Daily RC Article 387

Exploring Han: The Emotional Core of Korean Culture

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When interpreters of Korean cultural products such as films and TV shows mention han, they are referring to the works’ intense emotionality, especially the feelings of sorrow, regret, resentment and rage associated with the concept. Parasite, for instance, begins with a family of swindlers who target a rich family, but their plot turns deadly with the explosion of seething anger from class resentment. Squid Game features the sad desperation of people whose lives are in such shambles that they willingly risk death in a series of sadistic games for a slim chance at salvation. Among other popular Korean films, one could point to the sorrow and rage of the inexplicably imprisoned man in Oldboy (2003), the abused and traumatised wife in Lady Vengeance (2005), and the colonial subjects having to humble themselves before their Japanese masters and their collaborators in The Handmaiden (2016)…

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Seen from the perspective of han, such emotions seem to be the common theme running throughout all the works. That notion is a questionable one, yet, because han has become the unavoidable go-to term in explicating all things Korean, it is important to explore its exact origin and meanings…[Han] became a particularly important cultural concept starting in the 1960s when South Korea embarked on a concerted effort to overcome the tragedies of the recent past: colonisation by the Empire of Japan from 1910 to 1945; the forced division of the country into North and South following the defeat of Japan in the Second World War; and the devastation of the Korean War (1950-53). Even after South Korea took its place on the global stage as an emerging economic powerhouse, the stigma of han remained… Ultimately, han came to signify a kind of Korean exceptionalism defined by strength and resilience in the face of inherent sadness and pain.

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The trope of han took powerful hold of the Korean imagination. In the cultural realm, major literary figures […] claimed han to be the central aesthetic principle in Korean art and literature… In recent years, many Korean Americans have taken up the idea to define their identity and describe their life experiences and heritage. They say han explains Korean character and culture in mainstream media. And the concept shows up frequently in fiction written by Korean Americans… Yet few Korean Americans seem aware that the idea of han has undergone a significant decline in cultural importance in South Korea itself since the late 1990s, now to the point of irrelevance. With the achievement of prosperity and democracy, the notion of an essential character defined by a profound sorrow from trauma and unrealised potential no longer seems appropriate. Of course, the people of the country experience economic disparity, as brilliantly allegorised in Parasite and Squid Game… They are cognizant of […] quality-of-life issues stemming from the competitive, workaholic culture, sometimes referred to as ‘Hell Joseon’. But given the astounding economic, political and social achievements of the recent past, South Korean people no longer feel that they are perennially condemned as the passive victims of history… For most contemporary South Koreans, the larger idea of han as a defining characteristic feels increasingly like a retrograde notion from the past…