[Grace Kao] Buddhism, Poet Seo Jeong-ju and BTS

What do poet Seo Jeong-Ju and Buddhism have to do with Hallyu and BTS? A lot, according to a lecture by the President of Dongguk University, Yun Jae-woong. His lecture this month at Yale University was titled “Love and Comfort in Korean Cultural Content: The Poetry of Seo Jeong-ju and the Music of BTS.” Professor Yun argues that Hallyu has roots in the earliest ideas from Korea and Buddhism. Notably, the poems are about the attentiveness to small things in life that offer comfort through the “empathy for sorrow and suffering, a yearning for dreams and hopes, and wisdom about life.”

Dongguk University is a prominent Buddhist university in South Korea founded in 1906, and this lecture also spoke of central concepts in Buddhism.

Seo Jeong-ju (1915-2000) was a prominent and prolific poet who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. In the lecture, Professor Yun focused on Seo’s poem “The Camellia Flower Ritual at Seonunsa Temple in Gochang.” This is the six-line poem:

The thousands of camellia flowers at Seonunsa Temple in Gochang

Fall crimson, crimson to the ground,

On a day that makes the spring’s grass weep,

The people of Gochang, finding the souls of the fallen flowers so pitiful.

Offer a prayer to the heavens with their hands together,

Conducting a rite for the souls.

According to Professor Yun in his talk, Seonunsa Temple is famous for its camellia flowers. These flowers symbolize many things to Koreans. They have even been used as a song title (“Camilla Lady” by Lee Mi-ja) and in the title of the K-drama “When the Camellia Blooms.” Because they bloom very briefly and then fall suddenly, he argues that the flowers represent the loss of youth or young life. In the poem, the spring grass symbolizes the common people, or "mincho," who mourn the loss of the camellia or young life. Because Buddhist scriptures “such as the Diamond Sutra assert that all created things are illusory, and they represent a world constructed by the projections of the human mind,” the poet and the reader can imbue meaning and emotion to the camellia flowers and grass. As Yun says, “The ability to empathize with all living beings and share in their sorrow is made possible through a way of thinking that does not separate the part from the whole.”

He also spoke about one of the traditional forms of the Korean poem known as sijo. These poems are composed of three parts and parallel the Korean frame of “heaven, earth and humanity.” In the poem, the camellia flowers represent the end of life. Next, the forest mourns life, which is a form of compassion or the Buddhist notion of the birth of mercy. Finally, one understands the “heart of nature.”

What does all this have to do with Hallyu and BTS? According to President Yun, at the end of the Shilla Dynasty, scholar Choi Chi-won (857 AD - ?) spoke of the nation as being supported by the foundational teachings of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. He also spoke of this fundamental force as "pungryu" (or “the flow of the wind). In fact, the word “flow” in this phrase is the same one that is used in Hallyu (ignore the difference in spelling -- it is in fact the same word). He argues that Hallyu does not simply come from the creative forces behind K-cinema, K-dramas and K-pop, but that its “cultural genetics” stem from 2,000 years of Korean culture. In other words, the pungryu has become the Hallyu as it flows from Korea to the rest of the world.

BTS was mentioned not simply due to their prominence, but because of their music. They often talk about the importance of providing comfort to their fans in difficult times. They are seen as humble, which is also a central value in Buddhism. Their fans find them to be accessible and empathetic. President Yun ended his talk with “Boy with Luv” from BTS. I noted that the Korean title of “Boy with Luv” is “A Poem of Small Things,” which is precisely how his lecture began.

The big news last week was that the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Han Kang, making her the first Korean recipient of the award (and only the 18th woman out of the 117 prizes awarded previously). President Yun joked that if there were a Nobel Prize in popular music, it should go to BTS.

I don’t know if Korea’s DNA produced BTS (pardon the pun), but I do know that BTS has, at least in the past, viewed itself as a group that represents Korea. Would BTS agree with this interpretation of their music? In terms of the importance of humility, compassion and universality, I believe so. Whether their origins go back to the Shilla Kingdom (57 BC - 935 AD), is debatable.

Grace Kao

Grace Kao is an IBM professor of sociology and professor of ethnicity, race and migration at Yale University. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. -- Ed.