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The Dragon and the Beauty
| Article
# : |
13832 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1988 |
2,198 Words |
| Author
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Ra Jong-Yil
Ra Jong-yil is a former Korean ambassador to the United
Kingdom. |
Koreans traveling in the West often encounter the image of man in his proverbial struggle with the dragon, a battle that usually results in human triumph: the man on horseback trampling the monstrous lizard, piercing him with a spear, transfixing him with a sword, or even fighting him barehanded.
Though the image is expressed in various forms—paintings, sculptures, crests, embroideries, decorations on walls, and the like—the iconography remains surprisingly constant. So much so that even after the most casual observation, a traveler cannot miss the message that Westerners must have fought and killed the beast before founding their community, and that the saga, the ideas, the memories they gained in the struggle were somehow built into their collective life thereafter.
On the other hand, a foreign traveler particularly one from Asia, is often filled with a sense of awe and perhaps of pity at the savage image of the huge beast's being slain. "Poor things, hunted and killed everywhere!"
But mostly the former sentiment prevails, as Asians are accustomed to adoring the dragon's power, admiring his vitality, worshipping his supernatural character, and supplicating him for a piece of his blessing. Indeed, instead of even thinking of killing him, we have on the whole aspired to share certain aspects of his wild glory. For in our tradition, getting a glimpse or even having a dream of the supernatural beast was supposed to bring luck of unthinkable proportion to an ordinary mortal.
To be frank, I was profoundly depressed on occasion and even despaired when
... (1996 of 12820 Characters)
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