Some material on kisaeng (sometimes gisaeng)

Chunhyang's mother is a kisaeng, variously represented as an "accomplished woman", a "courtesan", a Korean version of geisha... but in any case, a person at the bottom of the social order. We need to understand this a bit better, and some of the materials linked below are helpful in enriching our notions of what kisaeng status is/was all about. Elvis Mitchell's New York Times review says that Chunhyang's mother was "a prostitute", but kisaeng (like geisha) is so much more than that... and we need to understand how and why, if we are to get beyond simple categorical equation, and approach a broader understanding of status of women.

First, a few more reviews of the film:

film synopsis

another Chunhyang review (DCDave)

another review

After seeing the film I talked with an American who was absolutely captivated by this Korean musical form, which he compared with the blues and bardic poetry. I like Chinese opera, but Cho's screeching struck me as akin to listening to a cat being strangled. Pansori, to be sure, is not for all tastes. The same can also be said for the beautiful but trying Chunhyang. (compare to Hector Berlioz on Chinese music...)

Chun-hyang in Washington (John Kie-chiang Oh)

The Courtesan’s Arts: A look at courtesan cultures’ connections to societal shifts (Seth Sanders)

...characterize courtesanship roughly as “the social phenomenon whereby women are engaged in relatively exclusive exchanges of sexual favors, artistic graces and elevated conversation with male patrons.” She noted that courtesan cultures have resisted serious study by most scholarly disciplines. Yet, while far from universal, she said, they have emerged recurrently and powerfully in various times and places, often under similar conditions––highly stratified societies marked by social oppression but undergoing modernization; new forms of mercantilism; new, if limited, forms of social mobility; and accelerated forms of cultural production and circulation...

Songs of the Kisaeng Courtesan Poetry of the Last Korean Dynasty (book review)

During the half millennium long rein of the Chosôn Dynasty in Korea (1392-1910), there was a class of women whose fate was both appalling and seductive. The kisaeng, sometimes translated as "skilled women" were selected from early age for their beauty, given extensive education in poetry, music, the arts, and dance, trained in the skills of courtesanship, and then assigned as professional entertainers to the court, the high government bureaucracy, and even distant military outposts. Social outcasts unacceptable to Confucian mores, the kisaeng were often little more than prostitutes, and never attained any semblance of status in society. Even the few hundred sijo (three-line poem) they authored were preserved in spite of them by admiring males. Destined forever to fall in love and never able to retain a lover, the kisaeng wrote some of the most exquisite, if simple, lines to convey their pain.

"character profiles" of statuses in traditional Korean society

Korean Women's History - An Overview (Sookja Chung)

I break for Pyongyang gisaeng (links to Kisaeng It All Good-bye? [Andrei Lankov])

Gwanghallu

Known as Ch'unhyang's Hall, this pavilion (designated Treasure #281) was originally called Kwangtong Pavilion. It was built during the reign of King Sejong and renamed Kwanghan Pavilion (Gwanghallu) by Chong Injee. The building was burnt down during the Jonggyu Disaster, but restored to its present shape in 1638.

Human Dignity and Sexual Culture: A Reflection on the 'Comfort Women' Issues (Chunghee Sarah Soh)

Let me now provide an historical overview of the masculinist sexual culture in Korean society and the social and political economic context that contributed to the emergence of the comfort women movement. In particular, we will examine the phenomenon of kisaeng tourism and consider the plights of the kijich'on sex workers in South Korea in order to highlight the underlying, invisible threads of masculinist sexual culture combined with the political economy of global capitalism that continue to influence the patterns of unequal power relations between the sexes and nation-states in the everyday lives of women working in the sex industry.

interactive lessons "...designed to engage learners of all ages in exploring the Korean culture and history", and Cultural Values of the Choson Dynasty (see kisaeng link)

Korean Confucianism

At the bottom of this strict social hierarchy were Korean women. Common women received little or no education and were in virtual bondage throughout their lives, to their fathers, husbands and sons. Women destined to be the wives of yangban or aristocrats were educated but the strict code of social behaviour forbade them consorting with unrelated males. This role fell to the famed kisaeng, a group of beautiful and charming women specially groomed to be the companions of artists, scholars and the rulers of the nation, similar in some respects to the western "literary salon". As such they were highly educated and trained in the arts of music, dance and song. They enjoyed the protection of the crown and all its attendant privileges and social freedoms. In this form the kisaeng institution passed to Japan where the kisaengs became geishas, meaning accomplished person. The kisaeng institution declined after World War II.

South Korea entry from The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality: South Korea

because of firm adherence to the segregation of men and women, few women could engage in any form of activities outside the family compound. There were, however, some exceptions. Three special groups of women wielded considerable influence by performing certain public functions in traditional society. They were shamans, folk healers, and entertainers (kisaeng). The women who worked in these special jobs were, almost without exception, from lower-class families... The women entertainers (kisaeng) also belonged to the low social group. Because their occupation was to entertain men, they developed special talents and skills in poetry composition, singing, dancing, calligraphy, and painting. They were the few women who had free access to public events. For this reason, entertaining women most frequently appeared as heroines in ancient tales and novels. To romanticize the lives of the low-born women in these special cases would be wrong; however, compared to the secluded life of the court and yangban families, the lives of female shamans, healers, and kisaeng permitted them to have broader experiences and development of their talents.

Women and Korean Literature (Helen Koh)

=====

2003 comments on the film

Annie isn't much help for kisaeng, though this does have a few poems by kisaeng:

Classical Korean poetry : more than 600 verses since the 12th century / selected and translated with an introduction by Jaihiun J. Kim.
Fremont, Calif. : Asian Humanities Press, c1994.
PL984.E3 C38 1994.

amazon.com, on the other hand, is very helpful:

Kisaengs were famous for their captivating beauty and cultivated skills in pleasing a man in every way. They were poets, musicians, singers, flatterers, companions... (Still Life with Rice by Helie Lee, pp 51-52)

...In a survey by the Korean Ministry of Tourism, no less than 80 percent of the [visiting Japanese] men cited "kisaeng parties" as "what was most imptressive about Korea." THe word kisaeng historically applied to professional female entertainers, quite similar to Japan's highly refined tradition of geisha. But today the term is synonymous with prostitute. (Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld, Expanded Edition by David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro, page 89)

The Korean "Comfort Women": Movement for Redress (Chunghee Sarah Soh) Asian Survey, Vol. 36, No. 12. (Dec., 1996), pp. 1226-1240. --see pg 1231 especially

The Paekchong of Korea. A Brief Social History (Herbert Passin) Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 12, No. 3/4. (Oct., 1956 - Jan., 1957), pp. 195-240. --see pg 205 for "Base People" listing. The paekchong were an "outcaste" group, segregated like 'untouchables' in India or eta in Japan... members of a "servile stratum", the chonmin ("despised people", as opposed to yangmin, "respectable folk" --consisting of yangban [nobles, landlords, wealthy families], ch'ungin [technical functionaries, clerks], sangmin [commoners])

Women's Sexual Labor and State in Korean History (Chunghee Sarah Soh) in Journal of Women's History 15.4 (2004) 170-177

From Kisaeng to Maech'un: The Transformation of Sexual Work in Twentieth?Century Korea (Lie, John J) American Sociological Association (ASA), 1991 Conference Paper
Abstract: It is asserted that in each major stage in the development of prostitution in Korea, the underlying power structure is reflected. The traditional, state?organized female entertainers (kisaeng) waned with the collapse of the Yi Dynasty. The Japanese colonial rule (1910?1945) enhanced the commercialization of sexuality & conscripted Korean women as sexual "comforters" (ianfu) to serve soldiers. In the postwar period, the massive commercialization of sexual labor occurred, in which the rise of prostitution (maech'un) was initially linked with the US military presence. From the 1970s, sex tours dominated by the Japanese proliferated. The 1980s witnessed a greater diversification & intensification of commercialized sexual labor.

Another story: Choonpoong's Love affair ("A bizarre tug-of-war among Choonpoong, his wife, and the most beautiful gisaeng in Pyeongyang, Choowol. Who will be the last one standing?")

The Authorship of the Chunhyang jeon(Sul Syung Gyung)

Research into the origin of the Chunhyang jeon has concentrated mostly on the theory that the narrative grew out of pansori, rather than the possibility it had a single original author. Those who asserted the narrative began as an authored work had little in the way of objective documentation to work with, since they relied on fragmented records that appeared hundreds of years after the work itself. Those who claimed that Chunhyang jeon grew out of pansori felt searching for an author was meaningless, since they believed the narrative appeared gradually as the synthesis of various 'source tales' as they were sung and strung together by the gwangdae. In this paper, however, I intend to show that an original Chunhyang jeon was authored by a historical individual, and that this author was not a gwangdae of low social class but a widely read intellectual.

The author of was born in Namwon, the setting for the narrative, and he used firsthand knowledge of occurences there to create the 'first' version of Chunhyang jeon. It was after the creation of an original Chunhyang jeon that gwangdaes set the story to pansori, eventually resulting in the pansori sung versions of the narrative known as Chunhyang ga. Scholars made further adaptations, and this resulted in the highly authored versions of Chunhyang jeon known to us from the early stages of the three hundred year history of the narrative.

What does it mean to be "an accomplished woman"? And what's the cultural status of pansori? These are complex questions, to which we can find answers --and either could be the core of an excellent Project. For the former, I draw on two sources: the Classical Korean Poetry volume from the library, and a JSTOR article, The Structure of The Korean Sijo David R. McCann Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 36. (1976), pp. 114-134. Both of these sources include versions of the same sijo:

Deep blue stream, don't boast so loud of your passing through these green hills,
Though your way runs swiftly down to the sea there is no such easy return.
While the bright moon floods these lonely hills why not pause? Then go on if you will. (McCann version)

Jade green brook in the green mountains, do not boast of your swift course.
Once you get to the blue ocean it won't be easy to return.
Now that the bright moon overflows the empty hill, why don't you stop to rest for a while? (CKP version)

The first line makes a statement, and the second line elaborates on the circumstances of that statement. The first part of the third line introduces a new element, the moon, for the "twist", while the remainder of the third line resolves the poem. (McCann pg 117)

A search for more on Hwang Chini is ...instructive. I get many google hits for 'hwang chini', including a book Creative Women of Korea: The Fifteenth Through The Twentieth Centuries with a chapter "Demythologizing Hwang Chini" (Kevin O'Rourke) --see WorldCat reference...
and another: Fragrance, Elegance, and Virtue: Korean Women in Traditional Arts and Humanities (Song-mi Yi) with a chapter on Hwang Chini

So we're onto something here.