Han (cultural)
[11] According to Michael D. Shin: "In actuality, classical Korean literature is full of joy and satire and humor, stuff that you don't associate with han.
[5] According to Minsoo Kang, "there is not a single piece of evidence that anyone prior to the 20th century thought that the word [han] held some special meaning for the Korean character".
[11] According to Michael D. Shin, a collective expression of han was observed by Western missionaries during the Great Pyongyang Revival of 1907.
Lord William Cecil observed: "[The missionary] reached only the words "My Father" when with a rush a [sic] power from without seemed to take hold of the meeting.
[17]The concept of han, as a national characteristic, originated from Yanagi Sōetsu's theory of the "beauty of sorrow" (悲哀の美) and Japanese colonial stereotypes of Korea and its people.
[26] To justify the colonization of Korea, the Japanese propagated an image of Koreans as an inferior, uncivilized people, who were incapable of being independent and prone to being invaded and oppressed.
The Dong-a Ilbo wrote: "The anger, bitterness, and sorrow built up inside us have become mixed together, and it could be said that the passing of the Yunghui Emperor [Sunjong] has touched the hearts of the Joseon people and released their pent-up sadness."
[20][32][33][34][35] Moderate Korean nationalists, who had a non-confrontational approach toward Japanese authority, supported Yanagi, and the Dong-a Ilbo actively promoted and sponsored him.
[37] The concept of han, based on the "beauty of sorrow", was propagated by Korean scholars and writers, continuing Yanagi's legacy,[18][21] and gradually spread to the entire education system.
[38] According to Jeong Il-seong, the passage of modern Korean history, going from the Japanese occupation to independence to national division to civil war to military dictatorship, influenced figures in art and culture to adopt the concept of han.
[19] Ethnic nationalism’s processes took the colonial origin of "the beauty of sorrow" and produced han as an ethnonational, biologistic badge of Korean uniqueness.
[54] According to David C. Kang, the dominant narrative depicting Korean history as "one of almost incessant foreign incursions" is a meme that emerged in the 20th century.
[55] Minsoo Kang calls the idea of a Korean character shaped by foreign invasions a modern myth that is still circulating today.
[1] The history of han is as problematic as that of 'hysteria', which begs the question of why anyone aware of its past would want to persist in its use, even through a redefinition that rejects its imperialist, racist, ethnonationalist and sexist legacy.
[1]Mari Nakami says that Yanagi did not profess to be an expert or intend for his theory to be an "objective observation" or a "scientifically approached scholarly study", but rather "an expression of the human heart".
[25][59] Despite receiving criticism for his theory, Yanagi Sōetsu has oft been praised for his humanism and preservation of traditional Korean art.
In the Marvel Comic Book story New York State of Mind, written by Maurene Goo, with art from Lynne Yoshi and part of Marvel's Voices: Identity (Vol.1#1; released on August 25, 2021) Korean heroes Brawn and Silk discuss the concept of "han": Silk describes her interpretation as “...its like collective grief and resentment we carry because of oppression”.
While fighting the villain Scarecrow (who laments at feeling invisible because his crimes didn't attract the attention of the Avengers), Silk and Brawn enumerate a number of indignities regularly experienced by Asian Americans.
What does it mean for a second-generation Korean American to feel personally degraded by the soldiers who raped thousands of comfort women during WWII?
[66] More recently, in her hybrid creative nonfiction poem "I, Discomfort Woman: A Fugue in F Minor," published in 2023 in The Margins/Asian American Writers' Workshop, Chu responds to criticism of han, writing: "Han I reclaim and redefine as my Korean American response to injustice" and "Hwabyung I reclaim and redefine as a cathartic way of experiencing political agency and creative power.
