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Commoners and military in 19th and early 20th century Korean society
Topic Started: May 1 2007, 03:41:24 AM (157 Views)
black man
The Right Hand
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A Yonhap article or its translated version featured in one issue of the Korean newsreview from 1996 provides interesting insights into the possible historical context of the practice of taekkyon/taek-kyeon/taekkyun. The author, whose name is not mentioned in the newsreview, indicates that local or regional taekkyon competitions might have attracted young rural men who wanted to gain prestige by beating men from other villages in an athletic competition. But obviously, taekkyon competitions were probably not run-of-the-mill athletic competitions. Judging from the features of taekkyon demonstrations today, taekkyon competitions were most likely in favour of men who had trained their skills at knocking out their opponents using their feet but not their hands. So premodern taekkyon athletes might have had the following outstanding features:

- kind of general physical fitness like other athletes
- (special athletic) skills at physically harming others by using kicks
- (special athletic) skills at defending themselves by using their legs only
- courage in the light of the real danger of getting injured by kicks during a taekkyon competition

Accordingly, representatives of Korean military AND para-military organisations might have fostered regional and local taekkyon competitions in order to recruit potential combatants. This possibility is particularly noteworthy in the context of the Japanese occupation of Korea in the first half of the 20th century, which is the author of the Yonhap article mentions as one reason for the diappearance of taekkyon from Korean public. Apparently, the Japanese perceived taekkyon as something distinctively ethnic Korean, which could backed the identities of Koreans who resisted occupation and indoctrination. So the Japanese might have introduced karate 空手 and juudou 柔道 in order to canalise the popularity indigenous martial games had gained among Koreans. And this seems to have worked to the extent that taekwondo and other martial practices inspired by karate and juudou are meanwhile more popular than taekkyon in Korea.

Source:
unidentified Yonhap author in the Korean newsreview from February 24th 1996: "Taekkyon gains popularity among young generation"




Now, let's consider this in a more general context. One blogger on topics related to Asian martial arts, Antonio Graceffo, mentions muay boran in one online contribution of Taekkyon. Muay boran being a label for premodern precursors of Muay Thai, it refers to practices which probably fostered a fluid transition from village fighters to soldiers or warriors associated with Thai mueangs. So the idea of military organisations having fostered regional and, more indirectly perhaps local, martial competitions might not only be appropriate concerning premodern Korea but also concerning premodern mueangs. Muay thai today seems to be by far more serious than taekkyon, though. It's a sportive martial game perceived as entertaining by spectators but more like a health hazard for peasants who try to earn their money by practicing it.

That said, China being geographically in between Korea and the mueang civilisations, how about Chinese perspectives on the aspect of the history of Asian martial games? Could there have been martial competitions among Chinese peasants who were possibly interested in joining the military? 1993 HK movie "太極張三豐" seems to indicate the possibility of something like that although this movie puts by far more emphasis on social hierarchies within premodern military than on the lives of commoners. Then again, Chinese martial games tend to put less emphasis on kicking techniques. Therefore, the characters of Chinese martial competitions might have been less like game-like than that of taekkyon competions. And taekkyon might turn out to have been something distinctively Korean.

And how about Burmese perspectives on this topic? Do you know whether men from Burmese military ever fostered martial competitions which involved Bamar, Mon, Chin, Naga, Karen and Kachin peasants?

In any case, propery contextualising traditional martial games in military history might help explaining specific types of social interactions between low-ranking peasants and people whose ancestors might already have been high-ranking military leaders. And this might be especially interesting as for Koreans since Korea still happens to be a small country in between three to four bigger nations (China, Russia, Japan and USA).



key words: Korean sociography, military history
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