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The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong: The Autobiographical Writings of a Crown Princess of Eighteenth-Century Korea

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"The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong" is actually four different works written by one woman, a circumspect, scrupulous, unfortunate 18th Century Korean aristocrat. The memoirs are, successively, a family injunction, a memorial, a biography, and a historiography. At the center of the collection sits Hong Hyegyong and her husband, Crown Prince Sado. "The Memoirs" span the reigns of Yongjo, Chongjo, and Sunjo, and the careers of Lady Hyegyong's father, Hong Ponghan, and her older brothers.

Lady Hong Hyegyong was the wife of Crown Prince Sado, who in 1762, was ordered by his father, King Yongjo, to step into a rice chest, which was susequently bound and covered in sod. Crown Prince Sado had been punished by his father for a series of heinous murders caused by Sado's mental illness. Lady Hyegyong and her family, including her son, the future King Chongjo, then became the focal point of factional quarrels at court, each side using the execution of the Crown Prince, to its own political advantage.

Lady Hyegyong, in the first three memoirs, strives to defend her father and brothers against chages of treason and complicity in Sado's execution. The last memoir is a defense of her husband. All four are addressed to her grandson, King Sunjo, to restore the honor of her family.

Although Lady Hyegyong nor Haboush could ascertain the specific cause of Crown Prince Sado's illness, and Lady Hyegyong's anecdotal evidence is hardly scientific, I would like to offer ''hwabyong'', or, in Korean, ''fire disease'' or ''anger disease''. ''Hwabyong'', as offered by Alford in "Think No Evil: Korean Values In The Age Of Globalization" (see review), is ''...a unique Korean folk syndrome...'' characterized by ''...anxiety, panic,...and the suppression of anger...'' (p. 77). Korean fire disease's ''...symptoms reflect[s] the constraints of the culture: not just on the expression of of emotion, but the lack of opportunity...to change...''(p. 79). Only Crown Prince Sado,and the evidence offered in "The Memoir of 1805", can affirm this conjecture.

The last work, "The Memoir of 1805", is a brilliant psychological portrait of Crown Prince Sado. It is a revealing exercise in historical writing, and also reveals the mind of an extraordinary woman trying to understand some of the most harrowing personal tragedies any spouse or daughter might face.

"The Memoirs" can be compared to Lady Murasaki Shikibu's "The Tale of Genji", "Hamlet", and the lives of the Roman Emperors. One major failing of Haboush's''Introduction'' is, that she does not place the incidents in a broader historical and international context. But she does manage to argue against abridging and collecting each work into a longer historical novel. A broader focus would further aid in understanding Lady Hyegyong's dedication in defense of her brothers and father.

This is not only a valuable history, but it is also another demonstration of the narrative powers of Asian women authors operating in a patriarchical, almost misogynistic, culture.

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.

Chosen to become the crown princess of Choson Dynasty in the 18th century Korea, Lady Hyegyong's life would change from a quite, cloistered life of an aristocrat to that filled with tragedy. Indeed, only the most tragic of Shakespear's tragedies could possibly match the sad story of Prince Sado. Lady Hyegyong watched with anguish as her husband progressively fell deeper into his own twisted world. King Yongjo--a monarch obsessed in cultivating himself as the most Confucian ruler of his day--frustrated and angry over his son's increasingly bizaare behavior orders his son death by confining Prince Sado to a rice chest.

Jahyun Haboush has done a commendable job of introducing this compelling story to wider readers. As a fine scholar of premodern Korean history, Haboush leads the reader through not only Lady Hyegyong's heartwrenching memoir but provides the historical context in which the tragedy take place. Indeed, this book is an important scholarly and literary work that will undoubtely raise interest in Korean history.

Lady Hyegyong was the crown princess of the Korean court in the 18th century. That is until her husband, crown prince Sado was killed at his father's orders.

This book is an excellent translation by the author of Lady Hyegyong's memoirs. They are a unique historical document. They are also the first true autobiographical writings by a woman to come out of Korea.

The translator has used the earliest versions of these memoirs available to base his translation (oddly enough these are found in the USA, not Korea - the koreans must be annoyed over this!)

The memoirs were acutally written in 4 parts and the translator has preserved this breakage. In many ways the first part (written in 1795) and the last part (written in 1805) are the most interesting sections of this book. The first memoir movingly depicts the author being chosen as wife to the crown prince and her distress at her success. The middle memoris of 1801 & 1802 cover much of what is in the 1795 section. These mostly elaborate on themes in the earlier one, and are principly a justification/explantion of her families 'bad luck' over the years and why it is her fault. It also brings home the old saying that "power corrupts - absoult power corrupts absolutly".

The last part, written in 1805 descibes the events leading up to her husbands death. It is written with great character insight and is of great historical value. The writer was obviously a lady of intelligence.

This book only gets 3 stars, because while it is interesting, the middle section of the book is quite slow to get through because it is so repetitive. Parts 1 & 4 offer the real vale here. I'm suprised no-one has written a novel of this ladies life with this great source material.

Beyond the scholarly merit and historical significance of this book, the story is hugely compelling, not merely for the facts of the chilling event, but for several other reasons.

First, the view Lady Hyegyong provides of the court life and the strict Confucian beliefs that hinge on filial piety, loyalty, virtue and honor is evident more in what she doesn't say than what is said. It's a growing subtle presentation of how life unfolded within these confines of faith, and as a result, how tragedy after tragedy continued to compound. One could read the Analects or any Neo-Confucian work, and not understand to the degree shown here the depths of the practice and belief that affected every aspect of life in the late Choson era.

Second, along with JaHyun Kim Haboush's careful introduction, the annotations she has so helpfully added, the glossaries and appendices, the book presents a highly respectful translation that brings forth all the humanity of the players in a way that makes the story unfold like a novel of hope, horror, survival and the desire for inner peace and heavenly redemption.

Third, by providing the historical literary context of these MEMOIRS (in the introduction), we benefit from understanding not only the historical events but the tense cultural climate and the severe limitations that Lady Hyegyong had to challenge and overcome in order to redeem the honor of her family. Almost as a self-reflective postmodern work of existentialism, the book stands as its own redemptive testament to its themes.

To read of this historical event from one who suffered in its aftermath, and who despite the strictures of her sex and position could tell of it with artistry, is an amazing literary experience.

The tragedy of Lady Hong and Prince Sado occurred in 18th Century Korea, but Dr. Haboush's detailed translation and commentary of 3 of Lady Hong's diaries makes the tragedy come to life. I've actually read 3 other translations and this is the best. It translates the 3 versions of her memoirs accurately and Dr. Haboush includes valuable commentary and insight

First off I am no scholar. Second I don't read or speak ancient Chinese or Korean. But this translation beats subtitles hands down. The Lady wrote these memoirs for her descendants. She takes you into her heart, in profound neo- Confucian style. The insight into Prince Sado's madness is totally modern. Her understanding of why the King(Sado's father) punished him in such a horrible way transcends anything Shakespeare or the ancient Greeks could come up with. Her story is easy to get into. .A child engaged to a Crown Prince is delivered, literally, to the Imperial Court to be raised properly and married. The Crown Prince turns out to be a good looking sweetie at first, but in not too many years he becomes murderous. Her line "and then the killings began" is chilling and profoundly startling.We of European Descent have our awful historic Royals and Popes, but as near as I know, no memoirs have come down from any educated upper class lady who was in the thick of chaos, trying to look out for her son and future king, preserve her family's honor, watch and unwillingly survive the executions and exiles of of family members, This is the genuine article. I hope people are not scared off by thinking it is only for academics.

One thing that has always struck me is our need as Americans to really understand and accept the neo-confucian traditions of Korea. Where are these people coming from? we wonder, especially when we ponder the North . This ancient manuscript might help us clean up our preconceptions, especially the artificial judgement that all the North has to do is overthrow its "Stalinist" president and everything will be hunky dory. These attitudes run deep and are very old.

Reading this book, I felt like I was there with Lady Hyegyong. I can imagine her fears and grief were greater than most people could handle. This woman was remarkable.

an interesting book. It makes the writings of a crown princess more informative and intense. I would recommend this book but readers might want to read a simpler version. The book is a little messy and isn't in the form of the beginning of the story to the end. Bits and pieces are told in different chapters.

Overall, an interesting story.

I think Haboush was trying to adhere to the original piece how the Crown prince wrote it but the sequence of events perhaps could have been ordered better? Because they are divided into 4 sections and each memoir tells the same story in different perspective and you have to go back.

Also some of the Korean names and terms I would have liked to have seen them typed both in Korean as well. It was had to make out what it meant.

It clarified, especially the last memoir (1805) how and why Sado seja was killed. History often sites that It was his father's extreme dislike for that drove to it. He could not have been disposed because there would have been factions that would try to put him back up on the throne.