Talk:Han (cultural)

Han: Korean Feeling was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was KEEP

Huh? RickK 23:48, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

• Aparently some religious theory, if not patent nonsense. Not encyclopedic, delete. - Mike Rosoft 14:37, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  Changing my vote to keep following a rewrite. - Mike Rosoft 11:09, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• I think not. Strong Keep. I knew nothing whatever about han, but poking around online I found serious-looking pages that either explain the term in similar ways ([1]) or take it for granted as part of the Korean experience ([2], [3], [4]). We have characteristic national feelings of this kind in the West: Angst, joie de vivre, and something else in medieval Christianity that is somewhat related: acedia (very weak article there, by the way). — Bill 21:44, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• Keep The concept of "han" exists, and the idea of the concept (as opposed to whether "han" exists) is encyclopedic. This article needs editing to remove the soft stuff and unrelated material (like conversion strategies), but the topic is a keeper.Gurdonark 05:39, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If this is a useful subject, I am willing to change my vote if the article is rewritten. At the moment, however, it has no place in an encyclopedia. - Mike Rosoft 10:10, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mike, I've left a note at User talk:172.202.238.95 since they are the original author of the page. I certainly agree it needs surgery to disentangle the Christian POV from the actual subject of han, which of itself has nothing to do with Christianity, and that's what I'm inviting User:172.202.238.95 to do. If they don't, I will — and of course I'd rather not, because, not knowing anything about the subject, in excising the Christian evangelism, I might do harm to the explanation of han. On the other hand, I feel you went a bit too far with the {{TotallyDisputed}}, since, as Gurdonark says, it's not a total dispute: we just need to excise the POV: I substituted a {{cleanup}} tag. Best, Bill 12:15, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well Gurdonark certainly did a beautiful job; I could never have done it. (I hope we haven't bitten User:172.202.238.95 though. — Bill 18:19, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. :-) - Mike Rosoft 11:09, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

Looking through those controversial old versions...

It seems like there might be nuggets of decent information that were lost in the rewrite of the article in October 2004. It hinted towards a relationship between han and Minjung theology that might help to support both of these rather weak articles, one that's briefly mentioned at: Christianity in Korea#Minjung theology and the human rights struggle. AKADriver 20:04, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

There is indeed a relationship between the concept of Han and Minjung theology. Minjung theology essentially became, in the 70s, the Korean Christian "vehicle" for expressing their personal and corporate Han that is related to social justice issues connected to a history of war and oppression at the hands of foreigners. I think that Koreans are so religious because of their need to have help to deal with their Han, or sense of "unfinished business," as they say...

"Ressentiment" & anti-Japanese sentiment

A couple of links in the article seem dubious to me, but I'm no expert. First-- the "anti-Japanese sentiment" category. Every Korean I've asked about han says that anti-Japanese sentiments are different. Han is more an internal thing. There is a relationship between the two, and, as mentioned in the article, foreign invasions helped build up the concept of han. It seems to me that putting han in this category cheapens a concept with deeper roots in Korean thought and literature, making it look like ethnic rivalry/nationalism. (An Anglo-American analogy: I've seen han compared to "the blues" in African-American culture. Would it be right to categorize "the blues" as anti-white sentiment among African-Americans? It seems wrong to me. And yet I think the relationship between European- and African-Americans contributed much more to "the blues" than did the Japanese to han.) Second: See also: "Ressentiment" was recently added. Again, I'm not Korean, and I'm no authority, but it seems to me that han and "ressentiment" have some similarities, but that they're are different enough, and, more importantly, concepts in different societies, that "See also"ing within this article is not quite right. I would be in favor of removing both from the article. I have no strong feelings on either one-- Just putting out the questions to see what others think. Dekkappai (talk) 19:17, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Right. [5][6][7][8] Cherry Blossom OK (talk) 03:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Evidence?

I think there are a lot of insufficient explanations of the concept of Han. It's mostly explained as a deep, ingrained 'feeling.' If the explanations doesn't suffice, maybe there should be hard evidence that can possibly support the claim: i.e. statistical data that shows Koreans are more inclined to anger and other emotional issues, more protests, history of han and when the idea of it permeated in Korean society. The current info under 'History' seems like guess work of the origins and conjecture.