Yang, Sunny - Hanbok: The Art of Korean Clothing

[oyceter]

I think this is a fairly basic introduction to the history of Korean clothing from the Three Kingdoms (57 BCE - 668 BCE) through Westernization (~1800s). It's hard for me to tell, given that I know zero about Korean clothing outside of what I've seen on kdramas.

Yang gives a brief history of Korean to contextualize what was going on with changes in clothing, though I am somewhat wary of its scholarly accuracy, given Yang's prose and attitude in the rest of the book.

She deals very well with the details of clothing, but she is prone to exaggeration and way too many things are "exquisite." I do not blame her for pride in Korean clothing! I think it is awesome. But it still annoys me, as I can tell things are exquisitely crafted from the descriptions and pictures already. Also, she tends to overpraise, which leads to passages like this:

Thus, Koreans turned the most abused part of the body, the foot, into a thing of beauty by wearing the buhsuhn [white cotton socks] which achieved this distinction. The buhsuhn was the only part of Korean clothing that fit exactly. It did not come off easily once it was on, but retained its beautiful form even after it was taken off, unlike the western style stocking which lays limply when taken off. So beautiful is the buhsuhn that it can be used as a decoration!

That said, there is still a ton of information in the book, particularly on Joseon clothing for all classes. Also, I feel somewhat better now for thinking clothing in Bride of the Water God and Pahanjip looks very Tang Dynasty, as Goryeo clothing in particularly took things right out of Tang (much like pre-Heian Japan). I thought it was particularly neat watching Tang clothing evolve into court clothing, as I think Tang clothing eventually evolved into the kimono in Japan. It was also good to know that even though upper-class court clothing was modeled on Tang style, people all wore native Korean hanbok (top + skirt) underneath. Also, I think I can pick out Joseon court clothing now by the rounded collars.

Neat tidbits: male royalty wore the hats with mortarboards and dangling beads (myunyugwan, in the author's romanization), and you can figure out the rank by counting how many strands of beads there are. Guess what I will now be doing while watching kdramas? The light blue/white hanbok that I saw so much in Damo are the informal clothes for the yangban. And! There is a section in the book on hats! I squeed.

Apparently the translucent hats with squarish tops in Damo are made of horsehair and worn by yangban, and the two-tiered shortish hats are court hats, as I thought. Still nothing on the rounded hats with brims, or any details on what various hat decorations may signify for the yangban. Then again, I may be the only person around interested in this...

Also, I didn't realize that upper-class women went outside veiled in Joseon Korean! Possibly I have never seen an upper-class woman outside of the house in Damo, which is very likely, given what this book and another says about upper-class women in Joseon Korea.

There's less information on what commoners and farmers and etc. wore, probably because there's very little existing artwork and the clothing itself wasn't preserved, like some ceremonial robes were.

Oh! The other awesome thing I learned was that upper-class women carried around little decorative daggers, supposedly to guard their chastity, and that these daggers were given as gifts by family.

And! Men would write poems or other notes to gisaeng (female entertainers) on chima (the hanbok skirt).

There's also a lot in the book on clothing restrictions, from colors limited to royalty or the upper classes to proclamations against ostentatious clothing to what types of cloth lower-class people could wear. And much like Qing China, court ranks were signaled by heavily embroidered squares that officials would wear on their chests (common symbols were cranes, tigers, and ... other animals I forgot). Apparently in late Qing China, people started wearing squares outside of their actual rank, despite many proclamations against that. I wonder if that happened in Joseon Korea too?

Also, much like China, pretty much all the clothing was made from cotton, hemp, and silk. Does anyone know if Asia just has a massive shortage of sheep? Or did people just not like wool or something? Inquiring minds would like to know, though that certainly explains why knitting is largely a Western thing.

Anyway, despite my problems with the non-clothing scholarship, this was fascinating and had lots of photos. I only wish there were more diagrams of different weaves of cloth or of clothing construction, but you know, if I had my way, the book would have little cloth samples attached and patterns and color combinations and everything.

Comments

[wordebeast.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize that upper-class women went outside veiled in Joseon Korean!

More like a wrap/shawl, that's like a huge skirt your drape over your head and either pull 1) across your face or 2) under your chin, instead of a veil that goes specifically over the face. Damn, much easier with drawings. 쓰게치마 is the word. Over-skirt, in direct translation.

:D

The little daggers were made out of silver, so helluva uneffective I guess. Though better that they were supposed to be for "defense", rather than you off yourself.
:D

[wordebeast.livejournal.com]

and lo, pictures! :D

http://www.booksetong.com/images/feature/feature_11800/feature_11860_l.jpg

[oyceter]

More like a wrap/shawl, that's like a huge skirt your drape over your head and either pull 1) across your face or 2) under your chin, instead of a veil that goes specifically over the face. Damn, much easier with drawings. 쓰게치마 is the word. Over-skirt, in direct translation.

I think Yang is referring to an actual veil? She mentions the over-skirt that could be draped over the head as well, but the picture looks really different from the veil (she romanizes it as "nuhwool;" another book I have romanizes it as noul with a u-thing over the o) -- it's black and looks like a square of cloth draped over a wide-brimmed hat?

Both books seem to say that the noul is for upper-class women and the chang-ot (is that the same as the over-skirt you're mentioning?) is for lower-class women, not sure.

Heh, Yang did say that the daggers were first for defense, and then to off yourself in case it didn't work, and mentions that some women actually did so during the Japanese invasion!

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

neo-ul, then. (I've included the hyphen for disambiguation; the eo is one vowel, the vertical bar with the horizontal line to the left).

The word in Korean in italics would be romanized sseugechima (or eu possibly as u with a breve--the u-thing--over it).

(Dude, Yang! There's standardized romanization [1] for a reason! Use it, for love of spork!)

[1] Okay, more than one, but only the linguists use Yale romanization.

[oyceter]

Dude, Yang! There's standardized romanization [1] for a reason! Use it, for love of spork!

I know! Heck, you can choose one of several systems! But it sort of sucks for your reader to make one up from scratch.

[wordebeast.livejournal.com]

But of course! My high school history is shot to hell. *face red*
:D :D

But, *le sigh*, the romanization is kinda annoying, especially since the standard Revised R only sounds ok if you already know what the vowels sound like.
:( :(

[oyceter]

The romanization is very annoying! It was driving me crazy in the book, especially since I am trying to read other books on Korean clothing now, and I have to cross-check to figure out if the two books are talking about the same thing.

[pearl]

Hi,
I keep on stumbling onto your journal, since you post so much interesting stuff about Korean dress, and even though this post is almost a year old, I thought I should pipe up.

The noul is like this: http://ws1268.koreanblog.com/106 (you have to scroll down until you get to the one listed in English as 'veil.'
Or http://www.women.or.kr/ehtml/culture/gallary/live/live1.html

The reason it might be trickier to find information about it online, may be because 너울 can mean either the veil, or a heaving, rolling sea? (That's just a guess though.)

[oyceter]

Awesome, thank you! When I wrote the post, I also didn't know any Korean or Korean romanization, so that also made it difficult ;). Now at least I can read it and have very basic vocab (very basic. very very).

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

I only wish there were more diagrams of different weaves of cloth or of clothing construction, but you know, if I had my way, the book would have little cloth samples attached and patterns and color combinations and everything.

Me too!

I have to check out this book and maybe buy it for my library.

[oyceter]

Yeeees! I have several other books on Korean clothing out as well! There is one that is mostly on wrapping cloths of the Joseon Dynasty published by the Asian Art Museum of SF and the Museum of Korean Embroidery! And probably more! But I am excited about the wrapping cloths one because it has really big pictures!

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool. Thanks for posting this, and I look forward to future related posts, too! I've tried looking for books on embroidery, and my local library doesn't have any / the university library has them in Korean. I did find a couple of books on knots (http://reqfd.net/stack/2008/02/24/knotwork/) recently, though not at a library....

p.s.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Er, that blog is mine--it would've been clearer if I'd linked the crosspost-mirror thing here on lj, but the mirror requires a click-through, so.

[oyceter]

Oooo knots! Some day I will actually learn knotwork!

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

"buhsuhn"? I take it that the book does not use any of the standard transliterations...

Still, sounds interesting!

[oyceter]

ZOMG her romanization is completely wonky. It is annoying because I am reading some other Korean clothing books right now, and it's hard to figure out what corresponds with what.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I'm positive that buhsuhn is beoseon, if that helps, but for the other stuff I'd have to ask my mom. :-D

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

IIRC, sheep are not popular west of the Himalayas, but I'd have to poke around to be sure. Of course in the mountains they had goats and suchlike too.

[oyceter]

I am curious! I know in Islamic Chinese cuisine, they have lamb meat, but I don't know anything about goat domestication or the domestication of other woolly animals.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Neither goats or sheep are native to Asia (at least the species that we domesticated; there may be some wild versions I am unaware of). Animal and plant domestication in China (which later spread to the rest of East Asia) is a separate event than domestication in the Near East (where we get our sheep and goats of today from). So, possibly, (even though of course by the time periods you're talking about there would have been trade between East Asia and the Near East) sheep/goats just never became that popular in East Asia. My other guess would be that rice is the main food plant in East Asia, as opposed to wheat and similar grains in the Near East and Europe, and sheep/goats may not do as well on rice.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Oh, do people feed grain to sheep and goats? I just always pictured them on the green hills grazing year-round, but that probably wouldn't work everywhere now that I think about it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Most places outside of their natural range, yeah, you'd have to feed them at least a little: during winter, for instance. It also depends on what scale you're raising them; if you want huge herds to mass-produce lots of cloth, they'd eat the nearby hills bare pretty quickly.

[oyceter]

Huh, ok! I think the grain of China is millet; I know rice was a status symbol for a long time because it was more the food of the upper class. There's also the predominance of millet and wheat in Northern China and rice in Southern China, probably due to climate, though again, I don't know if sheep/goats eat millet?

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

Re: hats: I may be the only person around interested in this...

No! You are not! I would love to know more about what all the hats and hat-decorations mean in Damo!

[pearl]

Oh, and before I forget...

I only wish there were more diagrams of different weaves of cloth or of clothing construction, but you know, if I had my way, the book would have little cloth samples attached and patterns and color combinations and everything.

If you can find a copy, look at 5,000 Years of Korean Textiles: An illustrated history and technical survey (한국직물오천년) by Sim Yon-ok
ISBN: 8995269103 (Worldcat entry)

It doesn't have fabric samples attached, but it is high quality, colour photographed, textile porn. With line drawings too, in English and Korean.

[oyceter]

Oh, that sounds great, thank you!