Korean Gender Roles in the Modern Era Two Different Paths t

Korean Gender Roles in the Modern Era: Two Different Paths
toward Modernity
This essay is focus on the happenings that took place between
the years 1880 to 1940. I will also be speaking about the
country of Korea and how feminism was able to seize. I believe
that it was not easy for the women to come out as strong and
intelligent as they did especially after the colonization as well
as the main gender stereotypes that were there in Korea and the
traditions that the people they are embraced. Moreover, the neo-
Confucian society in Korea also permitted and dictated that the
norms that affected the manhood positively were divided into
staged of the class lines. The Korean tradition that allowed
people to fight for prowess was allowed as a musicality patter n
as a pre-modern society for the commoners. In that case, I
would want to state that in Korea, the women fought for their
rights as much as they could through education and religion as
modernization had started to set in (Tikhonov, 1034). (This
introductory paragraph contains a lot of useful information, but
it is still a bit unclear what is your thesis. Is the main focus of
your essay the contrasting paths taken by Korean men and
women toward a modern lifestyle? And if so, then is your
thesis that Korean men were able to build upon tradition in their
quest for modernity, but that Korean women had to reject
tradition completely, and instead reach modernity through
Western education and religion? )
First, the women in Korea were inspired by the Christian ways
that came along during the late 1800s. For instance, several
publications that were made by missionaries usually gave
examples of the novel ways that the women who were identified
as “oriental” had begun to live after they were transformed by

Christians to begin living with regards to Christianity.
Moreover, most of them were lucky to acquire sponsorships that
allowed them to go and study abroad (Choi, 145). After their
studies, they would travel back to Korea, and there they would
become the leaders since the sense of hem being educated drew
a lot of attention towards them. In addition to this, the women
were also transformed into Christians who was crucial for the
proliferation of the communities that believe in Christianity it
was believed during those times that no nation could become a
Christian without a Christian mother; therefore, nurturing the
women to become leaders was imperative (Tikhonov, 1035).
(Also, the fact that European countries were Christian was also
impressed Koreans, in that in seemed to suggest that
Christianity was a key part of being a modern nation. )
The Korean mission was able to produce multiple Christian
women leaders who were also well educated as well as under
good guidance (Choi, 148). These women left important
footprints through their mission work mission schools as well as
various large and small scale Institutions that belonged to
Christians. They aimed to spread both the good news as well as
impart spiritual growth to their members who were mostly
women. They also very and deeply engaged themselves in
activities that involved impacting social enlightenment by
providing the learners with literacy education and training. The
children and women were mostly affected in rural areas. These
groups together with the organizations and institutions played a
very significant role for the New Women to learn their skills in
leadership, solidarity strengthening, and also reaching out to
other women.
A good example of a woman that passed through this was
“Grace Sufficient”: Kim Hwal-lan. Kim Hwal-lan lived
through1899 t0 1970 and represented Ewha and YWCA via her
leadership of some institutions, ideas that are symbolized as
Christian womanhood as well as demonstrated the outcomes that
are related to Christian desired in Korea. She went ahead to

become one of the most influential leaders in the twentieth
century of Korea. This was reflected mostly in the education
sector, however, she was also known for being mostly
controversial woman intellectual since she ended up in
collaboration with their neighbors the Japanese colonial power
in the Second World War. She was also able to leave a vital
mark on the YWCA of Korea, which was the first women’s
organization (Choi, page 149-150).
The other feminine that lived in Korea and made a difference
because of her education and religious beliefs was Pahk Unduk
(1896-1980). She was a woman hat represented the ones that
could succinctly capture the turbulent transition from the novel
womanhood that was being recognized in Korea. She believed in
Christianity and that means that she was like an ambassador for
ethics as well as modern yearnings which are very secure. When
she was at Ewha, she created a great reputation for herself
(Choi, 157). This is because she was recognized as the best and
fluent English speaker, music talented, and every attractive
physically. Her capabilities to speak in front of people gave her
and other women the morale to keep on going even as they
started to modernize and have the rights that they so deserve.
In conclusion, I would like to state that the lives of people
normally change, as if they 1were meant to be like that even
before they happen. In the lives of the women that I have talked
about, we have seen that it is only the presence of physical
distractors that make things not work as they should. Women
have always deserved better in this life but the men have always
ruled over them, despite their need for humility and submission.
To wrap it all up, I would like to also say that the two factors
that I spoke of before; religion and education have been of great
relevance when it comes to women empowerment in Korea
during the period of 1880 up to 1940. Therefore, the work of
women change significantly as they became more aware and
powerful and the men still above them but respected them and
did their responsibilities as required. (Your conclusion does not
fully match your introduction. There, it seemed you were going

to contrast the ways in which Korean men and women changed
during the modern era. However, your body and conclusion
only mention women. I suggest you either add a new paragraph
in the body talking about Korean men, and how they built upon
some native traditions in their path to become modern and to
contrast them with Korean women.)
References
Choi H. (2009). New Women, Old Ways: Seoul-California
Series in Korean Studies. Gender and Mission Encounters in
Korea, 1, 145-147
Tikhonov V. (2007). Masculinizing the Nation: Gender
Ideologies in Traditional Korea and in the 1890s-1900s Korean
Enlightenment Discourse. The Journal of Asian Studies,, 66,
1029-1065
Chapter Title: Doing It for Her Self: Sin yŏsŏng (New Women)
in Korea
Book Title: Gender and Mission Encounters in Korea
Book Subtitle: New Women, Old Ways: Seoul-California Series
in Korean Studies, Volume 1
Book Author(s): HYAEWEOL CHOI
Published by: University of California Press. (2009)
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145
The phenomenon of New Women [sin yosong] in the 1920s and
1930s
marks a signifi cant milestone showing Korea’s progress toward
modernity
that began in the late nineteenth century. The discourse on
modern wom-
anhood that had been dominated by male intellectuals began to
be trans-
formed by the fi rst generation of educated women in the print
media and
urban space. It also started to reveal growing tensions between

competing
narratives put forward by Korean men and women intellectuals
as they
had more exposure to Western and Japanese modernity. In a
signifi cant
way, the New Women were both the culmination of and a
challenge to the
Christian and nationalist drive for “civilization and
enlightenment.” As
Theodore Jun Yoo aptly points out, the newly emerging class of
educated
women was a product of efforts by Enlightenment-oriented male
intel-
lectuals who regarded newly educated women “as symbols of
modernity,
civilization and nationalism.” At the same time, these New
Women began
to pose unexpected threats to “the stability of the family,
compromising
sexual morality and denigrating national character.” 1 It was
this nego-
tiation of feminist agendas that the vanguard of educated New
Women
struggled to cope with in their work and everyday life.
The emergence of New Women in Korea was signifi cantly
aligned with
a global trend. The term New Woman was fi rst introduced by
Sarah Grand
in the North American Review in 1894 and was effectively
employed by
English and American women who struggled “against the
constraints of
Victorian norms of femininity” in their pursuit of an alternative
life.2
Refusing to have their proper place defi ned by men, the newly

emerging
group of women began to agitate against centuries-old gender
norms and
engage in new cultural production and political activities. In
this vein,
Rita Felski argues that the New Woman became a “powerful
symbol of
6. Doing It for Her Self
Sin yosong (New Women) in Korea
2016 02:43:27 UTC
146 / Doing It for Her Self
modernity, change, and the future.” 3 Commonly identifi ed
“with the mod-
ern and the disruptive, that is with challenges to existing
structures of
gendered identity,” 4 New Women were intimately linked with
capitalist
consumer economy and a changing political climate, generating
dynamic
gender politics in a wide range of issues including citizenship,
education,
work, fashion, leisure, the body, and sexuality.5 By the 1910s,
the concept
of the New Woman had been translated into various Asian
languages (sin
yosong in Korean, xin nüxing in Chinese, atarashii onna in
Japanese)
and had sparked a new women’s movement in East Asia by

addressing the
unique female constraints imposed by Confucian gender norms.
While it was a global phenomenon, the New Woman was also
inexorably
tied to the specifi c historical and cultural elements of each
distinct society it
emerged in. In particular, the ways in which the forces of
(semi)colonialism,
nationalism, and modernity framed and appropriated the woman
question
shed light on local variations of the experience of the New
Women that
went beyond the mere importation of Western-originated ideas
of New
Women.6 The New Women’s movement in Korea was inevitably
shaped
by its unique historical circumstances of Japanese colonial rule,
anticolo-
nial movements, and a growing desire for the new and the
modern. Within
this broader political and cultural context, various factors
contributed to
the emergence and development of New Women in Korea,
including the
increased population of educated women,7 the shift of the
Japanese colonial
policy toward “Cultural Rule” after the 1919 March First
Independence
Movement, the gradual industrialization and urbanization of the
Korean
economy, the explosion in the number of social and cultural
organizations,
and the proliferation of vernacular presses and publications.8
More notably,
the intellectual infl uence of Western and Japanese women’s

movements
on Korean women was an indispensable factor in the emergence
of the
New Women in Korea. In the 1920s and 1930s, translations of a
number
of foreign writers who put forward new feminine ideals became
available,
including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henrik Ibsen, Ellen Key,
Alexandra
Kollontai, Guy de Maupassant, and Leo Tolstoy.9 Nora, the
protagonist in
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House became an especially potent
symbol for New
Women in East Asia.10
There are a variety of defi nitions of New Women in Korean
scholarship.11
However, the popularized image of New Women in 1920s and
1930s print
media was often associated with the image of “girl students”
and a small
group of elite women in urban spaces.12 They attracted the
admiration of
the public, especially those who studied overseas and had
accomplished
something unprecedented in the fi elds of art, literature,
education, or jour-
2016 02:43:27 UTC
Doing It for Her Self / 147

nalism. Simultaneously, they also drew relentless criticism for
challenging
Confucian gender norms, advocating gender equality, rejecting
the sacred
nature of motherhood, engaging in scandalous love affairs, and
indulging
themselves in the worldly pleasures of shopping, reading
romance stories,
watching “motion pictures of crude Americanism,” 13 and
wearing Western-
style clothing, high heels, and bobbed hairstyles. A growing
number of
readers and writers propelled the ever-more sensationalized
image of the
New Woman. A few prominent examples of the New Women
became
minor celebrities, famous for simply being themselves.14 They
were often
in the spotlight, and their private lives were constantly
scrutinized, particu-
larly in the event of divorce or love affairs. A mix of praise and
harsh moral
judgment fi lled the pages of the print media. As Barbara Sato
points out
in her analysis of a similar social situation in interwar Japan,
the popular-
ized and sensationalized image of the New Women was not
based on the
actual life of “real women” but the “possibilities for what all
women could
become.” 15 In this sense, the image of the New Women reveals
“the temper
of an age symbolized by changing women’s identities” in the
making.16 The
New Women in Korea shared this symbolic power, offering
exhilarating

hopes and possibilities for the new era. At the same time, they
also invited
deep anxiety and uncertainty about the new order of gender
relations, espe-
cially among male intellectuals.17
What is unique about Korean New Women vis-à-vis those in
other cul-
tures is that they had a signifi cant connection with Protestant
Chris tianity.
As the New Woman Hwang Sin-dok observed in 1931, the sheer
majority
of New Women had exposure to Christianity through mission
schools and
churches.18 Many of them came from Christian families and
were bap-
tized as children. Christian spirituality was one of the bonding
solidari-
ties among students studying overseas.19 Some married in
Christian-style
weddings and were professionally involved in national and
international
Christian organizations, most prominently represented by the
Korean
Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), founded in
1922.20 Just
as the early Enlightenment-oriented male intellectuals were
deeply infl u-
enced by Christian civilization, so was the fi rst-generation of
New Women
in Korea. To these women, Christianity was more than a new
religion. It
offered them a wide range of novel experiences through church
attendance,
rituals, music, sports, and group activities, which served as a
platform for

understanding the world beyond domestic routines and
developing their
identities as individuals.
However, the responses of New Women to Christianity were by
no
means uniform. Quite the contrary, the ways in which these
women incor-
2016 02:43:27 UTC
porated Christian religion into their public and private lives
demonstate
the variety of their religious encounters with Christianity.
Ranging from
a lifetime commitment to Christian spirituality to outright
rejection, the
choice of New Women for or against Christianity reveals their
individual
strategies in carving out their public and private spaces. The
tensions they
felt between their religious and secular interests and between
collective
(read: nationalistic) and individual desires resulted in
remarkably diverse
life paths. In this chapter, I focus on some examples of New
Women whose
public discourse and private lives shed light on the complex
relationships
they had with Christianity, Japanese colonialism, Korean

nationalism,
and secular modernity. Analyzing several key debates on
modern woman-
hood, I pay special attention to the points of connection and
disconnection
between missionary and nationalist mandates and Korean
women’s own
understanding of the modern.
Chr ist i a n Moder n a nd New Women
A number of mission publications regularly cited examples of
the new ideal
for “Oriental” women who had been transformed by
Christianity. In par-
ticular, those who were sponsored by missionary teachers to
study overseas
drew a great deal of attention because they would potentially
become lead-
ers in the woman’s world upon returning to Korea.21 For
example, Esther
Pak, who became the fi rst woman doctor trained in Western
medicine in
the United States, was proudly presented by her mentor, Rosetta
Sherwood
Hall, as an example of “one new life in the Orient.” 22 Pak’s
transformed
life and her devotion to healing the bodies and minds of Korean
women
exemplifi ed the ideal outcome of women’s missionary work.
Kim Maria
and Kim P’il-lye, both of whom studied in Japan and the United
States,
were hailed as ideal Christian women who represented the
future of Korean
womanhood.23 Just as converting women to Christianity was

crucial for
the proliferation of Christian communities because “no nation
can become
Christian without Christian mothers,” so fostering Christian
women to
become future leaders was imperative to ensure that present and
future
Christian women were under good guidance. The Korea mission
produced
a good number of Christian women leaders who left a signifi
cant footprint
through their work at mission schools and a variety of small and
large scale
Christian institutions. Most of these organizations primarily
aimed at the
spiritual growth of their members and the instruction of a
Christian life-
style. However, they were also deeply engaged in social
“enlightenment”
activities, largely through offering literacy training to children
and women
2016 02:43:27 UTC
in rural communities.24 These diverse Christian groups and
organizations
were an important platform for New Women to learn leadership
skills,
strengthen solidarity, and reach out to other women in all walks
of life.

“Grace Sufficient”: Kim Hwal-lan
If Ewha Girls’ School signaled the beginning of new
womanhood in the
late nineteenth century, the establishment of the Korean YWCA
in 1922
manifested a certain maturity in Chrsitian womanhood that
provided
women with greater opportunities to get involved in
educational, social,
and economic issues. Kim Hwal-lan (1899 – 1970), who
represented both
Ewha and the YWCA through her leadership of both of these
institutions,
symbolized ideal Christian womanhood and exemplifi ed the
most desired
outcome of Christian education in Korea. Kim is no doubt one
of the most
infl uential women leaders in twentieth-century Korea,
especially in the
area of women’s education, but she is arguably the most
controversial
woman intellectual because of her collaboration with the
Japanese colonial
power during the Second World War.
Born in Inch’on in 1899, Kim attended a primary school,
Yonghwa, which
had been founded by a Methodist missionary, Margaret Bengal
Jones, in
1892.25 When her family moved to Seoul in 1907, she entered
Ewha, where
her two older sisters were already in attendance. She was
admitted on schol-
arship by Lulu Frey, the school’s principal. After she fi nished

high school
in 1913, she wanted to pursue college education, but her father
objected
strongly, mainly because she was already “of marriageable age
and going
to school for fi ve more years was unthinkable” to him.26
However, with a
“determination to prepare my self through education to serve
my people
and my nation” and with the support of her mother and
missionary teach-
ers such as Jeannette Walter and Alice Appenzeller, she pursued
a college
education at Ewha and went on to study overseas. She received
a BA in1924
from Ohio Wesleyan University, an MA in 1925 from Boston
University,
and the PhD in 1931 from Columbia University.27 In 1939, she
became the
fi rst Korean president of Ewha (see fi gure 13). Given this
background, it
is impossible to separate the history of Ewha from that of Kim
Hwal-lan.
She was fostered by American missionaries throughout her
education and
career, culminating in her position at Ewha. Furthermore, since
Ewha was
one of the two institutions that offered college education to
women until
Korea’s independence in 1945, Ewha and Kim together
symbolized modern
education for women.28
Kim Hwal-lan also left a signifi cant mark on the Korean
YWCA, the
fi rst Christian women’s organization with nationwide networks

crisscross-
2016 02:43:27 UTC
ing different denominations and that engaged not only in
religious activi-
ties but also in secular social and political movements, such as
the women’s
movement, the rural community movement, and the nationalist
movement.
Kim was one of the founding members of the Korean YWCA,
along with
Kim P’il-lye and Yu Kak-kyong.29 In 1922, Alice Appenzeller
introduced her
to Kim P’il-lye, who had been interested in organizing a Korean
branch of
the YWCA since she had fi rst been exposed to the organization
during her
study in Japan in 1908.30 Kim Hwal-lan accompanied Kim P’il-
lye to Peking
(Beijing) to attend the Student Christian Federation Conference
to explore
the establishment of a Korean affi liate of the World YWCA.31
Korea’s status
as a Japanese colony complicated such an affi liation, but they
were able to
get support from their Japanese counterpart, which agreed to
allow Korea
to stand as an independent member.32 Kim followed up on this
preliminary

success at Peking when she attended the World Committee
Meeting of the
YWCA in Washington, D.C., to request formal affi liation. She
described the
diffi culties in convincing the YWCA to hear and accept her
arguments for
the establishment of a Korean branch of the YWCA, because
“through all
YWCA history, in no other country had the women of the land
taken the
entire initiative and responsibility for the beginning of their
organization.”
Despite the lack of any precedent, she was able to gain a
“pioneer member-
ship” awarded to the Korean YWCA,33 and its pioneer
membership changed
to the regular full membership in 1930.34 Kim Hwal-lan served
as the presi-
dent of the Korean YWCA intermittently from the mid-1920s to
the late
1930s.35 As Ch’on Hwa-suk rightly points out in her study of
the Korean
YWCA, the establishment and development of that organization
cannot be
reduced to the role of a few prominent leaders. Rather, it
represents the
growing modern consciousness among Christian women and the
ever-
expanding grassroots organizations centering on mission
schools and local
churches. Nonetheless, as Ch’on also notes, its leadership was
dominated by
a few women, including Kim Hwal-lan, Kim P’il-lye, and Yu
Kak-kyong,
and these leaders came from either Ewha or Chongsin — the fl
agship girls’

schools run by the Methodist and Presbyterian churches,
respectively.36 In
this vein, Kim Hwal-lan’s long-term leadership in the YWCA
marks a key
linkage between mission education and other Christian
activities, between
the local and the national, and between Korea and the world
Christian
community of women. Kim was exceptionally prepared to play
this leader-
ship role through her education at Ewha and her exposure to the
world as
a student at American institutions of higher education and
participant in
missionary meetings worldwide. In her autobiography, Grace
Suffi cient,
Kim Hwal-lan remembered the powerful inspiration she drew
from fellow
2016 02:43:27 UTC
Christians she met at international mission conferences. She
detailed the
experience when she fi rst attended the Executive Committee
Meeting of the
Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist
Episcopal Church
in 1923. She recalled how inspirational it was to see “hundreds
of church-
women come together to pray and work for their common

objectives and
responsibilities concerning missions in all parts of the world.”
The poised
leadership of the president of the committee strongly impressed
young
Kim, and she took the president as a constant source of
inspiration.37
Throughout her career, Christian spirituality was the backbone
that pro-
vided her with support. When American missionaries were
forced to leave
Korea by the Japanese in 1940, Kim recalled that she felt
overwhelmed with
a “sense of loneliness and helplessness.” She had to face not
only fi nancial
problems without the subsidies from the missions but also
increasing Japa-
nese oppression. However, she said, she was “fully aware of the
presence of
Almighty God everywhere, ready to help, comfort, sustain, and
continue
to bless Ewha and all these who remained with her . . . During
those dif-
fi cult days courage and fortitude, wisdom and guidance were
needed daily
and hourly from above. We had all these blessings
commensurable to our
needs.” 38 Under increasing pressure to collaborate with Japan
during the
Second World War, Kim Hwal-lan offered her services to the
colonial power
in the form of public speeches to mobilize men and women for
the war effort
and actively engaged in pro-Japanese organizations.39 Along
with other

prominent women, such as Pahk Induk [Pak In-dok], Mo Yun-
suk, and Ko
Hwang-gyong, Kim Hwal-lan propagated the slogan naeson
ilch’e (Japan
and Korea are One Entity), a Japanese propaganda effort
designed to eradi-
cate Korean national identity.40 When her critics accused her of
collabora-
tion with the Japanese colonial power in the 1930s and 1940s,
she justifi ed
her action as being necessary in order to keep Ewha open under
the harsh
colonial policies. Her collaboration with the Japanese was in
keeping with
the Methodist Church’s general policy of minimizing confl ict
with the colo-
nial authorities. The Methodist mission had gone so far as to
conform to
the policy of sinsa ch’ambae (Homage to Shinto Shrines), taking
it not as a
religious act but a ritual imposed by the state.41 She further
argued that even
her public speeches supporting the Pacifi c War and the colonial
government
carried “unspoken words” that were understood by her
students,42 and her
sole purpose in collaborating with the colonial power was to
protect Ewha.43
Whether her actions were an exigency to keep the school open
or were the
result of her own personal ambition, her collaboration stood out
prominently
due to her stature as a pioneer in women’s education, the fi rst
PhD holder, the
fi rst Korean president of Ewha, and a leader of the Korean
YWCA.

2016 02:43:27 UTC
As one of the offi cially designated “Japanese collaborators,”
Kim Hwal-
lan is arguably the most controversial woman intellectual in
twentieth-
century Korea. Opinions about her legacy differ vastly
depending on
the political standpoints of the commentators. A huge
controversy arose
in 1998 when Ewha Womans University announced its plan to
mark the
100th anniversary of Kim Hwal-lan’s birth by establishing the
“Uwol
Kim Hwal-lan Award,” 44 to be given to an exemplary woman
or women’s
organization.45 Public sentiment was overwhelmingly negative.
Even Ewha
students protested the award, criticizing Kim’s pro-Japanese
speeches
and activities that urged Korean men and women to volunteer to
join the
Pacifi c War to become true hwangguk sinmin (imperial
subjects of Japan).
However, the Korean feminist Kwon In-suk has argued that one
needs to
keep in mind the complex politics of memory and
historiography when it
comes to the place of women in national history. Kwon observes

that there
has been “disproportionate public attention” to Kim Hwal -lan
and a few
other women “collaborators” (6 in total) in comparison with
male collabo-
rators (708 in total), suggesting that such an imbalance in the
treatment
reveals “the gendered patriarchal character of current Korean
nationalist
discourse” and leaves “the simplifi ed impression that renowned
women
intellectuals in the decades ranging from the 1920s through the
1940s were
collaborators.” 46 To be sure, the rare presence of women
intellectuals in the
colonial era makes them easy, fast, and frequent targets of
criticism. But by
the same token there have also been a few women intellectuals,
such as Kim
Maria, who have emerged as heroic fi gures for their anti -
Japanese activi-
ties. This binary framework in which individuals are either
collaborators
or freedom fi ghters completely ignores the inherent compl exity
in the lives
of individual historical subjects. The lives of women, especially
prominent
ones, have been conveniently deployed either to praise their
sacrifi ce for
the nation or to demonize their self-ambition. The prevailing
evaluation
of Kim Hwal-lan refl ects this dichotomous approach and
reminds us of the
ongoing tensions between nationalist and feminist agendas.
While the debate over Kim Hwal-lan’s legacy needs to be

further devel-
oped, there is a clue that Kim’s collaboration might stem from
her persis-
tent interest in the advancement of women’s issues. When she
attended
the 1928 meeting of the International Missionary Council in
Jerusalem
as a Korean delegate, she gave a speech that reconfi rmed the
critical role
of Christainity in helping Korean women to fi nd their intrinsic
value
regardless of gender, class, or age. She further saw the
discovery of the
self endowed with equality by God as a platform for critiquing
the male-
dominant church organizations:
2016 02:43:27 UTC
When Christ taught the way of life to the Samaritan woman at
the
well, He withheld no privileges and made no conditions as to
her right
to bear witness to Him. The same was true of His attitude to
men and
women of all classes. But His life and teachings seemed to have
been
misrepresented since, perhaps unconsciously and in some cases
with
good intentions, and we find today certain conditions even in

churches
under Christ’s name that make the vision of Christ a little
blurred to
the less discerning eyes of youth. For example, while Christ has
never
forbidden any to bear witness for Him, in some churches of to-
day
women are not allowed to preach in pulpits, not because they
are
lacking in ability or in zeal, but just because they are women. I
think
Christ would pity us women, if we still are timid and hesitate
about
bearing witness to Him in all the walks of life, not only in
domestic
life, but also in the industrial, commercial, political and
international life
of humanity. I think He would say to us, “Women, have not I
freed you?
Why are you still so timid? Go forth courageously with my
message into
all the phrases of human life. They need you there, and there
you have a
distinct contribution to make at this stage of human society.” 47
Here Kim expressed a vision for Korean women that went
beyond the
private and embraced a public arena. Her expanded view of
women’s ideal
sphere was further crystallized by the impact of the Pacifi c War
on Korean
women. Like many intellectuals at the time, Kim publicly
described the
war as a “sacred war” led by “righteous Japan” in order to
“rescue the
Asian people from the invasion of the Anglo-Saxon race.”

Focusing on
new opportunities, she urged women to devote themselves fully
to the
war effort, which she believed would bestow upon them the
“privilege
and glory of imperial subjects.” 48 Although the situations
differed greatly,
there was an important parallel between Kim’s public justifi
cation of the
war and the participation in the war effort by Japanese women’s
groups.
That is, collaborating with the (colonial) state was understood
as a way to
broaden the scope of women’s work and infl uence. Sheldon
Garon argues
that many Japanese women activists used the war “as an
opportunity to
elevate the position of Japanese women within the state” and
the state
recognized “their value in promoting economic development,
social stabil-
ity, and wartime mobilization.” Furthermore, Japanese women’s
groups
that “embraced the modern state’s ideology of separate spheres
for men
and women (the ‘good wife and wise mother’)” were more
successful in
advancing their agendas than those feminist women who
challenged the
state and demanded political rights.49 In this vein, while Kim’s
advocacy
is typically understood as the work of a colonial puppet, it can
also be
understood as a historical intervention, one that privileged the
expan-

2016 02:43:27 UTC
sion of women’s spheres of infl uence while downplaying
Korean national
identity. Better yet, her speeches and actions in support of
Japan could
be understood as falling in the interstices between outright
collaboration
and feminist advocacy. Kim Hwal-lan’s life and work refl ect
the volatile
public history of Korean women in the face of continuing
patriarchal
gender norms, an increasingly oppressive Japanese colonial
authority, and
demands for allegiance to the Korean nation. The prevailing
interpretation
of her life has been highly nationalistic in its orientation.
However, a more
nuanced approach is needed that pays attention to the full
complexity and
ambiguity embedded in her political, cultural, and individual
choices.
The case of Kim Hwal-lan adds one more dimension to this
ongoing
debate: the role of religion, specifi cally Christianity. Kim was
perhaps the
best-known protégé of American missionary teachers at Ewha,
who had
groomed her to become a leading woman educator. She received

advanced
degrees from American universities with missionary
sponsorship, pioneered
in founding Christian women’s organizations, and represented
Korean
womanhood on the world Christian stage. In a signifi cant way,
she acquired
intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the big
organizations through
a close working relationship with missionaries and national
leaders. She
learned a great deal from her Methodist missionary colleagues
about how
to deal with the precarious …
Masculinizing the Nation: Gender Ideologies in Traditional
Korea and in the 1890s-1900s
Korean Enlightenment Discourse
Author(s): Vladimir Tikhonov
Source: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 66, No. 4 (Nov.,
2007), pp. 1029-1065
Published by: Association for Asian Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20203240
Accessed: 20-11-2016 02:58 UTC
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The Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 66, No. 4 (November) 2007:
1029-1065.
? 2007 Association of Asian Studies Inc. doi:
10.1017/S0021911807001283
Masculinizing the Nation: Gender Ideologies in
Traditional Korea and in the 1890s-1900s Korean
Enlightenment Discourse
VLADIMIR TIKHONOV
This paper deals with ideal masculine types in the gender
discourse of Korea's
modernizing nationalists during the late 1890s and early 1900s.
It begins by
outlining the main gender stereotypes of Korea's traditional

neo-Confucian
society, and it argues that old Korea's manhood norms were
bifurcated along
class lines. On one hand, fighting prowess was accepted as a
part of the mascu
linity pattern in the premodern society of the commoners. On
the other hand, the
higher classes' visions of manhood emphasized self-control and
adherence to
moral and ritual norms. The paper shows how both premodern
standards of
masculinity provided a background for indigenizing the
mid^nineteenth
century European middle-class ideal of "nationalized"
masculinity?disciplined,
self-controlled, sublimating the sexual impulses and channeling
them toward the
"nobler national goals," and highly militarized?in early modern
Korea.
Prologue
Episode 1. Late summer/early autumn of the year 1906, Tokyo,
Japan. A self financing Waseda student sent a lengthy letter that
would soon be printed in
the first two issues of the monthly journal Taek?k hakpo,
published by Korean
students beginning in August-September 1906. This student,
Ch'oe Nams?n
(1890-1957) was from the rich family of a Chinese medicine
trader in Seoul and
was age seventeen according to the traditional reckoning in
Korea at that time.
His name would later come to symbolize both the glory of the
pioneering

studies of Korea's mythology and religion and what many
disparagingly referred
to as the pro-Japanese collaboration of the colonial period.
The letter was entitled "The Sacrificial Spirit" (H?nsinj?k
ch?ngsin). Penned
in an eloquent style in mixed Sino-Korean script and peppered
with classical
Chinese citations, it was meant to edify fellow Korean students
in Tokyo on the
subject of what sort of "right resolve" might be most helpful
for "displaying the
real essence of the 4 thousand year-old spirit of Korea" and
"contributing to
the state one of these days, after having mastered the essence
of the New
World during studies abroad." The "virtues" conducive to the
"right resolve"
Vladimir Tikhonov ([email protected]) is an Associate
Professor in the Department of
Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of
Oslo.
2016 02:58:01 UTC
1030 Vladimir Tikhonov

in such cases were first dutifully put forward: the "[ability] to
rouse oneself [to
action]" (pungi), "bravery in action" (yongwang),
"indefatigable, indomitable
[spirit shown] in trials" (paekcholpuryo, mannanpulgul), and so
on. This list of
wishes was followed by the statement that the sacrificial spi rit
was the most
central virtue, and the following lesson illustrated how this
sacrificial spirit was
displayed by Ch'oe's heroes in history:
Who was the one who managed to revive the nation in
downfall, restore
its fallen fortunes, and build a veritably great power in the
Northern Con
tinent? It is the achievement of Peter the Great, made possible
by his
sacrificial spirit. Who was the one who managed to restore the
lands of
the state divided into a myriad of small fiefdoms, to
consolidate the
chaotic management of the state affairs, and to unify tens of the
petty
dispersed states under the Prussian Crown? It is the
achievement of
Bismarck, made possible by his sacrificial spirit. Look at
Christ, who
was born in a little village as a son of a little artisan, but
succeeded in
widely propagating [his] doctrine and saving the living beings,
being
revered throughout the eternal ages! Whose force, whose

achievement
is this? The people of the whole world would unanimously
reply that it
was done by the blood shed on the cross. Look at Jeanne d'Arc,
who
was born in an out-of-the-way, little hamlet, in a remote
province, as a
farmer's daughter, but rose to command armies and defeat a
strong
enemy, being [the figure] everybody in the country pinned their
hopes
upon! Whose mission, whose fiat is this? It would also be
answered unan
imously that [her glory] was solidified by martyrdom on the
scaffold. The
same is true in the cases of Luther, the great man of religion,
who
founded the New Roman Church, and Washington, the builder
of the
New World, who established Republican rule. One was risking
death
in resisting the Pope of Rome, while the other was prepared to
die resist
ing the metropolitan country. That is the firm evidence that
those posses
sing a sacrificial spirit, have to go through all sorts of ups and
downs in
life, having hair-breadth escapes from imminent death [at some
points], in order to obtain good results in the end.
Then, after dwelling at some length on the self-sacrificial
qualities of great
general Zhuge Liang (181-234); Song dynasty loyalist Wen
Tianxiang (1236-83),
who was martyred by the conquering Mongols; and Ming

dynasty Confucian
martyr Yang Jisheng (1516-55), who was executed for his
critical attacks
against the powers that be, Ch'oe proceeded to conclude that
this self-sacrificial
spirit was the strongest force permeating, creating, and
recreating the whole
universe, and also the decisive factor in all human lives: "as
soon as we utter
our first cry after being born, we have to begin the hostilities,
fighting hard
against myriads of demons of all kinds in order to acquire
freedom for both
body and spirit," and the self-sacrificial spirit is the driving
force of this unending
fight. And what should be the ultimate aim of the struggle for
survival on the part
2016 02:58:01 UTC
Masculinizing the Nation 1031
of all Koreans? Ch'oe ended his contribution with a question
about how long it
may take before "we will fly the sacred Korean flag above the
eight regions of
the world, its wind blowing in four directions, the people of all
the states on
five continents kneeling down before its majestic power and all
the living
beings in the three worlds bathing in its glory" and appealed to

readers to
"exert yourselves" in order to realize this purpose (Allen 2005;
Ch'oe Nams?n
1906).
Episode 2. In July 1909, approximately three years after Ch'oe
s appeal to his
fellow students saw the light of the day, a baseball team
consisting of Ch'oe's
fellows, seniors and juniors?Tokyo-based Korean students?held
a tournament
in Tokyo, essentially one of the earliest between the Korean
teams in Korean
baseball history.1 The tournament song, obviously written by
some of the
Korean students in Tokyo and entitled "Juvenile Men" (Sony?n
nainja), struck
a correspondent of the influential Seoul daily Hwangs?ng
sinmun as "moving
human feelings" and was published in full by the newspaper on
July 22, 1909:
Oh, young men of iron bones and muscles, endeavour to
display your
patriotic spirit!
It came, came, came, the age of action for our boys!
Refrain: Train to stand up to the tens of thousands, and to
acquire
achievements in the later battles,
Are not the great endeavours of the matchless heroes our aim?
Nurture your competitiveness, spirit and attentiveness while
developing
your bodies!
We enter the well-aired, spacious stadium as if we are flying at

ease.
The hot blood of the virtuous gentlemen is eirculatirig well,
and the legs
and arms of the Independence Army soldiers are nimble.
Even if thunder and axes appear before us, we will not tremble,
not even
a little ....
One by one, we go from one interesting contest to another,
through all
the playing of maritime battles and infantry.
Beat the drums of victory where the Triumphal Arch is to be!
(Yi
Hangnae 1989, 70).
The song later acquired an unusual popularity among young
and nationalistically
minded Koreans abroad. Republished twice in the pages of the
fiercely anti
Japanese Sinhan minbo (New Korea's Newspaper, established
on February 10,
1909, in San Francisco), on February 15, 1911, and September
2, 1915, it was
sung on the occasion of the sports competitions at the Young
Korean Military
School (1909-14) in Nebraska (before March 1910 situated in
Kearney, then
xThe available records suggest that the very first one was
played by the Hwangs?ng (Seoul) Young
Men's Christian Association s team against the National
German Language School's team in Seoul,
February 17, 1906 (Yi Insuk 2000).
2016 02:58:01 UTC

moved to Hastings)?a training institution for "young Korean
patriots," in which
its founder, famous nationalist activist Pak Yongman (1881-
1928), known for his
consistent advocacy of military service in the independent
Korea of the future
and the obligatory military training for Korean young people in
the United
States, envisioned the seeds of the battle-ready Korea of the
later days. By
1941, it had become known as the "Song of the National
Independence Restor
ation Army" (Kwangbokkunga), achieving the status of an
unofficial anthem of
sorts for U.S.-based nationalist Korean youth (Pang 1989, 22-
37).
Both Ch'oe's flowery literary appeal and fairly unsophisticated
song of the
pioneer baseball players may be taken as rather telling textual
evidence of the
ways in which later 1900s Korean students in
Tokyo?predominantly males,
mostly teenagers or slightly older, from higher or middle-class
family back
grounds (Kim Kiju 1993)?imagined the ideal masculine
features of a modern
man. Ch'oe might enlist Jeanne d'Arc among his ideals of the

sacrificial spirit,
but it did not change the essential masculine orientation of the
text, as the
French heroine was taken as a functional male in her presumed
role of comman
der of the army and without any visible connection to her
biological femininity.
While Ch'oe's text presents a romanticized description of the
ideal male's
morale and life goals, the song of the baseball players focuses
more on bodily
details, "iron bones and muscles" and "nimble legs and arms"
figuring rather pro
minently among them. But the references to the patriotic spirit
and to the Inde
pendence Army?one may assume that George Washington's
army is meant, as
Korea's own anti-Japanese Confucian "righteous armies"
(?iby?ng) were never
addressed using this term in the censored press during the time
of the Japanese
Protectorate (1905-10)?do not leave any doubts as to the
contextual relation
ship between the two texts. Both highlight different aspects of
the same discourse
on the ideal male, which obviously had currency in the Korean
student milieu of
the later 1900s in Tokyo and which visibly incorporated both
elements of politi
cized moralizing and the "politics of body" in the Foucauldian
sense of the word.

The ideal male is described in both texts as, first and foremost,
an individual
who is inseparably related to the state, which he either serves
in a self-sacrificial
manner ("virtuous, patriotic gentlemen," Bismarck, Jeanne
d'Arc) or rules (Peter
the Great). The church?founded and reformed by Ch'oe's
heroes, Jesus and
Luther, respectively?appears as a functional equivalent of the
state here, the
object of an absolute, unqualified devotion. This relationship is
represented
partly by the terms borrowed from the standard Confucian
rhetoric ("virtuous,
patriotic gentlemen," or chungy?lsa) and partly by Meiji
Japanese discursive
appropriations from European languages ("self-sacrificial
spirit," "sacred national
flag," "Independence Army").
Then, the ideal male is represented as an embodiment of
"strength," both
psychological ("preparedness to die in battle") and directly
physical ("iron
bones and muscles," "nimble legs and arms"). Manly strength,
which is shown
simultaneously with the patriotic spirit and is obviousl y
supposed to match it,
2016 02:58:01 UTC

contains an evident potential for outwardly directed violence:
Neither Bismarck
nor Peter the Great were particularly well known for eschewing
offensive moves
against their neighbors, and "flying the sacred Korean flag
above the eight
regions of the world,... the people of all the states on five
continents kneeling
down before its majestic power" is apparently praise for attack
and conquest, if
only on a rhetorical level. This violence, however, is subjected
to a thorough dis
ciplinarian control: "competitiveness" is "nurtured" and
demonstrated in "well
aired, spacious stadiums," commonly understood in sports to
substitute for
and/or prepare a practitioner for "later battles."
Finally, the rhetoric of self-sacrifice and strength is matched
by the admira
tion of success and achievement. "Hero," the term of choice for
Ch'oe and his
fellow students, connotes not only prowess in battle but also
the fame earned
in this way, even if, as was the case with Jeanne d'Arc and

Jesus, the sacrifice
either costs life or is acknowledged only posthumously. And
hero-worshipping
baseball practitioners were far from doing their exercises out of
a sense of duty
only?the song describes "interesting contests," with "better
blood circulation"
being only one of many possible positive effects. The male
ideal, in a word, is
a patriot who is strong in body and spirit?but who also aspires
to the shining
heights of the Bismarckian or Petrine fame and enjoys the
process of developing
and displaying the potential of his body.
The questions this paper aims to answer are as follows: In what
relationships
was this ideal of manhood, with its visions of masculinity,
formulated and prac
ticed in traditional Korea, that is, before the onslaught of
Western and Japanese
capitalist modernity in the late nineteenth century? How did the
new ideal of
manhood get articulated, what sort of social reality was
decisively important for
formulating and articulating it, and what sort of imported
conceptual and linguis
tic codes were instrumental in this process of articulation?
What were the differ
ences between the ideal as described and prescribed in a variety

of literary or
journalistic texts and the practice of masculinity in daily life?
The paper will
attempt to answer these questions primarily on the basis of
contemporary
texts, in many cases generated by the proponents of the new
ideal of manhood
themselves, but with the use of observations by
strangers?Western missionaries,
Japanese officials, and journalists?as well.
As early modern constructions of masculinity in Korea are the
main subject
matter of this article, I consider it important to define the
concept of "masculi
nity" first. Masculinity?that is, social ideals of manhood?refers
here to the
social constructions surrounding biological maleness,
constructions that are
underpinned by power relationships and articulated through
prevailing cultural
and ideological forms. Inasmuch as the complex web of power
relationships is
always a site of contest and conflict between the different
factions of the ruling
classes and between the rulers and the ruled, the masculinity
paradigms pro
duced and sustained by these relationships often embrace
multiple and mutually
contradictory meanings and are always in constant flux, being
contested,

2016 02:58:01 UTC
subverted, and redefined (Scott 1988). For example, in the
Korean case, the
series on the "New Nation of the 20th Century" (20 segi
sinkungmin), published
between February 22 and March 3,1910, in the radically
nationalist Taehan maeil
sinbo (1904-10), termed religion "the great institution, which
morally reforms
the nation, and from which national justice and morals flow,"
rebuked the
Korean religions of the day for their "slavish lack of state
consciousness," and pro
posed, among other things, that Christianity, "a growing force
in Korean society,
which has already taken the commanding positions in all
societal spheres," be
further promoted to became "the religion of the new nation of
the 20th
century." Although the "foreign intrusions" (under the disguise
of religion)
were to be "fended off," it is quite visible that the new,
nationalist male was ima
gined as a religious, preferably Christian personality?Christian
civil ethics were

understood to be an important component of the "national
strength" of the great
powers (An Py?ngjik 1979,152-53). In such a context, Ch'oe
Nams?n's glorifica
tion of Jesus Christ and Luther, mentioned earlier, comes as no
surprise.
But when the annexation of Korea by Japan came in August
1910, foreign
Christian missionaries, whose states either approved of or
chose to ignore
Japan's action, were forced to acknowledge the colonial reality
and to avoid
any contact with the nationalist radicals?and many of them
welcomed the
"Japanese civilizing efforts" from the beginning anyway (Yu
2004, 413-41).
The native Christians were placed under strict control, their
leaders being "pre
ventively" terrorized by show trials, such as the infamous
"Case of the One
Hundred Five" in 1911-12, so as to thwart any will to active
anticolonial resist
ance (Chang 2001, 102-15). Facing disinterested foreigners and
either tamely
"gradualist" or co-opted native Christian leaders, the exiled
nationalist radicals
visibly changed their attitudes toward the relationship between
Christianity and
manliness.
In the 1915 fantastic novel Heaven Seen in a Dream
(Kkumhanul) by the

putative author of the "New Nation of the 20th Century" series,
prominent
nationalist Sin Ch'aeho (1880-1936), the eternal "other world"
is just an exten
sion of the social Darwinist "this-worldly" reality: The best
fighters who are
most loyal to their states go directly to paradise, whereas , for
example, "those
who looked after going to paradise by believing in Jesus, while
their parents,
wives and children were becoming the others' slaves," were to
be "fried in excre
ments in hell" instead (Sin Ch'aeho 1995,3:174-224). Whereas
Sin Ch'aeho, who
became an anarchist in the mid-1920s and ended his literary
career in 1928 by
writing the revolutionary novel The Great Battle of Two
Dragons (Yong kwa
yong ?i taegy?kch?n), in which Jesus is hoed to his death by
"revolutionary
peasants" (his body "made into such a sludge of flesh that he
would never get
resurrected" [An Py?ngjik 1979, 213]), definitely came to
consider a ferocious,
self-sacrificial fighter without any "other-worldly" concerns
the only desirable
masculine type, the attitude toward Christianity differed vastly
in the cases of other
radical exiles, some of them retaining the notion of "Christian
character-building"

2016 02:58:01 UTC
All use subject to http://about.js tor.org/terms
and some considering loving one's enemies a bad start for a
"manly" struggle
against them (Sin Pongnyong 1999, 187-88).
In any case, views on the place of "civilized" religion in a
"civilized" male's life
were constantly shifting, influenced by differing positions vis -
?-vis foreign mis
sionaries, Korea's own Christian bourgeoisie, and the
ideologies of "thrift and
industry" associated with Protestant Christianity. Ch'oe
Nams?n himself
became strongly influenced by the Protestant-derived vision of
a "trustworthy,
frugal and industrious" modern man after meeting An Ch'angho
(1878-1938),
Korea's best-known proponent of the "cultivation" (suyang) of
modern bourgeois
virtues, in Tokyo in February 1907. He subsequently became
one of Ans
followers and prot?g?s, and he was deeply involved in the
Protestant convert
dominated organizations led by An, such as the Society of the
Young Friends
of Learning (Ch'?ngny?n Haguhoe), established in August
1908. But notwith

standing the fact that the Protestant-inspired notion of
"industriousness"
(kunmy?n) was a keyword in Ch'oe's writings throughout the
later 1900s and
1910s, he continued to shun institutionalized Christianity, an
"alien missionary
religion," almost until his death, and he converted (to
Catholicism) only in
November 1955 (Yi Y?nghwa 2003, 14-56; Y?ksa munje
y?n'guso 1993, 124).
Being produced by a complicated, constantly fluctuating web of
power
relationships, masculinity is articulated in the languages of
cultural and ideologi
cal formation. Culture, a network of signifying practices
through which social
agents generate ways of giving meaning to their experiences
(Williams 1982),
concretizes the ways in which masculinity is perceived and
demonstrated,
often either strengthening or absorbing and weakening the
influences exerted
by the changing power structures on the ideal of manliness.
The same role is
played by ideology?the cultural domain that legitimizes power
relations in
their totality (Larrain 1979). Because it is concerned with
power relations in
their entirety, including tenaciously conservative microsocial
settings (e.g., the
patriarchal family structure), and because of the unrivaled
legitimizing power
of tradition, the ideological field is often remarkably resistant

to making inno
vation too visible, clinging to time-honored signifiers despite
all the changes in
what they signify For example, Admiral Yi Sunsin (1545-98),
who was wor
shipped as a paragon of loyalty to the king in late Chos?n
society (seventeenth
to the nineteenth century), was remade into a symbol of a
fearless, successful,
intelligent, and patriotic fighter?"Korea's Nelson," by the
modern nationalist
culture (Roh 2004). Despite crucial changes in the content of
the cult, the
outward trappings of Yi Sunsin's worship also demonstrate
noteworthy continuity,
the very traditional nature of the reverence toward Koreas
"greatest warrior"
playing an important part in the legitimizing of Yi s exaltation
today.
Similar patterns of the modernist utilization of "tradition" were
characteristic
of Japan's dominant ideologies in the time Ch'oe Nams?n and
his co-students
were articulating their ideas about what it could mean to live
and die "as a
man." The 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War presented Japan's ruling
oligarchy and
2016 02:58:01 UTC

conservative (or moderately liberal) opinion leaders with an
excellent occasion to
stir up patriotic fervor: The heavily censored and generally
enthusiastically pro
war press represented the conflict as "rightful defense" against
the racially differ
ent enemy's "aggression against Asians" and fed the public
with an array of
moving stories about battlefield heroism?often written at the
desks of men in
the home country?while keeping silent on the true scale of
Japan's losses.
The enthusiasm was further boosted by the nationwide lantern-
march celebra
tions on the occasions of main victories (Okamoto 1970, 126-
31).
While stories of "fallen heroes" filled the media, opinion
leaders were busy
employing time-honored concepts to deify the essentially
modern patriotic senti
ment. A pro-government nationalist with strong popular appeal
and a convinced
social Darwinist nationalist who firmly believed that "the
crucial factor determin
ing national survival is how the people love their country,
esteem their country

and believe in their country," Tokutomi Soh? (1863-1957)
began in the wake
of the war to rewrite his best-selling 1893 biographical account
of the Meiji Res
toration hero Yoshida Sh?in (1830-59) and eventually
published the rewritten
version in 1908. Instead of Yoshida's individual brilliance, the
new account
emphasized his unsurpassed loyalty to his imperial sovereign
and depicted him
as a self-sacrificial retainer strongly resembling the "model
samurais" of the
past. For Tokutomi, that was "the quintessentially Japanese
self-sacrificial
spirit" that possessed the power "to make the nations great and
rich" (Pierson
1980, 292-95). This strategy of nationalist "remodeling of the
traditional
virtues" established a pattern that greatly influenced the ways
in which "tradition"
was employed in the writings of Korea's young modernizers,
Ch'oe Narnson and
many of his contemporaries included.
These examples show very well how changes in the content of
what is
represented by a particular cultural or ideological form are
masked by the super
ficial "continuation of the tradition"?in fact, skillful
appropriation of the older
forms by the new hegemonic forces. But the older signifying

systems should
not be seen as simply decorations employed by the modern
"inventors of
traditions"?following the title of the seminal collection by Eric
Hobsbawm
and Terence Ranger (1983)?in their quest for legitimacy. When
the traditional
is being appropriated by the "modernizers," the time-honored
cultural and
ideological forms also influence the content of the newly built
sociocultural con
structions, for example, by indigenizing "imported" cultural
codes in a variety of
ways (Otto and Pedersen 2005).
As the present paper will attempt to show, that was the case
with Europe's
nationalized, militarized masculinity, which was imported to
early modern
Korea. Articulated in a language tinged with Confucian
rhetoric, it was often
legitimized as an extension of the Confucian values of self-
discipline and sacrifice
but also was accepted and practiced accordingly, with perhaps
stronger emphasis
on the simultaneous cultivation of the patriotic body and the
vigorous, moral, and
self-sacrificing patriotic spirit?which was to combine the
basics of Confucian
2016 02:58:01 UTC

ethics and attitudes with an all-absorbing nationalist
enthusiasm?than was the
case in the countries of their origin. Indigenization of such a
sort, which also
played on the strong acceptance of tough manliness in the
popular, nonaristo
cratic culture, produced as a result the specific patterns of
Korean nationalist
masculinity, which later became the basis for conceptualizing,
standardizing,
and demonstrating the "authentic man" in both South and North
Korea.
Taejangbu in Transition: Changing Visions of Manhood
Traditions of Describing/Prescribing and Demonstrating
Manhood in
Korea
It hardly needs to be said?especially in light of what has
already been said
about the shifting, fluctuating, and contested nature of the ideal
of manliness?
that any attempt to construct an image of unchanging, singular
"traditional
Korean masculinity" will likely be an exercise in essenti alist
overgenerahzing.
Van Gulik, in his groundbreaking study on China's endlessly
shifting sexual
mores, reminds us that although a handsome male in Tang,
Song, or Ming
China might be a bearded, muscular practitioner of boxing and

Korean Gender Roles in the Modern Era Two Different Paths t

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