By Mark Peterson
On my recent trip to Korea, the Korean Institute of Confucian Culture appointed me as an Honorary Ambassador of Confucianism. I thought today I would write about that, not from a personal perspective, but from the perspective of why Confucianism might need an ambassador.
First, what is the Institute of Korean Confucian Culture and how did it come into existence? It was founded only a year ago, in Nonsan, North Chungcheong Province. It is funded by the provincial government with support also from the national budget in Seoul. It is parallel to the Korean Studies Institute in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, which was founded in 1995 and with its Museum of Confucian Culture as a representation of traditional culture, mainly Confucian culture, in Korea.
The statement of its purpose says the Andong institute is “a non-profit foundation under the affiliation of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism” that, “conducts research, conservation, collection and studies on Korean archives owned by private individuals which were at risk of loss or damage over time.” Indeed, the system for collecting documents is important and uniquely structured to encourage private individuals to “entrust” their documents for safekeeping in their archives. The word “entrust” means the owner still owns the documents, but allows the archive to preserve them in a safe, locked, temperature-controlled building. And, in most cases, the owner will allow researchers to use the documents.
The documents include wills, petitions to the government, census registrations, office warrants and other materials written on paper. But there is an important trove of wooden documents! These include, notably, wooden printing blocks. These blocks were mostly for printing the “munjip” — collected writings of prominent Confucian scholar officials. These printing blocks were a testament to the Confucian ideals of the Joseon Kingdom and in their collected assemblage stand as a rival in total numbers to the Buddhist collection of 80,000 wood blocks famously housed at Haein-sa temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The 64,000 wood printing blocks at the Andong Korean Studies Institute have been recognized as UNESCO’s documentary heritage list.
There is one other place where people with old documents and wooden printing blocks can entrust them — the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) in Pangyo, just south of Seoul. Now with the Korean Institute of Korean Confucian Culture (KICC) in Nonsan, and the Korean Studies Institute (KSI) in Andong, there are three places where documents can be kept safe and made available for researchers.
There is one other category of items entrusted to these three institutes — signboards of academies and shrines. The signboards are very valuable in that many have been calligraphed by famous people. And there is an antique market for signboards from various places, especially if they were calligraphed by a famous person. Therefore, what is happening is that the original signboards — and there can be several at each shrine or academy — one at the entry, one for each building, and sometimes a signboard on the inner wall of the building — are being taken down and entrusted to one of the three institutes for safekeeping, and a replica signboard is put up in the place of the original. This thwarts the efforts of thieves who would take down the original and sell it in the antique market. This category of entrusting “documents” to a safe place surprised me when I learned of it.
The preservation of culture is only one of the duties of these three institutes. Training and teaching are also important. The oldest of these three, AKS, has a graduate school and awards degrees in various disciplines, but also provides training for all kinds of groups interested in learning about a changing and disappearing culture in Korea. The other two, KSI and KICC, do not offer degrees but specialize in teaching and training various groups including private companies, governmental organs and groups of school teachers.
To return to the original question at the outset of this article, “Why give an honorary ambassadorship?” the answer, simply, is to encourage more education and appreciation for Confucianism within Korean culture. Why is this necessary? Confucianism in Korea today is under attack. Its alleged mistreatment of women and its fostering of hierarchy in society are the two main indictments.
This ambassador of Confucianism answers the criticism by pointing out that only late Joseon Confucianism became discriminatory against women and the fostering of hierarchy. For a thousand years before the 18th century, Korea's Confucianism functioned in a largely egalitarian society — at least in its treatment of women who had equal inheritance rights and other rights that were stripped away when Korea became “sadae-jueui” (serving China) in the last part of the Joseon era.
This ambassador has long been arguing for the pure doctrinal application of Confucianism — for loyalty, filial piety, ("jeong" and "hyo") and for “in, eui, ye, ji” — benevolence, justice, etiquette and knowledge. These are the values that have built Korean culture, and shouldn’t be thrown out, like the “baby with the bath water.”
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is a professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
An ambassador of Confucianism
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03.12.2023
By Mark Peterson On my recent trip to Korea, the Korean Institute of Confucian Culture appointed me as an Honorary Ambassador of Confucianism. I thought today I would write about that, not from a personal perspective, but from the perspective of why Confucianism might need an ambassador.
First, what is the Institute of Korean Confucian Culture and how did it come into existence? It was founded only a year ago, in Nonsan, North Chungcheong Province. It is funded by the provincial government with support also from the national budget in Seoul. It is parallel to the Korean Studies Institute in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, which was founded in 1995 and with its Museum of Confucian Culture as a representation of traditional culture, mainly Confucian culture, in Korea.
The statement of its purpose says the Andong institute is “a non-profit foundation under the affiliation of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism” that, “conducts research, conservation, collection and studies on Korean archives owned by private individuals which were at risk of loss or damage over time.” Indeed, the system for collecting documents is important and uniquely structured to encourage private individuals to “entrust” their documents for safekeeping in their archives. The word “entrust” means the owner still owns the documents, but allows........
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