The Architecture of Ideology: Neo-Confucian Imprinting on Cheju Island, Korea (review)

138BOOK REVIEWS The term is a euphemism for denoting "Visit to the Heavenly Empire" (choch 'önk). Similar records during the Ch'ing period are known as yönhaengnok,1 simply identifying them as records of travel to Yenching, China. Park Seong-Rae Hankuk University of Foreign Studies GLOSSARY a -»ent-mmm) c -mmmmrn[ -nsig d-$figtt(t£)i-m%m. e-ír±H*OÍ#)k-||^ f-S(ïf)!-1ÍTÍ TheArchitecture ofIdeology: Neo-Confucian Imprinting on Cheju Island, Korea, by David J. Nemeth. University of California Publications in Geography, Volume 26. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987. xi, 323 pp. David J. Nemeth uses Korea's Cheju Island to examine the importance of geomancy in both traditional and modern life, the evidence of holistic "environmental " planning in traditional society, and the premise that the combination of ideology and practical agrarian planning could and did create a favorable quality of life for Cheju residents. More specifically, Nemeth asserts that Neo-Confucianism made its imprint on Cheju culture by means of geomancy and the creation of architectural conventions , village planning, and agricultural practices. In doing so, the author directly and indirectly confronts one of the most troublesome and challenging questions of East Asian society: to what extent did the culture and ideology of the aristocracy have an impact on the daily lives of villages far removed from the centers of government and culture? Even more fundamental is the lingering question of just what in Cheju could be attributed to Chinese influence and what could be considered indigenous to Korea? The pursuit of these issues is clearly done by a geographer in a work written for geographers. The more casual reader must become familiar with the jargon of the discipline, which is quite eclectic, and filled with "heuristic case studies" and "morphological methods." There is a little bit of Chinese philosophy, but not enough to satisfy the Sinophile. There is a little bit of urban planning, of animal husbandry, of history, of folk culture, of political science, and even astrology. The common denominator appears to be the physical appearance and location of Cheju villages, homes, streets, walls, graves, fields, and artifacts. BOOK REVIEWS139 Perhaps the essence of Nemeth's study is embodied in his discussion of a "sincere" landscape and a "virtuous" people (p. 171): The "sincere" peasant landscape consisted of a hierarchy of distinct humancentered environments: e.g., tomb, farmstead, village, town, city and province. Each of these was considered to be an organic whole consisting of a discrete human construction and the organized space incorporated into its surrounding architecture. The individual responsible for successfuly organizing the space around him, whether a village peasant, a provincial official, or the king of the realm, obeyed the same conventional rules of propriety (yeui) in order to achieve perfect harmony within his own particular microcosm, and thereby claim his personal "virtue." ... As a result of this interdependence at many levels within their physical and social surroundings, all the members of Neo-Confucian society reaped a measure of social security and mental serenity through attaining their virtue, which was symptomatic of sincerity in the landscape; and this general sense of well-being contributed to the good-quality living environment envisioned by the Neo-Confucian ethico-political state. From an historical point of view, this study is not about Neo-Confucianism, either as an ideology of the Yi State or as a philosophy. In fact, the continued use of the term is somewhat inappropriate since the author is far more concerned with only one feature of Yi Dynasty traditions: the use of geomancy. Geomancy is the attempt to associate a cosmologica! view of the world with the "wind and water" and other features of the land. Or, using the author's preferred definition: "The art of adapting the residences of the living and the dead so as to co-operate and harmonize with the local currents of the cosmic breath" (p. 36). Students of Neo-Confucianism in Korea will note that many Yi scholars were indeed hostile to this vestige of Buddhist and Taoist and Shamanist thought. Like many Korean attempts to adapt new ideas to indigenous culture, the use of geomancy could be...