#60 Year of the Tiger

[스티븐스 대사]

Seollal (설날) is coming up this weekend, and I admit that ever since I first experienced Lunar New Year I’ve preferred it to the Solar Calendar New Year which is celebrated on December 31^st.  

I first experienced Lunar New Year in Hong Kong where I was an exchange student for my junior year of university.  Just a short time later, as a Peace Corps volunteer in Korea, I learned more about the rich family traditions surrounding the holiday.  And later still, as a diplomat in China after the Cultural Revolution, I was especially impressed by the enthusiastic celebrations of the Chinese, who’d not been able to hold such exuberant festivities for years.  

One of the reasons I really enjoy Lunar New Year is that the celebration goes on for some time – and we have the best of both worlds in Korea.  We start celebrating Solar New Year on December 31^st and we continue right through to Lunar New Year over a month later!  In the meantime we mark Ipchun (입춘), the beginning of spring.  All of these things help to liven up the cold, dark days of winter.  This was true years ago and it’s still true now.

With the Year of the Tiger on the horizon, I’ve been reviewing Korean maxims and thinking about the tiger’s importance in Korean mythology.  In fact, one of the first Korean art pieces that I acquired was a painting of a tiger.  I developed my interest in the tiger from the Emillle Museum which, I believe, was the first museum I ever visited in Korea.   The museum was run by a man named Zo Zayong who was trying to preserve Korea’s folk traditions during a time of very rapid modernization.  He was especially fond of traditional Korean depictions of the tiger. 

Image of a Yi Dynasty tiger pujok (부적) from the book “Folkism, Vol. 2” by the Emillle Museum and the Folkist Society.  Pojuk were meant to protect a person or household from evil spirits. (Image and text from the book "Folkism," published by the Emillle Museum and edited by the Folkist Society, copyright May 31, 1973)

Zo Zayong was a voice – and at that time, a fairly lonely voice – reminding not only Koreans but the world that there was a great folk tradition in Korea that was still alive and well.  Indeed today it has inspired some of Korea’s most interesting artists.  And what is particularly satisfying to me is that I actually live in a house – the Ambassador’s residence in Korea – which was designed in part by Zo Zayong and was being built during my early years in Korea. 

The Folkist Society hoped that Korean artists would utilize the “ancient, abstract, and symbolically rich pujok designs to inspire a modern art expressive of Korea's national character." (Image and text from the book "Folkism, Vol. 2" published by the Emillle Museum and edited by the Folkist Society, copyright May 31, 1973)

I’m amazed by how many museums there are to explore in today’s Korea.  I’m also struck by how traditional symbols and motifs, like the tiger, are being interpreted in new and creative ways, just as Zo Zayong and the Folkist Society had hoped.  I was thinking about both of these ideas when I went to the Gyeonggido Museum of Modern Art in Ansan in late January. 

One of the museum’s pieces is a really unique depiction of a tiger.  I’d never seen anything like it!  About 150 metal pieces hang individually from the ceiling and when viewed together from the right vantage point, they form a three-dimensional image of a tiger.  It’s a perfect example of how artists are combining fresh techniques and traditional symbols to create entirely new pieces of art.      

“Stuffed Power” by Song Pil (Photo provided by the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art) 

When you view the piece from a different angle, it doesn’t look like a tiger at all!

Best wishes for a happy and prosperous Year of the Tiger! 

 

[바리]

Lunar New Year is just around the corner. Please enjoy this coming holiday with your loved people.