With all the grandeur and splendor of crude natural forces, the dragon emerged from the sea and pounced upon the beauty.

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.