild mountain path. The monastery of Ch’ang-An is superbly situated a little way up the west slope. The lofty hills which wall in the torrent on the north recede for a few hundred yards, and rejoin it again, leaving in the interval a The Diamond Mountains: Lost Paradise semicircular space of level ground upon which the temple is built. Nothing could be more effective than the deep green setting of this half- circlet of hills rising up like a rampart from the rear of the buildings, and rendered additionally pleasing to the eye by a symmetrical covering of leafy forest and shrub. In front, the water swishes and swirls through rough, tumbled granite blocks, here and there softening into a clear pool, and beyond this again towers a conical buttress of the Keum Kang San, thickly clothed with pines and tangled undergrowth for half its height, This peak possesses the characteristics of the range. Gaping seams and cracks split it vertically from the summit down until vegetation hides the rock, at sufficiently regular intervals to give one the impression of looking at the pipes of an immense organ. The topmost ribs are almost perpendicular, and gleam bare and blue in the evening sun; but lower down the cracks and ledges afford a precarious lodging to a few conifers and stunted oaks. The whole forms a coup-d’oeil of mountain, forest, and flood which it would be hard to match anywhere. The other monasteries lie along the route I followed, and the situation of each is just as pretty as that which I have attempted to picture to you.” A few years later another brief account of a visit was published by the Rt. Hon. George Curzon in his Problems of the Far East (1894). He made his visit in 1892. Decades later he rewrote his account for publication in the October 1924 volume of the National Geographic Magazine, with many photos, some colored. Only two years later, in 1894, soon after her arrival in Korea, Isabella Bird Bishop visited the Diamond Mountains and published a far more sympathetic account in her monumental Korea and her Neighbours (1897/8). She was acutely aware of being the first western woman to visit rural Korea, thanks to the constant staring she had to endure. In Volume 13 of Transactions (1922), James Scarth Gale published a short historical account of the Mountain as well as a diary of a month’s visit he made there in 1917 with his wife and his son, George. In 1923, the RAS President, Bishop Trollope, and Fr. Charles Hunt visited Seorak-san, passing through a small part of the Diamond Mountains, and an account of their journey prepared by Fr. Hunt appeared much later, after Bishop Trollope’s death in 1930, in Volume 24 (1935) of Transactions. Of these accounts, that by Mrs. Bishop is by far the most vivid and entertaining. She reckons that in her time there were “forty-two shrines housing about 400 monks and about 50 nuns. The lay servitors possibly number 1,000. The four great monasteries, two on the eastern and two on the western slope, absorb more than 300 of the whole number.” Mrs. Bishop also expresses the most nuanced and humane response to the life of the monks as she saw it: 2 The Diamond Mountains: Lost Paradise “The monks are grossly ignorant and superstitious. They know nearly nothing of the history and tenets of their own creed . The Koreans universally attribute to them gross profligacy, of the existence of which at one of the large monasteries it was impossible not to become aware, but between their romantic and venerable surroundings, the order and quietness of their lives, their benevolence to the old and destitute, who find a peaceful asylum with them, and in the main their courtesy and hospitality, I am compelled to admit that they exercise a certain fascination, and that I prefer to remember their virtues rather than their faults. My sympathies go out to them for their appreciation of the beautiful, and for the way in which religious art has assisted Nature by the exceeding picturesqueness of the positions and decoration of their shrines.” Both she and, later, James Gale, stress the difficulties of moving from one temple to another, there being no real paths: “The torrent bed contracts above Chang-an-Sa, opens out here and there, and above P’yo-un-Sa narrows into a gash, only opening out again at the foot of the An-raun-chai.

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