Things Korean - O-Young Lee

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are silhouetted as clearly as the form in a lace curtain window.

      This is not to say, though, that the kat is for ornament. On the kat you see neither the resplendent gems nor the brilliant colors of great wealth or high authority. This black kat. even when worn at its usual casual tilt, is the ultimate expression of moderation and restraint.

      But this is not to say that the kat is anything ponderous or oppressive, like some helmet or ceremonial hat designed to maintain a Spartan or sublime frame of mind. On the contrary, the unique feature of the kat, more than anything, is in its feeling of lightness. We might say it is the lightest of all hats known to us.

      The kat is used neither for practical reasons nor for ornamentation. The act of wearing the kat, and the kind one wears, expresses an idea, a spirit, and identifies the one wearing it. We have the adage, "Put on your kat and await your doom." This means that the kat bares to all the world your self, your mind and soul. Since the beginning of the Chosun Dynasty in the fourteenth century, the kat has announced the social position and the activity of the one wearing it.

      In the nineteenth-century social critique, The Legend of Ho Saeng, we find an episode in which the hero tries to corner the market on the kat so that he can at least temporarily deprive the aristocrats and Confucian scholars of their mark of distinction, by which, in turn, he hoped to excise the problems inherent in the strict formalism of Confucianism. With this episode the author seemingly denounced not only Confucianism but the kat along with it. Rather than this being any insult to the kat, though, he inadvertently highlighted the kat's moral power.

      The kat's message is manifest in the firm and straight consistency of the hair of the horse's tail. It is soft, not hard like steel. The kat's silken black sheen nevertheless manifests the strict integrity it attests to. The.material is itself the embodiment of the Korean spirit.

      An Intimate String Instrument

      Komungo

      The distinctive nature of even musical instrument is manifested more in how it produces sound than in the sound it produces.

      No matter how beautiful or peaceful the music from Western culture's musical instruments can sometimes be, one cannot escape the fact that these instruments have an aggressive character. The piano separates the performer from his audience and, despite the fact that it is a string instrument, is played like a percussion instrument, in that the performer has to beat on its key-board. The performer assumes an attitude of confrontation with his instrument. The same goes for the violin, in spite of the fact that the performer almost hugs it to himself. Observe a bit more closely how it is held in performance, and you will get the impression that some bird in the act of flying off into the blue has been caught in one hand, stuck up under the chin, and with the other hand is simultaneously being sawed in half and plucked of its feathers. The western instrument which seems to be most intimate with its human performer is the guitar. In both its timbre and in its role it is different from the instruments of soloist recitals. At countless campfires and parties and other social gatherings its congenial strains serve to bring all together in a communal spirit. It also shows great intimacy with its master, cradled as it is in his lap while he is playing it.

      But even the guitar, in comparison with the Korean komunko, cannot completely shed the character of confrontation and aggressiveness. The guitar is grasped at its neck, and set up in the lap; the komunko. on the other hand, is not grasped or clutched anywhere, and is in a fully reclining position, rested across one's crossed legs. There is not the slightest hint of confrontation or aggression in the movement of the person playing the komunko. In the performer, left hand pressing the chords and right hand working the how, we see a mother stroking her sleeping baby, or one straightening the cover of the sleeping lover. On another occasion you will glimpse one feeling the brow of a sick friend, or another rinsing his hands in a flowing brook. If the Westerner were to see the komunko in action, he might see the Pieta. Man grieving over the lifeless body of the son on her lap. There is no sense of confrontation or struggle between the komunko and the musician playing it. They are the most intimate of friends.

      In action, all musical instruments either stand erect by themselves or are propped up with something. As a rule, they produce sound when they are erect, and fall into silence when they are resting back in recline. But when an instrument assumes that erect posture, trying to escape the hold of gravity, its tone is going to be strident. When the violin is hitting its high notes, its song and the gestures of the one playing it shoot off sparks into the sky. And just picture those trumpets of the "Fanfare" reaching together to the heavens.

      And then there is the komunko. the one exception to this rule that activity happens in an erect position. The komunko performs in recline, and rests standing erect, propped against something, after it has finished performing. So it is active in its horizontal state, and inactive in its vertical state.

      When does the human being recline? Certainly not when he is working or fighting or in pursuit of his goals. The musical instrument, too, achieves its purpose when it is erect.

      The komunko. however, could not impart the intimacy and tenderness it does if it were played in an upright position. This apparent paradox in the komunko may be the very reason we feel a real friend close by when we hear its moving strains.

      The Egg Crib

      Kyerankkuromi

      The egg is a very fragile thing. Its shell. which gives way at the chick's first flexing of his muscles, is the most sensitive wall in all of life. It could very well he that this fact prompted the adage. "You don't walk along the castle walls with a load of eggs."

      Eggs can not sit still, and even a miracle could not make an egg stand on its end. Phis is where the well-known anecdote about "Columbus' egg" originates. And an egg will go had quickly. It will turn rotten just like that, if you do not sit there and watch it. Something that breaks so easily. that will not stay in one place, and goes had so quickly has got to he packaged properly. It is easy to see how the packaging industry started with the egg.

      Koreans used to package their eggs in woven straw. That soft, absorbent straw which protected its eggs from shock and moisture performed the same function the nest does for a bird in providing coziness and security for its eggs.

      The fact that Korea's egg crib is made of straw is interesting enough, but there is more. The Japanese, after all, also protect their eggs in straw. But there is a difference. The egg crib in Japan completely encloses the eggs, whereas the Korean egg crib has no top on it.

      Why then would our egg crib stop half way up? The Japanese, thinking only of its main function, do it their way to protect the egg. But thinking only in terms of physical function prevents you from seeing the condition of the egg inside, and this ultimately defeats the purpose of the egg crib. When the buyer sees only a bunch of straw, and not what is inside, he will tend to forget how fragile the eggs are. The eggs inside want to warn. "Be careful with us!" but their warning is stifled under that tightly woven lid of straw. So the egg crib becomes a plaything of functional rationalism, that mighty god of modem industrial society who plays his destructive game with the form and structure of everything we build.

      The Korean's topless egg crib accomplishes both the physical function of protecting the egg and the equally important function of conveying information. The one carrying the eggs, seeing the fragile things in their container, is constantly

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