REFERENCE LIST
Ahn, BS 1987, "Humor in Korean Film." East-West Film Journal, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 90-98.
Grinker, R 1998, “Korea and Its Futures: Unification and the Unfinished War”, Saint Martin’s Press, New York.
Huer, J 2009, “Psychology of Korean Han”, viewed 2nd May 2018, <http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2012/08/272_41770.html>
Kim, LIC 2012, “Beyond the Battle Line: The Korean War and My Life”, Xlibris Corporation, United States.
Kim, S 2017, “Korean Han and the Postcolonial Afterlives of ''The Beauty of Sorrow''”, Korean Studies, vol. 41, pp .253-279.
Ko, K 2017, “A broken heart from a wounded land: The use of Korean scarf dance as a dance/movement therapy intervention for a Korean woman with haan”, The Arts in Psychotherapy, vol. 55, pp. 64-72.
Suh, N 1983, “Minjung Theology: People as the Subjects of History”, in Committee on Theological Concerns of the Christian Conference of Asia, Zed Press, London, pp. 55 – 69.
Zastrow, M 2017, “South Korea's scientists seek change amid political chaos”, Nature, vol. 543, no. 7646, pp. 474-475.
What will I do?
The learning about Han will make a great impact for my future career and my social relationship. For my future career, to overcome from being imposed and abused by the people at work, I must equip myself a great knowledge and persistence. The oppression initiates from stronger power due to greater ability of working. Furthermore, regards to being a business woman, automatically I will build an opened media where my employees can share this problem to actively listen from each other to tackle it. Hence, the victims will less likely become stressful, angry during work and be able to contribute comfortably. For my social relationship, more specifically my own family, Han at a certain level resembles condescension. More importantly, “condescension” does not resemble that you are wrong, your act is wrong. Thus, “Certain level” what I meant is to keep the harmony of the family, to protect and give children good family memories. In a family, there is a greater purpose so Han plays a crucial factor not to only raise children well but also generate a positive reputation for the family amongst the society’s view. Generally, to not become a victim under Han but thrives a better future, independence in earning money and solving life problems using experiences combined with great knowledge is the undying answer to be applied.
"A woman feeling han freezes the ground even in Spring." (Ahn 1987, p.94)
Han generates optimistic understanding
The concept of Han is valuable for the way of more optimistic understanding. In one aspect, people who has Han see themselves as the victims in their own situation. The spirit is eventually being damaged because of negative thoughts from pressure and so becomes less immune to deal challenges with problems. One simple but necessary sentence to this situation is “If you cannot let go, you cannot live”. However, on the other hand, Han generates the deeper understanding into the pain of society. Meanwhile, the poverty, the discrimination and environmental issues are being more concerned so that the sympathy is built and action to tackle the problem is urgently done. In this case, people appreciate of their own current possession and life. Thus, Han positively creates the bond in understanding different situation of different people in order to finalize the interrelation between everyone. Eventually, Han between people with people also affects the Han of the planet. Moreover, Han is a way to help the other nations to understand the Korean more. What is more, despite the fact that Korea underwent terrible war of the economy and society being destructed, today Korea surpassed a lot of developed countries to reach the high standard of living and economy. The inheritance of Han gains the benefit no more into the spiritual value but more realistic situation. From this, the developing nation such as Vietnam can learn from Han to motivate the belief that such a weak nation can thrive to stand at the same level with the powerful nations.
"We Koreans were born from the womb of Han and brought up in the womb of Han."
South Korean poet Ko Un
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How Han relates to other concept?
The meaning of Han simply connects to both the humanity social relationship, fighting spirit and religious belief of Christianity in Korea. First, there are presence of a lot of actions such as begging and lamenting to express the Han feeling. One significant practice is Koreans intensively protest against the corruption and greed from their own leaders or toward other countries. On other hand, most Han are frequently found in the marginalized minority group within the relationships such as a mother struggles to raise children, a high-school student being bullied and a worker being abused by the boss. Based on the level of Han subject to anyone, Korean will either forgive serious acts or kill immediately a slightest object. As a result of a male-dominant culture, some Korean women easily to become angry to aggressive because Han, which restraints cluster of bad emotions and forms a source of optimistic energy, affects their mood strongly. Undoubtedly, Korea thrive to claim for one of the best developed nations with hi-technology, cosmetics. This rank rationally can be explained by Han which helped Korea to join in the universal competition with powerful nations such as United States, Japan, China. Han, in Korean history, presents as a sorrow. However, at the present, Han takes form of a hope and endurance to strike back. Regards to religious faith, Christians in Korea have a cultural direct communication of revealing their own dissatisfaction while the roots of this religion in everywhere is spiritual.
Yun Dong Ju (1917-1945) emotionally wrote the complex feeling of han
Prelude
Let me have no shame
under heaven 'til I die.
Even wind in the leaves
pained my soul.
With a heart that sings of stars
I must love all dying things.
And I must walk the path
given to me.
Tonight also,
the wind sweeps over the stars.
(November 20, 1941)
About Han
Han is a deep feeling which includes sorrow, anger, impotent towards a greater negative and powerful forces (Kim 2017, p.254). In addition, Huer (2009) discussed that Han is not only a belief that justice will be done but also a hope of “there is a silver lining in every cloud”. Kim (2012, p.234) emphasized that anger has higher probability to change into Han after a period of time. When a person simply do not have a lot of choices, especially in the past, he/she can not resolve their own frustration and irritation with revenge. Hence, mentioned by Kim (2012, p.239), Koreans have strong motivation and very persistent to fight for their own right and demand until the enemy, who caused harsh feelings toward them, is defeated or suffers for their own crime. In fact, the anthropologist Grinker (1998, p.78) discovered that Han hypothetically creates tolerance for the past and enlightened movement into the present along with future. Suh (1983, p.60) revealed that Han originally was from the history of Korea being invaded by foreigners and colonizers; the poverty, starvation and sufferings under the powerful caste system; domination of religious ideologies. Real life example of Han practice is announced by Zastrow (2017, p. 474) about the corruption scandal of president Park Geun-hye being solved by the action of Koreans putting their own president into jail. Furthermore, Ko (2017, p.64) implied that Han is what Korean women when getting married felt because she must endure by acting blind, deaf and mute for three years to maintain the family’s harmony.