On Yi Sunsin
Dec. 19th, 2004 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirLowell House, on the Feast of St. Urdan V
Well, after my six-hour stint studying for chemistry, I spent an hour eating dinner, half an hour piddling around as Daera says, an hour and a half at church (tonight was the Candlemas concert, and the choir was awesome, although I felt vaguely guilty for not having participated--I am technically a member, after all), and then about two and a half more hours writing up my presentation speech on Yi Sunsin. I suppose I should also actually make the Powerpoint presentation too, but chemistry is a more pressing concern at the moment. Besides, the presentation only involves scanning in all the pictures from the Nanjung Ilgi and Imjin Changch'o. The former is the diary that Yi Sunsin kept everyday during the seven years of 임지왜란 (Imjinwaeran), otherwise known as Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea in 1592 and 1597. (Forever engrained in my brain by my social studies teacher who showed us fuzzy grainy pictures of the ear mounds that the Japanese left as monuments to the number of men they slaughtered. Apparently they had contests to see who could collect more ears. What can I say, Hideyoshi was clearly crazy, so I'm not surprised if it infected all his subordinates.) Anyway, Yi Sunsin's diary is terse but interesting: he always notes the day's weather and occasionally puts down a personal thought or so before he cuts himself off. Imjin Changch'o is a record of his memorials to court--mostly requests for reinforcements, supplies, etc.--and in the appendix, the book also includes three of his most famous verses (the man was talented at everything: literature and martial arts) and a biography written by his nephew. The biography is probably mostly exaggeration and propaganda, but it's not any less relevant to me, because I'm not presenting on Yi Sunsin, the actual man, but Yi Sunsin, the legend as he is to Koreans.
I have to say I admire Yi Sunsin a lot. He does come across as a bit of a goody-two-shoes, but then you realize just how much it cost him to hold onto his integrity: he got passed over for promotions and was the victim of many political conspiracies because he refused to comply with the unofficial system of bribery and favoritism and didn't side with any faction. He lived according to very strict principles of honor, even though the majority of the government and military officials did not; he risked insubordination in order to do what he felt was right but never faltered in his duty to his country. I'm sure it sounds like some sort of movie cliché, but it moves me nonetheless because he suffered quite a lot. He really did seem to have done absolutely nothing that would politically benefit him if it went against his principles. I mean, normally one would interpret this as a sour-grapes sort of virtue, but the truth is, he was incredibly talented. After nearly single-handedly masterminding the naval victories that turned back Hideyoshi's first invasion and ascending to position of Lord High Admiral, he was accused of insubordination, imprisoned and finally allowed to fight as a common soldier. A common soldier, after he had led the Korean navies to victory, following commanders who were clearly less talented than him (as soon as Yi Sunsin was stripped of his offices, Korea started losing all its battles to Japan--yes, it was that bad, because unfortunately Koreans have always been terrible at war).
An interesting story about Yi Sunsin: a person with whom he had exchanged occasional letters of greeting was arrested for high treason. (There were a lot of court conspiracies during the Yi Chosun dynasty, apparently.) A friend of his who was a judicial inspector offered to destroy Yi Sunsin's letters in the papers that had been seized from the accused's home. Yi Sunsin refused saying that the letters were merely notes of greeting in the past and now were documents rightfully appropriated by the government during a search (well, not exactly those words, but basically that). He said that it wasn't right to destroy evidence, no matter how innocent, and he would rather risk being wrongly incriminated than actually committing a crime. (Well, I mean, he's not just running a risk; being associated in any way with a traitor, even by correspondence, was enough to get you tortured into false confessions.) But the king, upon seeing his graceful handwriting and poetic phrases, was so moved that he ordered Yi Sunsin to be cleared from all suspicion.
I had an...interesting time looking up Chinese characters yesterday, since Yi Sunsin wrote his verse in classical Chinese courtesy of his excellent literary education. There was an English translation available, but not a hangeul one, so I looked up every character I couldn't recognize (which was about 90%). The way poetry works in characters is really intriguing; there's a certain elegant conciseness about it that I'm sure I would recognize if I ever read, say, haiku in their original language. Anyway, if you're interested, I'm copy-pasting the verses below. My hanja is very, very limited of course, so I had a rather excruciating double-translation experience (from character to hanja reading to Korean vernacular meaning). But I think the characters aren't too obscure for a language that actually uses them on an everyday basis, so if you know how to read Chinese or Japanese, you should be able to figure it out? I think?
閑山島夜吟:
水國秋光暮 驚寒雁陣高 憂心轉輾夜 殘月照弓刀
閑山島歌:
閑山島月明夜 上戍樓撫大刀 深愁時 何處一聲羗笛 更添愁
劒銘:
三尺誓天山河動色 一揮掃蕩血染山河
The last one is the inscription he wrote on his sword, and it's very, very cool. ^_^
Anyway, now I know how to say all sorts of vaguely military/political terms in Korean, like "navy" and "battle" and "warfare" and "defense". Hah. But it took me two and a half hours to write the presentation because I had to keep looking up every other word. Urgh. It's kind of stupid because if I have to look it up, the rest of the class probably doesn't know it either, but I still need some means of conveying the story. >_< The books, by the way, if it wasn't clear, were in English translation, which is why I could read them but unfortunately I still had to look up all the vocabulary once it came to writing.
Yours &c.
Post-script: Oh yeah, Yi Sunsin's famous last words (he died in battle): "울지 말아라. 나의 죽음을 알리지 말아라. 북을 치고 나팔을 불어라. 그리고 깃발을 휘날리며 전진하라. 우리는 아직 전쟁중이다. 적의 마지막 한명까지도 남기지 말고 다 없애 버려라." (My teacher provided the original Korean, which is apparently memorized by elementary school students.) In English translation, "Do not weep, do not announce my death. Beat the drum, blow the trumpet, wave the flag for advance. We are still fighting. Finish the enemy to the last one." I don't know if it just means that I'm not jaded enough (or haven't watched enough war movies) yet, but that seriously sent a shiver up my spine when I first read it. Okay, okay, back to chemistry.
Well, after my six-hour stint studying for chemistry, I spent an hour eating dinner, half an hour piddling around as Daera says, an hour and a half at church (tonight was the Candlemas concert, and the choir was awesome, although I felt vaguely guilty for not having participated--I am technically a member, after all), and then about two and a half more hours writing up my presentation speech on Yi Sunsin. I suppose I should also actually make the Powerpoint presentation too, but chemistry is a more pressing concern at the moment. Besides, the presentation only involves scanning in all the pictures from the Nanjung Ilgi and Imjin Changch'o. The former is the diary that Yi Sunsin kept everyday during the seven years of 임지왜란 (Imjinwaeran), otherwise known as Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea in 1592 and 1597. (Forever engrained in my brain by my social studies teacher who showed us fuzzy grainy pictures of the ear mounds that the Japanese left as monuments to the number of men they slaughtered. Apparently they had contests to see who could collect more ears. What can I say, Hideyoshi was clearly crazy, so I'm not surprised if it infected all his subordinates.) Anyway, Yi Sunsin's diary is terse but interesting: he always notes the day's weather and occasionally puts down a personal thought or so before he cuts himself off. Imjin Changch'o is a record of his memorials to court--mostly requests for reinforcements, supplies, etc.--and in the appendix, the book also includes three of his most famous verses (the man was talented at everything: literature and martial arts) and a biography written by his nephew. The biography is probably mostly exaggeration and propaganda, but it's not any less relevant to me, because I'm not presenting on Yi Sunsin, the actual man, but Yi Sunsin, the legend as he is to Koreans.
I have to say I admire Yi Sunsin a lot. He does come across as a bit of a goody-two-shoes, but then you realize just how much it cost him to hold onto his integrity: he got passed over for promotions and was the victim of many political conspiracies because he refused to comply with the unofficial system of bribery and favoritism and didn't side with any faction. He lived according to very strict principles of honor, even though the majority of the government and military officials did not; he risked insubordination in order to do what he felt was right but never faltered in his duty to his country. I'm sure it sounds like some sort of movie cliché, but it moves me nonetheless because he suffered quite a lot. He really did seem to have done absolutely nothing that would politically benefit him if it went against his principles. I mean, normally one would interpret this as a sour-grapes sort of virtue, but the truth is, he was incredibly talented. After nearly single-handedly masterminding the naval victories that turned back Hideyoshi's first invasion and ascending to position of Lord High Admiral, he was accused of insubordination, imprisoned and finally allowed to fight as a common soldier. A common soldier, after he had led the Korean navies to victory, following commanders who were clearly less talented than him (as soon as Yi Sunsin was stripped of his offices, Korea started losing all its battles to Japan--yes, it was that bad, because unfortunately Koreans have always been terrible at war).
An interesting story about Yi Sunsin: a person with whom he had exchanged occasional letters of greeting was arrested for high treason. (There were a lot of court conspiracies during the Yi Chosun dynasty, apparently.) A friend of his who was a judicial inspector offered to destroy Yi Sunsin's letters in the papers that had been seized from the accused's home. Yi Sunsin refused saying that the letters were merely notes of greeting in the past and now were documents rightfully appropriated by the government during a search (well, not exactly those words, but basically that). He said that it wasn't right to destroy evidence, no matter how innocent, and he would rather risk being wrongly incriminated than actually committing a crime. (Well, I mean, he's not just running a risk; being associated in any way with a traitor, even by correspondence, was enough to get you tortured into false confessions.) But the king, upon seeing his graceful handwriting and poetic phrases, was so moved that he ordered Yi Sunsin to be cleared from all suspicion.
I had an...interesting time looking up Chinese characters yesterday, since Yi Sunsin wrote his verse in classical Chinese courtesy of his excellent literary education. There was an English translation available, but not a hangeul one, so I looked up every character I couldn't recognize (which was about 90%). The way poetry works in characters is really intriguing; there's a certain elegant conciseness about it that I'm sure I would recognize if I ever read, say, haiku in their original language. Anyway, if you're interested, I'm copy-pasting the verses below. My hanja is very, very limited of course, so I had a rather excruciating double-translation experience (from character to hanja reading to Korean vernacular meaning). But I think the characters aren't too obscure for a language that actually uses them on an everyday basis, so if you know how to read Chinese or Japanese, you should be able to figure it out? I think?
閑山島夜吟:
水國秋光暮 驚寒雁陣高 憂心轉輾夜 殘月照弓刀
閑山島歌:
閑山島月明夜 上戍樓撫大刀 深愁時 何處一聲羗笛 更添愁
劒銘:
三尺誓天山河動色 一揮掃蕩血染山河
The last one is the inscription he wrote on his sword, and it's very, very cool. ^_^
Anyway, now I know how to say all sorts of vaguely military/political terms in Korean, like "navy" and "battle" and "warfare" and "defense". Hah. But it took me two and a half hours to write the presentation because I had to keep looking up every other word. Urgh. It's kind of stupid because if I have to look it up, the rest of the class probably doesn't know it either, but I still need some means of conveying the story. >_< The books, by the way, if it wasn't clear, were in English translation, which is why I could read them but unfortunately I still had to look up all the vocabulary once it came to writing.
Yours &c.
Post-script: Oh yeah, Yi Sunsin's famous last words (he died in battle): "울지 말아라. 나의 죽음을 알리지 말아라. 북을 치고 나팔을 불어라. 그리고 깃발을 휘날리며 전진하라. 우리는 아직 전쟁중이다. 적의 마지막 한명까지도 남기지 말고 다 없애 버려라." (My teacher provided the original Korean, which is apparently memorized by elementary school students.) In English translation, "Do not weep, do not announce my death. Beat the drum, blow the trumpet, wave the flag for advance. We are still fighting. Finish the enemy to the last one." I don't know if it just means that I'm not jaded enough (or haven't watched enough war movies) yet, but that seriously sent a shiver up my spine when I first read it. Okay, okay, back to chemistry.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 06:43 pm (UTC)chemistry is done (for now). i'm not sure if i'm more happy or horrified. *sigh* ah well. we shall turn our attention now to thoroughly accomplishing the task of relaxing!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 10:23 pm (UTC)Thanks--my presentation could have been better, but I managed to carry it off decently. ^_^;; And yay, I'm glad you agree--I would like to be like that (live by my principles even if it costs me everything) but I don't think I have that much courage yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 12:03 am (UTC)hm... i'm definitely not that courageous. i also don't think i've run into any situations where it's been necessary to choose between principles and advancement (yet). we'll see...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 12:08 am (UTC)I'm still wondering if he didn't read off someone else's score by mistake because I was so sure I bombed this exam (well, bombed it even worse than I bombed the last two), but I actually did better.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-21 12:09 am (UTC)*grin* and i forgot to congratulate you - it's good to be doing better. and then you will do even better on the final, right? resurrection policy, woot!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 10:13 pm (UTC)Not too sure what the first line is, but the second line is something like "with one sweep and retract (of the sword), the blood dyes the mountains and river" Parentheses enclose what I think he is implying.
I'd take a look at the rest, but I have chem to study for. Get
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 10:19 pm (UTC)The last one says: "I swear to heaven "three-foot"; the mountains and rivers tremble. I whip, I sweep--Blood dyes hills and streams." But the translation is lacking something--the repeated use of "山河" has a sheer coolness that's missing in English. >_<;;
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 10:22 pm (UTC)O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 10:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 10:27 pm (UTC)O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 10:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 10:40 pm (UTC)OOh, and I never noticed, but in in Fuji Yuuta's song "Blood," he goes on and on about how he's not a tensai, therefore, he can do it.
?_? Muahahhaha, he is so obsessed over his brother.
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 10:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 10:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-20 10:50 pm (UTC)Okay, so I'm having trouble finding my essay on To the Lighthouse for some reason. I know it's on there somewhere but...>_>
Okay, so I'm having trouble finding my essay on <I>To the Lighthouse</I> for some reason. I know it's on there somewhere but...>_> <_< I can find all the stuff I wrote for Joyce, Mansfield, Eliot, <I>King Lear</I>, even this poet that I completely forgot that I read, but Woolf is hiding somewhere else. In case I don't find it...er...do you really, really need it? ;_; Really sorry, I know I'd been promising to send it to you for a month now.