Surprised by Jeong - Emotional Intelligence in Korean

Jeong is the ferment and cement of relationships. 
-Mi Mi AHN

It's been called a special kind of Korean love. 

It's been defined as a combination of compassion, empathy, and bond on a very soulful level. It is a connection that is formed between persons. Example pseudo-Korean phrases are: "That person's 정 is deep," "He has no 정," or "We live and die according to 정." 

Jeong in English

정 in Korean

情 in Chinese

If you look up the Chinese character on GoogleTranslate, 情 is Love. "Heart" (忄) is the guiding radical on the left side. (靑) on the right, can be originally translated as "growth of plants" though it means "blue" or "green" today. This connotes depth, and things abiding for a long time. 

Maybe one could hazard "emotional habits that lead to growth" as a working definition?

To define Jeong is perhaps as frustrating as trying to define God. You think you've got a handle on it, and then it evaporates like water.

And yet, I am told, to dismiss Jeong is to overlook crucial deep-structural supports of the Korean character and psyche: the invisible and lasting bonds that bind people to each other ... in sickness, health, poverty, luxury, life and death.

Please allow an introduction. AHN, Mi Mi is the Summer Coed College Coordinator at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. A reader of this blog, she suggested that if my non-Korean readers wanted a deeper understanding of Korea and its people, a treatise on Jeong is in order.

Mi Mi AHN

So we set up an interview time, and I learned about Jeong...

I learned about Jeong from my grandmother. And she never "taught" me. Jeong is not something you learn formally. It's heart-to-heart learning, immersion-education. 

I was raised by my grandmother for two years (years 4-6), as both my parents worked. We lived in a two-house arrangement, with a garden. There was the front house, where we lived, and the back house, where our neighbors lived. Our two families always shared food, watched each other's house ... we were like a single family. When an elderly grandmother in the back house died, we had a funeral together, like as a family. 

Even now, when I visit my grandmother, we talk still about the "Back house Grandmother." I learned Jeong through watching and observing.

When I was in elementary school, she continued, if we moved to a new neighborhood or apartment, it was expected that one began a Jeong kind of relationship with neighbors by taking a large amount of Tteok, or rice cakes, around to one's neighbors. It was just what you did. There were no rules or anything. Acts like these had a different governance.

Jeong is "giving and taking heart," she continued. It is "wanting to give more." A "welcoming space." It is your joy to practice Jeong. Your heart leads you to it. It is a practice that happens in the present moment, always present tense.

A married couple builds up Jeong through their years of marriage. You come to know each other inside and out, the good and the bad. Jeong is that state being tied, bonded, and knotted together. 

Jeong is the ferment and the cement of relationships.

Mi Mi recommended showing you a series of commercials by the Orion Food Company, for its Choco Pies. This company puts the Chinese character for Jeong right on the package.

Enjoy these commercials below. While English-speakers may not understand everything, it you turn on your "Jeong" - your "emotional intelligence" - I think you'll understand.

Here is Orion rolling out its 情 packaging:

Jeong is inter-generational, surviving death.

Jeong bridges distance ... generations...

And relationships: 

Pass the Cheong around!

My own Jeong experience came home to me only while talking with Mi Mi. Five weeks ago, at the Temple Stay, the famous actor practiced Jeong with me before I knew what was happening. 

Surprised, by Jeong. 

Other reading or references:

1. 2014 Korean movie "Ode to my Father" that depicts Jeong

2. A skeptical Westerner's blog on Jeong

3. A foreigner's guide to Korean culture

4. A very helpful 3-page academic paper on Jeong in Korean Culture and Psychotherapy

D.M.Z.

It is hard to fight the ridiculous. - Garrison Keillor

Confucius said, “If we don’t use the correct words, we live public lies. If we live public lies, the political system is a sham. When the political system is a sham, civil order and refinement deteriorate. When civil order and refinement deteriorate, injustice multiplies. As injustice multiplies, eventually the electorate is paralyzed by public lawlessness. -Analects 13:3


I guess I now understand Oxymorons better. 

Jumbo Shrimp

Airplane Food

Bankers Trust

Pretty Ugly

Clean Dirt

and now ... drum roll, please: 

The Demilitarized Zone

First of all, all the soldiers I saw were armed. I saw allegedly live mine fields. I witnessed people ready-to-go into action at the first sign of danger. I guess if one calls it a De-Militarized zone, by this softening of language one can get away with all kinds of things, and maybe sleep better at night.

The classic exposé of soft euphemistic language is here: I hope you will be able to invest the 10 rich minutes this experience will ask of you:

R.I.P., George Carlin.

My last visit to the DMZ was June of 1980, a quiet affair arranged for a few foreigners by the USO in Seoul. One bus at a time, spaced out over hours, or by days. Its highlight was the village of Pammunjom.

(Image from Globaljuggler, via WikiMedia Commons) 

At this sensitive place, no pointing, no noise, no laughter. As in 1980, so in 2015. Bus-after-bus-after-bus-fulls of tourists is hardly the desired situation by players who maintain the world's most "militarized zone."

So my recent visit was very different. Mind-full readers, I neither complain about, nor downgrade the hospitality Ewha Womans University has extended me, to be part of the learning community to visit the DMZ. I do report on how the experience of the visit over 35 years has dramatically changed!

With 1000s of visitors each day, there is a now a tourist-friendly section of the DMZ: Large parking lots designed for many buses, restaurants to feed their occupants, gift shops and coffee shops and ice-cream boutiques to cater, fun-parks for the little kids. Photo-ops - even/especially with soldiers - abound. (It was hinted that the troops stationed here are those deemed especially photogenic! I have no opinion.) There are no stop-overs at Pammunjom.

So, here is my photo report. Thanks for reading, as always.

Along the way, barbed wire and outposts show up. Mountains in the distance are bare b/c of firewood scavenging.

Was this real, or for show?

Some of my fellow visitors

Getting ready to go down into Tunnel #3

One needed the safety helmet provided!

This and following pictures: Looking over into North Korea.

At right of picture, developed area is an economic zone provided by key South Korean corporations.

White "needle" structure in middle is a statue to Kim Il-Sung.

Do you see both North Korean and South Korean flags?

The spirit of and soul behind the Summer College program at Ewha, AHN, Mi Mi

This is rare.

Photo Op with a soldier, #1

 

Photo Op with a soldier, #2

Photo Op with a soldier, #3

End of Freedom Bridge

Wishes and Desires for Reunification #1

Wishes and Desires for Reunification #2

Getting ready for the "Family Portrait"

Family Portrait. Blogger is to the right of the word "College".

Next topic: a visit to the uncipherable description of the Korean character at its heart: Jeong (정).

Keep it real. Marc

My Favorite Korean Word

When people talk they mean something else, and you're just supposed to know what they mean. 
- Alan Turing in The Imitation Game

The word is Nun-chi, (pronounced Noon-Chi). 

Nun = eye. Chi = measure.
눈치

Some might call it respect, or tact. Others define it as consensus. Or quick wits. Perhaps it means reading another person's (or group's) intent without words. Common Sense. Intuition. Clued in. Taking the hint. Socially astute. The Force is strong in you.

Whatever it is, body language is BIG here. So much happens, so many things are said, without a sound. One gauges the current situation, and acts accordingly.

Nun-chi both defies and then defines common sense. It is social awareness at the nonverbal level. One is supposed to know a lot without being told it in words.

If one has no Nun-Chi (and there is a not-nice phrase here to describe someone without Nun-Chi), one is not very aware of the immediate situation, of others and how they perceive you. Clueless! In the business world, without Nun-Chi there is no promotion. If I go into a classroom without Nun-Chi ... well ... we may get through the material, but no one would get much out of it. The spouse without Nun-Chi keeps on being the bull in the delicate world of the china shop.

Nun-Chi is big here because it is a Confucian society. So many social expectations govern every situation, and every situation is chock-a-block full of relationships, most of them sub rosa. Like it or not, one must always blend in and work their part in the larger whole. It is well-nigh impossible to take a "social vacation" in this country where one is always in relationship, and thus, always on-stage. One is always playing a part - all the world's a stage - and to do this well, have a serving of Nun-Chi.

Now, as some may be doing right now, you are protesting. Why should I have to worry about others, and "play up" or "lower myself" to others' expectations?  You don't. Unless, you are friend, or spouse, or son/daughter, or seeing to someone in illness or in trouble. Or a counselor. Can you say, "Pastor"?

Without Nun-Chi, one might never "hear" the other person's pain or need; only hear the white noise of self. Nun-Chi is part of the toolbox for the Listener, the Shaman (see last post), the Accompanier. This is Christology, as in Immanuel.

In conclusion, Nun-Chi is a big, BIG part of a Confucian culture. Think of it as the social-lubricant that makes so much happen here. Without being obvious.

Here is a summarizing video - a bit immature at times, but overall helpful.

This post is brought to you by the Jungian concept: shadows coming to light.

Marc
Next time: DMZ???

The First Spiritual Technology? Shamanism, and Shamanism in Korea

Medicine (Wo)Men

Witch Doctor

Faith Healer

Sorcerers

Shamans

Priest

I can only imagine the after-images in your mind as you perused the list above. 

"How primitive!" 
"Surely not! You call this important?!" 
"We're way past this, right?" 

And Marc, why did you include "Priest"? Surely you are not going to place a modern American occupation alongside these ... these basic, unrefined and rudimentary terms?

I shall make the case that Shamanism is less a primitive religion than it is a primary spiritual technology. Shamanism is still a spiritual "currency" many still spend. Let me go out on a limb (where the fruit is): We need shamans. 

Briefly understood, all the job descriptions in the above word-list have one spiritual technology in common. Subscribers to the shaman's power bring a working belief (or, faith) in the efficacious power of the religious leader to:

1. Listen to the concerns of her or his people
2. Go into a trance where s/he is believed to be in direct communication with the spirit world, gods, or God. In this trance, the shaman shares the concerns of the people, and receives answers to these concerns from the spirit world.
3. Share the answers from the divine realm to the human realm, a process whereby the people receive peace, calm, assurance and spiritual direction.

The above three actions are common to many-a-religious ceremony, just called by different names. 

Divination

Vision Quest

Fortune Telling

Healing Ceremony

Intercessory Prayer

Dream Interpretation

It'll help to have a short Chinese-character lesson: Shaman in Chinese is this: 巫

The top line represents "sky or heaven"; the bottom line represents "earth." And in-between are "people" that link the two ... which is what a shaman/sorcerer/medicine person/priest does.

The shaman in most societies is most often the misfit, the outcast, the one we might want (in today's world) to "medicate". Perhaps they hear voices, see visions, and "ease into" alternate realities more easily than so-called regular people. Their herbal skills and prescience in understanding natural phenomena are above the norm. (Their very divergence from the norm actually enhances their status.)

Finally, one feature that survives in shamanism is its ecological sensitivity; that is, shamans perceive through the religious imagination that curiously-shaped rocks, mountains, and trees; or the way animals behave or the ways tea leaves settle -- all have spiritual readings that can be understood. The religious can imagine that meaning exists in exterior events, and these events hold sway over human fortunes. Moses at his burning bush and on Mt. Sinai, Mohammad in his cave. The ubiquity of mountains and "high-places" as residences of the gods. These are just a few well-known examples of shamanistic features in religion. These forces of nature are to be respected, addressed, and harnessed.

The above are general characteristics of the shaman around the world. In Korea, as in other places, shamanism is historically the first, and thus the "base layer" of religious accumulation in their histories. In other words, consider the folkways of shamanism as the bedrock or the bottom-most soil, into which all other religions have taken root. While roots may be invisible, they are essential to the life of the tree.

As these other religions take hold in the cultural soil, they take on characteristics and habits of shamanism. They adapt and adopt. Why? New religions rooted in shamanism "feel familiar" to people with deep, unconscious shamanistic habits.

For example, when Buddhism was introduced in Korea, its temples were built on or near the shaman mountain-spirit shrines. Still today, one can see buildings at these Buddhist temple sites dedicated to the shaman mountain-spirits.

The Chinese characters at this Buddhist-site Shaman temple reads: Mountain-Spirits Pavilion.

Shamanism in Korea is women-centered: most shamans are female. Two ideologies that govern the lives of almost every Korean -- Confucianism and Christianity -- are heavily male-weighted here. Women have little voice. Shamanism gives women that spiritual voice denied to her by mainstream spirituality.

This National Geographic video on Korean Shamanism shows how to become a shaman, and demonstrates why a woman may consider being "called" as a shaman (or in Korean, "mudang"). There is also some knife-dancing (if you are squeamish), but no blood.

In Korea, Shamans are consulted for many routine life-questions: choice of marriage partner; auspicious days to launch new ventures; how to deal with crazy in-laws; gaining advantage in business; and spiritual demons. The shaman is consulted (and well-paid!); she goes into a trance, and returns with answers. This video shows a Korean shaman ritual, called a "kut".

What happens in a Kut? First, the mudang invites the spirits. Then the mudang dons the clothes of the god she who is to possess her. She becomes possessed. Then, worries and requests of the homeowners are presented, and then the mudang purifies the space or home with water. Other mudang who are present may sing hymns. Often, a mudang whirls in a frenzied dance, holding a knife in her mouth and rubbing it on her arms to demonstrate the power of the spirits. Usually, the kut's final scene is a dance is performed that uses sword blades and sacred banners. The mudang divines the future by reading the banners. The person who commissioned the shaman ritual takes on the benefits of this cleansing by touching the feet of the mudang and offering money on the altar.

Korean Shamanism, deeply ingrained into the Korean culture and psyche, is practiced more widely than one might first think. Around Ewha University, there are perhaps a dozen churches within walking distance, but many more signs for shamanic services coexist within that same radius. 

There are other ways in which Korean Shamanism finds outlets today. Korea is a very stressed-out, buttoned down, hierarchical place. In the daytime, as strict Confucian roles are played out at work, people's souls feel constricted or imprisoned. After work, they may give into the need to cut loose and seek a different "spirit" to return them to calm and sanity. 

1. Thus the Karaoke Bar (Noraebang), with its copious alcohol (spirit!) consumption, can be to many a person that "Kut" of release from the pressures of the day. 

2. The famous musical performer is, in my estimation, the highest-paid mudang ever. I can think of no better expression of what the mudang does than this very public exhibition by the Korean songster Psy. Watch how the crowd and he get in-synch. What a gathering of desires, concentrated on the one performer, who gives the crowd a sense of control:

3. My exploration of shamanism in Korea must include a treatment of Christianity. I regularly take my students to the world's largest church (in membership) for its Wednesday night Prayer and Healing Service. It is two hours of incredible energy, which I suggest to my students is a kind of "Christian kut" - where people bring their petitions for power, spirit, healing, and release, and the pastor helps them find such. It is NO accident that this church's Pentecostalism is Holy-Spirit centered, which I suggest spiritually "rhymes" with the mudang's petitions before the mountain spirits of ancient days. It is NO accident that such Christian rituals in Korea are tie-ins to ancient, bedrock, religious folkways.

Korean Shamanism is a veritable "living religion of Seoul." 

While my conclusions may not satisfy everyone, it has been my intention herein to demonstrate surprisingly close connections between the most primitive of rituals in the most modern of places. 

No matter our sophistication, perhaps there are perennial human desires and problems for which a shaman-like figure is looked to. What if we just called these figures by different names?

And ... what if we acted more as shamans/sorcerers/healers and priests to each other?

Next time: My favorite Korean word.

How do you say "Culture War" in Korean? GLBTQ Gathering Seoul Plaza 28 June 2015

To oppose something is to maintain it ... To oppose vulgarity is inevitably to be vulgar. You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk a different road. -Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Last Sunday I walked down to the Seoul Plaza (as "central Seoul" as one can get) where some human fireworks were set to go off. I wanted to spend generous time with two groups who really do not understand, or are generous with each other: cultural expressions of GLBTQ and Christianity in Korea. Police, a 6-feet high fence, disdain and suspicion separated the two groups.

I made two videos, one from the GLBTQ group:

and one from the protest group: 

I witnessed almost 100% good behavior. Christian protesters kept up their signs, their prayers and hymns; at no time did I see any individual provoke the opponents. I did witness, however, one GLBTQ sympathizer, dressed as Jesus (below) provoke those across the fence with a most indecent gesture.

Most of the time, only written messages and colorful symbols crossed the line. 

Most folks at the GLBTQ gathering were there to share community, staff booths, be entertained or perform. They came to see and be the scene.

Protesters were in two groups, seeming to represent two different Christian sects, and positioned on two different sides of the rounded triangle of the fenced-in Seoul Plaza containing the LGBTQ gathering. With singers blasting hymns through some serious sets of loudspeakers, and drums perforating the air, I was reminded of Joshua circling Jericho with trumpets. 

I was struck that these protesters used the national flag as part of their presence. Indeed, the flag seemed to be the protesters' dominant symbol.

The backdrop of this gathering was the US Supreme Court's decision just a few days prior, making marriage equality the law of USA-land. Korea is not even close to this national consensus; the Culture Wars continue.

I close with this wondering: I know from experience the more I oppose something (within, without), the more life I give it. To maintain an enemy (within, without) is with certainty to maintain that enemy ... and one ever-so-slowly/surely transmogrifies into the very hatred one despises. So I wonder if those on either side of the fence who reject the positions of the other ... Do they not prolong their fight, and thus their agony, and thus The Day they seek? 

What IS this law of human nature, that to oppose, is to maintain?

Insights & Comments Welcome!

Next time:
To understand any religion in Korea, 

one must understand Shamanism.
Maybe even to understand any religion anywhere,
one must consider Shamanism?