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5.0 out of 5 stars
Lady Hyegyong's ``Unmentionable'' Memoirs Revived in English, January 13, 1998
THE KOREA TIMES 971016 CULTURE 1044WORDS > By Yang Sung-jin Staff Reporter Darkness seals the closed space. In a wooden rice chest, he protests desperately, but to no avail. After nine days of unimaginable pain and despair, he dies alone. It would be a sheer nightmare to see a person imprisoned in such an unlikely place and die from asphyxiation. To Lady Hyegyong, the widow of this man, it was much worse. For her husband is Prince Sado and the person who ordered him to die is no other than his own father, King Yongjo (1694-1776). "The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong" (University of California Press; 327 pages) reveals the darkest chapter of Korean history. It was translated in 1996 by Kim Ja-hyun, professor of East Asian History and Culture at University of Illinois. For the brilliant translation and the original book's literary value, Kim received the 3rd Korean Literature Translation Award, a biann ual ceremony organized by the Korean Culture & Arts Foundation in order to promote Korean literature overseas. "Professor Kim's translation is brilliant in every sense. For its unparalleled accuracy in translation as well as the literary value of the original text, we had no difficulty choosing her work as the best one," announced jury chief Lee Young-kul at the award ceremony Tu esday. "There were a lot of difficulties and problems, of course. Starting from choosing the most authoritative text available to making footnotes and endnotes, I had to spend much time solving the problems one by one. And yet I think I have been with Lady Hyegyong's voice all those years," said Kim in a press conference. Interestingly, Lady Hyegyong's voice was at first Korean and then it changed into English as Kim continued to work on the translation. Finally it was Lady Hyegyong's voice which helped and encouraged the 56-year-old professor to finish the translation. "Over the past 18 years, many times I felt it's too difficult and too much for me. But whenever I tried to give up, I heard Lady Hyegyong's voice. That's the reason I did not quit," explained Kim. The translation started back in 1975 when Kim was a graduate student at Columbia University, where she was also working as a teaching assistant of a class called "Asian Humanities," based on the famous humanities course, "Contemporary Civilization." In contrast to many Chinese and Japanese works included in the course list, Kim found no Korean literature, which later prompted her to push ahead with the translation. "While I was translating Lady Hyekyong's memoirs, it occurred to me that I am a kind of shaman. As far as I know, a shaman supposedly connects the living with the dead. The only difference is, translation connects two different cultures," said Kim. What Kim did not mention is that a shaman does not simply connect the living and the dead. Traditional Korean shamans are supposed to resolve the entangled relations or unfulfilled desire between the living and the dead through shamanist rituals and trances. The world of the dead to which Kim guides the reader beyond time and culture is awash with filial hatred, inexplicable resentment and its tragic results, all of which are at the center of Lady Hyegyong's memoirs. Lady Hyegyong wrote four memoirs (1795, 1801, 1802 and 1805), which are chiefly known as "Hanjungnok" (Records Written in Silence) to most Koreans. In the memoirs, Lady Hyegyong narrates her life as a royal wife and daughter-in-law from a female perspective, which is rare and precious in Korean literature. At the age of 9, she had to endure the loneliness of being separated from her family after she was chosen as the bride of Prince Sado. Yet the most excruciating experience for her was the uncontrollable feuding between her husband and her father-i n-law. Lady Hyegyong argues in her memoirs that King Yongjo treated Prince Sado so badly that her husband, who is warm and kind at heart from her perspective, fell into a state of emotional disturbance and insanity. Prince Sado, as his emotional troubles deepened, developed clothing-phobia. Among other strange behavior, he spent endless time choosing his clothes in the morning. In the process, he murdered and injured the awaiting servants in sudden fits of rage. King Yongjo, who felt deep distrust and scorn toward his son, finally decided that Prince Sado was too dangerous to live at the court, and confined him to the rice chest in 1762, the "imo" year. What drove Lady Hyegyong to recount the unmentionable "imo incident" were her feelings of guilt. On charges related to the imo incident, her own father lost his seat in the Cabinet while her uncle and brother were executed, all of which led to the downfall of her family. To prove her father's innocence, Lady Hyegyong candidly recounted the detailed situation of the imo incident at the age of 71. The fascinating memoir, as well as its translation, sheds illumination on the historical background of the period, the private lives of the royal family and social obligations demanded of the elite. Kim's masterful translation and thlet foreigners better understand Koreture. A case in point is that "Asian Humanities" recently included Kim's translation on its reading list and students read it with enthusiasm, showing much interest. "Lady Hyegyong's memoir is very significant as a historical document and literary masterpiece because it directly deals with historical facts from a female perspective. It is indeed unique, compared with other female autobiographical writings that focus on mainly personal aspects," explained Kim. Furthermore, Lady Hyegyong wrote in Hangul, which was shunned at that time by the Korean elite, who persisted in using classical Chinese. Because of this, the memoirs provide a precious insight into Korean literary traditions, especially those of works written in Hangul during the Chosun period, she added. The front cover of the book is a picture symbolizing the taboo against depicting members of the royal family, who are "unmentionable," both literally and visually. In the portrait of the royal family and its servants, only King Yongjo is "invisible" on the royal horse. In the pages following the symbolic picture, Lady Hyegyong bravely mentions the ``unmentionable" through the voice of Kim Ja-hyun, a modern shaman who transcends culture and language to revive the Princess's spirit after 200 years of silence.
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