JaHyun Kim Haboush’s Cultural Journey through History

I am honored and happy to briefly discuss the range of JaHyun Kim Haboush’s scholarship and her interaction with scholars in other fields.Linguists often quote French Indo-Europeanist Antoine Meillet’s definition of language: “Une langue constitue un système complexe de moyens d’expression, système où tout se tient” (A language constitutes a complex system of means of expression, a system in which everything fits together).1 The same could certainly be said of history. Haboush definitely saw this systemic scope and, as a consequence, contributed to the field in a refreshing way.JaHyun always impressed me with her analytical approach to her research. She was a person of keen observation who enjoyed doing her investigation, always resting on a solid knowledge base but with an original hypothesis. She did not dwell on what happened but on why things turned out a certain way. Her astute powers in revealing the underlying dynamics of seemingly complex materials stand out. The golden rule that she abided by was that, in order to understand something deeply, one needs to see near, far, and in between.JaHyun eloquently demonstrated that culture matters. Emotions matter. Vernacular language matters. Women matter. Morality and honor matter. This was a very thought-provoking agenda in historiography, especially that of the late Chosŏn dynasty up to her time. In almost all cases, she demanded reconsideration and recategorization of concepts/norms, genre, and topics with dynamic boundaries between political forces such as status/class, gender, and situational domains.JaHyun was particularly well equipped to study the culture and civilization of the late Chosŏn dynasty Korea in depth and in breadth. Since I am a linguist, let me start with her language background, which would be helpful for any researcher but was critically important in studying this period. She received the best possible general education available in Korea through college, majoring in English literature. She then studied Chinese well enough to get a master’s degree in Chinese literature in the United States.2She studied under the best minds, including her PhD adviser, Gari Ledyard, one of the finest philologists and historians, who has impacted Korean studies in an unprecedented way. Quality attracts quality. She sought the collaboration of and worked very well with some of the best scholars in the field of Korean and Asian studies, including Martina Deuchler, Dorothy Ko, and Kenneth Robinson, and with many others who came into her path. Her husband, William Haboush, was a lifelong companion, critic, supporter, assistant, and colleague and was crucial in her growing as an erudite and open-minded scholar.One of her greatest achievements is The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng. Thanks to her beautiful and meticulous translation, this Korean masterpiece has gained a place among the great books of the world. The dignity, elegance, power, and psychological intensity of some of the tragic moments of Korean history have become more accessible to the English-speaking world. Common clichés about Asian women in Confucian society have been shattered. Vernacular language and the Korean alphabet received a powerfully fresh treatment, breaking out of the low place given to it for generations.Indeed, with the Memoirs and with all her other publications, Haboush has stimulated research in many different areas with her impressive range of translation work. In addition to the translation itself, her cogent introduction and numerous explanatory notes help not only the general readership but also other researchers, including native Korean scholars, who are interested in the same areas of work. So many people are pessimistic, and even antagonistic in some cases, about the possibility of achieving a beautiful and faithful translation. But various examples from JaHyun’s contributions challenge such a negative stance against this fundamental activity of humanity throughout history.The only other Korean book of equal importance that should belong to the great books of the world, in my opinion, is Hunmin chŏng’ŭm (Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People), the original name of the Korean alphabet now called han’gŭl, which is also the name of its promulgation document, together with its accompanying reference book called Hunmin chŏng’ŭm haerye (Explanations and Examples of the Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People), which Gari Ledyard translated and annotated with an ingenious analysis of the Korean writing system and its history.3 It is ironical and most regrettable that neither Haboush’s The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyŏng (1996) nor Ledyard’s The Korean Language Reform of 1446 (1998) is included in the 580-page A History of Korean Literature (2003) edited by Peter H. Lee.4Chapter 1 of Lee’s 2003 volume, under the title “Language, Forms, Prosody, and Themes,” by Ho-Min Sohn and Peter H. Lee, offers a general description of the Korean language and of Korean literature, but there is almost nothing connecting the two parts. This chapter does mention the famous preface quoting the reason for creating the new alphabet, but it is not presented as a literary piece. The authors continue to say, “Han’gŭl served as an aid for the study of literary Chinese and was used mostly by women. Not until the Kabo Reform of 1894 did han’gŭl come to be used in official documents.”5 Haboush, in total contrast, observes the crucial role the vernacular language and writing system played in literature, law, and war. Women appropriated it as their own legitimate script to use, which gave them agency and fueled their creative urge and purpose. A totally new look at the meaning of this great invention has brought forth exciting findings that continue to surprise the academic world and beyond.In the area of literature, JaHyun insisted that we recognize as a significant part of Korean literature two key genres: testimonial literature and epistolary literature. Lady Hyegyŏng’s powerful autobiography is unique in that it combines the most public event with a very private experience filled with emotions. The main motivation is to demand the fairness she deserved in life but felt she wasn’t accorded. Koreans are said to live for history. It was a clear attempt not only to convince the living but also the generations to come. In the process, she showed the excellence and the expressive power of Korea’s own alphabet, whose impact has reached far beyond promoting literacy. Not only “oppressed” Buddhist monks but also men in particular human circumstances—such as those writing as a hostage in a foreign land, women, and low-born as well as noble Koreans—participated in writing in an impressive way. Haboush showed this with her own discovery, research, and lucid presentation of these rediscovered gems. She has demonstrated the close relationship between the writing system Korea has had and Korean literature, history, and culture.To this day, letters for every occasion by people of all walks of life keep emerging, again and again. Fresh Korean research covers surprising areas, including cookbooks that have evolved from mere instructions to a status symbol that exemplifies one’s knowledge and symbol of moral, medical, and ritual—that is, civilized life.I was struck by a phrase in the introduction to Epistolary Korea, edited by Haboush in 2009, that stopped me and made me think: It is, more usually, the death of a beloved that one faces and copes with, rather than one’s own passing, and one of the ways Chosŏn Koreans mourned the dead was by writing about and to the departed. These writings were not only personal but also cultural acts, since it was hoped that the texts would render social memory to the departed through generations, the most valued tribute to the dead in a Confucian society. The importance of this activity was redoubled if the writer was a scholar of fame whose collected works had a good chance of being published and the subject of the eulogy was someone whose life would fall into social oblivion without a trace but for the eulogy.6We owe to JaHyun Kim Haboush an important clarification of a form of creative Korean literature. I apologize for talking about my own mother, writer Hahn Moo-Sook (Han Musuk), here, but I am compelled to do so. After my younger brother Yonggi perished in a traffic accident, she was most deeply distraught, paralyzed in body and mind, for nearly two years. The shock became a disabling chronic pain, and she could resume her life only after writing a letter to her departed son. When she finally “came back to life,” her literature seemed to show a maturity that only such extreme experiences could bring. Uri sai modŭn kŏsi우리사이 모든 것이 (Everything between Us, 1971) is a heartrending story told in the form of a letter addressed to her departed son.7 I have always wondered why the piece is categorized as a short story (tanp’yŏn sosŏl단편소설), which in Korean almost always means a fiction. Now, we owe it to JaHyun that this creative writing work has found its own genuine genre. Furthermore, it is not a new genre, but one rooted in a long tradition finally rediscovered. It is a piece of epistolary literature! Many Western cultures have long recognized epistolary literature as a major part of the creative body of their literature, such as the famous letters of Madame de Sévigné in France.It is interesting that linguists study how culture is reflected in language. JaHyun showed us how language reveals culture. This certainly brings another way for scholars to examine language in sociolinguistics and pragmatic/discourse analyses. Both approaches should prove mutually beneficial and contribute to our better understanding of human nature and the forces that could affect it.JaHyun’s work is not only sharply focused and creative, but rich and thought-provoking because of her general erudition, her wide-ranging interests, and her good-sense observations of and meticulous attention to details in her research. While she read voraciously, her intellectual and cultural activities went far beyond reading. She appreciated all forms of art, traditional and contemporary, including paintings, architecture, music, movies, fashion, and good food, too. She was a lover of life, and her work is always interesting. As Kirk Larsen said, “Haboush has left us with a provocative re-examination of an important period of East Asian History.”8 Throughout her life, she enjoyed aiming for perfection, like a good Confucian. She tried to understand herself by studying others through time and space, and we are all beneficiaries of that beautiful journey.