Does anyone have any thought or evidence on whether the use of chunghung (restoration/renovation/rejuvenation) during the Park Chung Hee years was generic or deliberate in an historicized way?
I refer specifically to the evocation of the term in the slogan “minjok chunghung” (national restoration) and the use in “munye chunghung (culture and art renovation) 5 year plan.”
I am wondering if it is possible to consider whether the use of the term chunghung was purposefully designed to evoke its deep Chinese/Confucian connection. Mary Wright’s book on the T’ung Chih Restoration (The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism) provides a good chapter on the term’s significance in Chinese dynastic history. Andre Schmid’s Korea Between Empires has two mentions of the use of chunghung to refer to Kojong’s efforts with the Taehan jeguk (Kojong chunghung?). Bruce Cumings mentioned in a manuscript review that minjok chunghung was a term that has colonial origins (although by who and in what source I am not sure).
In an earlier brief discussion on the Korean Studies Discussion List on the term “yusin,” Prof. Ledyard talked about the Chinese/Confucian roots of that term and speculated that Park Chung Hee was very possibly aware and deliberately used the term with that connection in mind. Vladimir Tikhonov in the same discussion speculated that Park’s educational advisor Park Chong-hong would have known that historical significance and would have been in a position to advise PCH and that the evocation of the term/concept embedded in Chinese imperial ideology was “hardly accidental.”
I wonder if we can make a similar inference about chunghung. Better yet, does anyone have any evidence that can take us beyond speculation.
Jiyul Kim
Two helpful substantive comments from Gari Ledyard and Micahel Robinson on this question from the Korean Studies Discussion List:
Ledyard: As noted by Jiyul Kim, the term goes far back in
history, with a career much like which was discussed here a
few months ago. They also share some connotations. Whereas yusin
suggests reform and the re-establishment of legitimacy, chunghUng
implies revival and a restoration of spirit or prosperity, which
comes especially from the second character, hUng– start up, rise,
increase, prosper, etc. The first character, chung, is the common
character for “middle,” but that is the sense only when read in
classical Chinese in the so-called “level” tone; in this compound
it is usually glossed in Chinese texts in the “departing” tone, and
has the meaning (among others) of “second” in a group of three or
four, or “repeat,” or “again.” The basic idea of the compound is
“prosperity once more,” or, to go at it with an etymological
calque, “a reprospering.” (Of course, Sino-Korean readings don’t
have any tones when spoken, but if one’s education involved Chinese
poetry, as it did for many, one had to know the tones in order to
write or parse the poem correctly.)
is not as obscure or arcane as some of the postings
seem to reflect. It’s in three ordinary pocket dictionaries within
reach as I write; and though I wouldn’t say it’s any longer an
everyday word in Korean, I’ve seen it in ordinary newspaper or
magazine articles where it was used without the writer feeling that
it needed to be explained. Any decently educated Korean who read
literary or even general magazines in the 30s and 40s would have
been familiar with it, or readily grasped its meaning from the
characters– which of course wouldn’t be the case today. When Park
Chung Hee was a young man it hardly required a classical or
Confucian education to be capable of understanding it. We don’t
have to imagine him having to depend on old wizened scholars to
know what it meant, and suggesting as much would be to unwisely
underestimate him. Thus I suspect he used the term well aware of
its historical meaning, and also in the belief that most literate
people in Korean society (a very large number indeed) would
understand exactly what he meant.
As for an expression like “Kojong chunghUng,” it would have been
impossible while Kojong was alive, since “Kojong” was his
posthumous designation, not decided upon until after his death in
1919. “Kwangmu chunghUng,” using his year title for the years
1897-1907, could probably be found in the journalism of that
decade. In saying that the phrase “minjok chunghUng” originated in
the colonial period, Bruce Cumings surely referred to the use of
the term with “minjok,” which itself came into Korean only in the
early colonial period or just before.
Gari Ledyard
Robinson: Thanks to Gari for once again providing us with a great summary on this term. I have nothing to add on the historical derivations of these terms, but would like to note that the terms must surely be understood in their contemporary context. As Gari points out these are in everyday use. Park Chung Hee used a number of terms that could be linked to long historical useage within Confucianism or otherwise, but it was what he made of them that was important. From the mid-1960s onward he gave a number of speeches and the press followed his comments in detail with a vast amount of comentary…..they also printed the government’s own elaboration of his development ideology ad nausium. It seems to me there was no mistaking where he was going with these terms at the level of the general public. I particularly remember the great jokes and send ups on the propaganda that revolved around the saemaul undong and all the uisik it demanded. These jokes were sophisticated play with all the meanings possible within the termenology. It within this discursive context that the terms continue to live, and quite possibly continue to morph as they are re-deployed. One might only consider the American English example of how the useage of “liberal/liberalism” has changed over the last generation.
Mike Robinson