1 - Korea in the 1960s

Summary

YOU REALLY HAD to see Korea in the sixties to know what it was like. Korea time was the conceptual axis on which the culture turned. Modernization and the need for quick decisions have done away with this lovely, lazy, exasperating way of life. If you couldn't do something today, there was always tomorrow, or the next day, or next week. If you know some Korean, ask yourself when was the last time you heard the word kŭlp’i – two days after tomorrow! Sŏ Chŏngju describes this old-time world:

Two Ascetics Meet on Sosŭl Mountain

Kwan’gi lived in his grass hut on the southern peak of Sosŭl Mountain, Tosŏng lived in a cave on the northern side; they were close friends and often travelled the intervening ten li to visit each other. Their arrangements to meet were not according to our rigid norms of year, month, day and hour, but were based on a much more refined standard. When the fresh breeze blew from the north, not too strong and not too weak, and the leaves on the trees leaned to the south, Tosŏng in the north followed that breeze toward Kwan’gi on the southern peak, and Kwan’gi, refreshed by the breeze, would come out to meet him. And when the wind blew fair in the other direction, and the leaves on the trees leaned toward the north, Kwan’gi on the southern peak set out to visit Tosŏng on the northern peak, and Tosŏng, seeing how the breeze blew, would come out to meet his friend. Can't you hear the Immortals laugh?

Sŏ Chŏngju (1915–2000)

Arriving in Korea is etched in my memory like a scene from a Somerset Maugham story. Ireland in the 1960s understood the Tosŏng-Kwan’gi notion of time; my group was a month late getting here. Frank McGann, complete with straw hat and cigar, met us at Kimpo airport and gave us our first introduction to the land of the morning calm. Frank was an old hand – he had been here since Japanese times; in fact he had been under house arrest in Hongch’ŏn during the Pacific War.