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In honor of the upcoming Valentine's Day, this column considers the history not of that unofficial holiday, or of romantic love in Korean civilization, but rather of the people who most commonly symbolize romantic love in Korean folklore, the gisaeng.
When thinking of gisaeng, most readers probably envision the lives of elegant courtesans of the pre-modern era, but their history seems to have been even more interesting.
The glamor and beauty associated with the gisaeng probably have most to do with a traditional perspective, perhaps beginning with the famous paintings of Sin Yun-bok of the 18th century, that became further enhanced with flowery depictions during the modern era.
The origins of the gisaeng, however, date much further back, and their role in the social and cultural development of the country was significant, all the way to the most recent period.
The gisaeng appear to have originated in the early Goryeo Kingdom (935-1392), and as they would until the 20th century, their main identities were as government servants, not in the sense of civil service as much as in the sense of hereditary bondage.
From the beginning, their low social status was closely tied to their "official duties" of providing entertainment for government officials and their guests: artistic performances as well as sexual services.
In the early Joseon Kingdom, the most famous gisaeng was Hwang Jini, from Gaeseong (or Songdo), the former capital of Goryeo, who was renowned for both her beauty and remarkably evocative poetry. Many of these poems survive to this day, and they speak powerfully to the perspectives and concerns shared probably by most gisaeng, including nature, sorrow, beauty, and of course romantic love.
The further institutionalization of the gisaeng courtesans' roles as the hereditary providers of government "services" developed hand-in-hand with their growing significance as transmitters of Korean cultural forms in music, dance, and literature.
This somewhat strange and contradictory combination placed them in an odd social position, as women who readily interacted with the most powerful but who belonged to, and were usually treated as, those whose social status barely rose above that of slaves.
In fact, they were slaves, in the sense that they rarely could escape their low birth status. They were also sexual slaves, due to the solidification of their role as concubines for the nobility and other highly privileged males. Very few children of these sexual unions, with fathers belonging to the uppermost level of society and mothers to the lowermost, could escape this bondage, although probably many of them tried.
This perhaps was an originating element behind the most famous folk tale in Korea, the "Tale of Chunhyang." This story is often accepted as a great representation of Korean traditional culture, but it also symbolizes the multiple, contradictory, and likely painful roles played by the gisaeng. In the story, Chunhyang is the daughter of a former county magistrate of the county of Namweon, Jeolla province, and of a local gisaeng.
There was nothing unusual about such a social standing, as there were likely many thousands of girls just like Chunhyang in real life. But in this story, the beautiful Chunhyang gets "married" to an aristocratic male and insists, in resisting the advances of another magistrate, that she is not a gisaeng, unlike most other daughters of such unions who, in real life, indeed became gisaeng themselves.
Indeed, the marriage union to an aristocrat was highly unlikely in real Joseon society, as was the tale's happy ending.
Eventually, the Tale of Chunhyang, a folk story transmitted via oral traditions, eventually became textualized as a libretto to a pansori opera, and then "modernized" as a short story through mass printing in the early 20th century. The popularity of the tale grew and aroused a wide variety of perspectives, both literary and popular, on the details of the story and its significance for understanding the place of gisaeng in Korean society and culture.
In the meantime, the gisaeng themselves became modernized, as they organized themselves into associations that worked with the modernizing state, including that of Japanese colonial rule (1910-45). What resulted was a system of licensed prostitution that extended, in modified form, the customary connection between female subservience, "public service," and prostitution.
This decidedly unglamorous combination could not have been unrelated to the so-called "comfort women" system of sexual slavery that was institutionalized by the Japanese empire in World War II.
After liberation in 1945, the gisaeng (though not the "comfort women") disappeared from formal existence and practice. But the Tale of Chunhyang and other cultural artifacts related to gisaeng underwent repeated embellishment and re-imaginings in popular culture through movies, television, and theatrical stagings.
In both North and South Korea, these courtesans won elevation to status as national symbols. The intricate dances and musical performances that the gisaeng collectively developed and transmitted came to be showcased as among the most beloved expressions of traditional Korean culture, just as Sin Yun-bok's beautiful paintings also joined the pantheon of national artistic treasures.
All of these developments contributed to the formation of the gisaeng into the glittering representations of Korean folklore, art, and romantic love. The city of Namweon, the location of the fictional folk tale, even constructed a Chunhyang theme park, where one can be surrounded by the famous places mentioned in the story and make believe that the enchanting world of gisaeng courtesans was real.
Kyung Moon Hwang is associate professor in the Department of History, University of Southern California. He is the author of, "A History of Korea ― An Episodic Narrative" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). The Korean translation was published as 황경문, "맥락으로 읽는 새로운 한국사" (21세기 북스, 2011).
