Thursday, February 19, 2004
OF GEOMANCY, COLONIALISM AND NATIONAL MEMORY. Many (here and here for example) have linked to and commented on a recent Chosôn Ilbo piece the text of which reads like this:
1) The Japanese in the picture don’t appear to be at the summit of Mt. Paekdu but rather near the lake which is below the summit. If driving an iron spike into the summit were key to disrupting the geomantic power of the surrounding area one would think that the Japanese, having gone to the trouble of getting up to the lake, would have gone on to the summit itself. Determining which point on the ring of rocks that surrounds the lake is actually the highest point isn’t easy but it is possible, I have stood on what clearly was the summit and it isn’t down by the lake. Similarly, the Japanese don’t seem to be driving the spike “into the Lake of Heaven” but rather into the ground by the lake.
2) The person standing in front of the metal spike doesn’t appear to be a shaman (certainly not of the Korean variety) but a Shinto priest. Does it matter? I don’t know. But I wonder why one would need a Shinto priest (or a shaman for that matter) to perform a an act of geomantic vandalism. Is there a Shinto ceremony for “severing the spirit of the Korean race”? Perhaps there is, but I’ve never heard of one. On the other hand, Andy (the Yangban) comments on the Marmot's post that
3) The picture was said to have been taken in 1943. That means that Korea had been a formal Japanese colony for 23 years and an informal protectorate for five years longer than that. If the Japanese were so bent on destroying the spirit of the Korean people why did it take them so long to get around to actually getting to Paekdu-san, given the mountain’s importance in the Korean imagination?
These all are, admittedly, trivial questions about trivial matters. None of them on their own is sufficient to cast significant doubt on Korean claims about Japanese depredations. But I have more significant concerns as well.
4) Is there any evidence that the Japanese subscribed to the same theories concerning geomancy as Koreans did? I don’t know enough about Japanese culture of the first half of the 20th century to know for sure. If I were to guess, I would guess that Japan and Korea had similar views on geomancy but I have never seen any Koreans make this case.
5) Assuming that the Japanese did believe in geomancy in the same way that Koreans did, is there any evidence to support the idea that the Japanese conception of geomancy—the power or energy that pulses through the land and the ways in which that power can be either harnessed or disrupted—included the notion that the power in the earth was capable of discriminating between the original Korean inhabitants of the land and the more recently arrived Japanese overlords? Remember, this is 1943 we’re talking about in this particular case. Korea had been a formal Japanese colony for 23 years. On maps, in official documents, and in the Japanese popular imagination the Korean peninsula was part of Japan! (and not for the first time; the Japanese claimed that the ancient kingdom of Kaya/Mimana was actually Japanese). To be sure, Japanese colonial officials did not live up to their naisen ittai (“Korea and Japan are one”) rhetoric: Koreans were nearly always treated as second-class citizens rather than equal participants in the empire. But nevertheless, Korea (or, from the Japanese viewpoint, Chosen) was a part of the empire, and an integral one at that. By 1942 the Japanese had constructed an extensive rail and road network, communications infrastructure, and a burgeoning number of industries in Korea. Japanese officials lived in Korea in great numbers. Japanese policemen patrolled the streets (or sat in police boxes). Japanese farmers worked the soil (albeit not in nearly as great of numbers as the Oriental Development Company dreamed of). Japanese industrialists established and managed factories of a wide variety (like the Onoda Cement factory) and considerable numbers. So one would have to demonstrate that the Japanese believed that disrupting the power that flowed through the earth by pounding iron spikes in the ground would have an adverse impact only on Koreans and not on the numerous Japanese people and institutions on the peninsula.
6) Assuming that the Japanese did believe that the force in the earth applied only to Koreans and not to the Japanese in Korea, is there any evidence that the Japanese in 1943 really wanted to diminish the power/energy/spirit of Koreans? After all, by 1943 Koreans worked in Japanese factories (and in management in growing numbers), grew rice for Japanese workers to eat, served in the Imperial Japanese army (Park Chung Hee, for example), worked in Japanese coal mines and other undesirable operations, and were forced to serve as comfort women for the sexual pleasure of Japanese soldiers and officers. The Japanese Empire clearly did not treat its Korean imperial subjects as equals. But they relied upon their hard work nonetheless. Why would they try to enervate the energies of the very people they relied so much upon?
There is other evidence besides this latest photo (see here for a photo and discussion of iron spikes that have been unearthed). When the Kim Young Sam administration ordered the destruction of the old Governor-General building in the early 1990s, workers were said to have found thousands of iron spikes in the foundation (early 20th century Japanese rebar perhaps?). But in the end I have yet to find evidence that clearly determines exactly what the Japanese intended to do and why they did it. There are plenty of other reasons to conclude that the Japanese rule of Korea was brutal, oppressive, and nasty. No need to grasp at straws that do not appear to be supported by evidence.
Such evidence may very well exist and once I get to see it, I may very well have to revise my conclusions. But if that is the case, I still have one more question to ask about the alleged Japanese effort to “sever the sprit of the Korean race”:
Did it work?
The Japanese imperial practice of driving a metal spike into the summit of every high mountain in Korea "to sever the spirit of the Korean race" has been revealed through recently discovered photographs. In this photo, taken in 1943 at the hight [sic] of the Pacific War, Japanese soldiers, led by a shaman, drive a metal spike into the Lake of Heaven (Cheon-ji), atop Mt. Paekdu, and conduct a religious ceremony in honor of Amaterasu Omikami, believed by the Japanese to be the ancestral deity of the nation's emporer [sic]. The picture was included in a book, published by Korea's Government-General in 1943, entitled "Reaching the Summit of Mt. Paekdu."This, of course, speaks to the widely held belief among Koreans that Japanese drove iron spikes in Korea to diminish the geomantic power of the land (see here for evidence and historical examples of the Korean belief in geomancy). To many Koreans, it provides yet another piece of evidence of Japanese depravity during the dark 35-year period of colonial rule. I have seldom if ever seen much in the way of hard evidence to support this claim. But now we have photographic proof. Or do we? For me this particular piece raises more questions than it answers. Some are relatively trivial but some are, at least to me, more significant.
1) The Japanese in the picture don’t appear to be at the summit of Mt. Paekdu but rather near the lake which is below the summit. If driving an iron spike into the summit were key to disrupting the geomantic power of the surrounding area one would think that the Japanese, having gone to the trouble of getting up to the lake, would have gone on to the summit itself. Determining which point on the ring of rocks that surrounds the lake is actually the highest point isn’t easy but it is possible, I have stood on what clearly was the summit and it isn’t down by the lake. Similarly, the Japanese don’t seem to be driving the spike “into the Lake of Heaven” but rather into the ground by the lake.
2) The person standing in front of the metal spike doesn’t appear to be a shaman (certainly not of the Korean variety) but a Shinto priest. Does it matter? I don’t know. But I wonder why one would need a Shinto priest (or a shaman for that matter) to perform a an act of geomantic vandalism. Is there a Shinto ceremony for “severing the spirit of the Korean race”? Perhaps there is, but I’ve never heard of one. On the other hand, Andy (the Yangban) comments on the Marmot's post that
It looks Jichinsai.and provides links to pictures
The Japanese still do that when they build houses.
It's kinda ceremony to get permission to build something from "local god"
3) The picture was said to have been taken in 1943. That means that Korea had been a formal Japanese colony for 23 years and an informal protectorate for five years longer than that. If the Japanese were so bent on destroying the spirit of the Korean people why did it take them so long to get around to actually getting to Paekdu-san, given the mountain’s importance in the Korean imagination?
These all are, admittedly, trivial questions about trivial matters. None of them on their own is sufficient to cast significant doubt on Korean claims about Japanese depredations. But I have more significant concerns as well.
4) Is there any evidence that the Japanese subscribed to the same theories concerning geomancy as Koreans did? I don’t know enough about Japanese culture of the first half of the 20th century to know for sure. If I were to guess, I would guess that Japan and Korea had similar views on geomancy but I have never seen any Koreans make this case.
5) Assuming that the Japanese did believe in geomancy in the same way that Koreans did, is there any evidence to support the idea that the Japanese conception of geomancy—the power or energy that pulses through the land and the ways in which that power can be either harnessed or disrupted—included the notion that the power in the earth was capable of discriminating between the original Korean inhabitants of the land and the more recently arrived Japanese overlords? Remember, this is 1943 we’re talking about in this particular case. Korea had been a formal Japanese colony for 23 years. On maps, in official documents, and in the Japanese popular imagination the Korean peninsula was part of Japan! (and not for the first time; the Japanese claimed that the ancient kingdom of Kaya/Mimana was actually Japanese). To be sure, Japanese colonial officials did not live up to their naisen ittai (“Korea and Japan are one”) rhetoric: Koreans were nearly always treated as second-class citizens rather than equal participants in the empire. But nevertheless, Korea (or, from the Japanese viewpoint, Chosen) was a part of the empire, and an integral one at that. By 1942 the Japanese had constructed an extensive rail and road network, communications infrastructure, and a burgeoning number of industries in Korea. Japanese officials lived in Korea in great numbers. Japanese policemen patrolled the streets (or sat in police boxes). Japanese farmers worked the soil (albeit not in nearly as great of numbers as the Oriental Development Company dreamed of). Japanese industrialists established and managed factories of a wide variety (like the Onoda Cement factory) and considerable numbers. So one would have to demonstrate that the Japanese believed that disrupting the power that flowed through the earth by pounding iron spikes in the ground would have an adverse impact only on Koreans and not on the numerous Japanese people and institutions on the peninsula.
6) Assuming that the Japanese did believe that the force in the earth applied only to Koreans and not to the Japanese in Korea, is there any evidence that the Japanese in 1943 really wanted to diminish the power/energy/spirit of Koreans? After all, by 1943 Koreans worked in Japanese factories (and in management in growing numbers), grew rice for Japanese workers to eat, served in the Imperial Japanese army (Park Chung Hee, for example), worked in Japanese coal mines and other undesirable operations, and were forced to serve as comfort women for the sexual pleasure of Japanese soldiers and officers. The Japanese Empire clearly did not treat its Korean imperial subjects as equals. But they relied upon their hard work nonetheless. Why would they try to enervate the energies of the very people they relied so much upon?
There is other evidence besides this latest photo (see here for a photo and discussion of iron spikes that have been unearthed). When the Kim Young Sam administration ordered the destruction of the old Governor-General building in the early 1990s, workers were said to have found thousands of iron spikes in the foundation (early 20th century Japanese rebar perhaps?). But in the end I have yet to find evidence that clearly determines exactly what the Japanese intended to do and why they did it. There are plenty of other reasons to conclude that the Japanese rule of Korea was brutal, oppressive, and nasty. No need to grasp at straws that do not appear to be supported by evidence.
Such evidence may very well exist and once I get to see it, I may very well have to revise my conclusions. But if that is the case, I still have one more question to ask about the alleged Japanese effort to “sever the sprit of the Korean race”:
Did it work?
