By Yang Sung-jin
Staff Reporter
(86)Chusok is one of the biggest holidays in Korea. Next week family members scattered throughout the nation will reunite in hometowns to celebrate this year's Thanksgiving ``harvest.'' Ceremonies will be held for ancestors, a variety of presents exchanged, neighbors invited and the freshest food offered. And all the while, citizens will proudly wear colorful traditional Korean clothes or ``hanbok.''
(87)The beautiful colors, however, tend to disappear as the people change into Western-style clothes once the ceremonies are over. The common excuse is that traditional costumes are merely ceremonial, for special occasions at best.
But behind this reasoning is the long-held notion that the traditional clothes are uncomfortable to wear, mostly worn by ``anachronistic'' oldies or those few ``stoic'' dissidents.
(88)However, riding on the ``fad'' to rediscover our forgotten cultural legacies, especially among the young generation, there looms a campaign to wear ``our'' clothes _ though somewhat modified to suit the trend and lifestyle of modern times _ and shops dealing in ``modernized'' traditional clothes have been sprouting up in Insa-dong and on streets near university campuses in Seoul.
(89)To encourage the general public to wear hanbok, the Culture-Sports Ministry designated every Saturday ``hanbok day'' when ministry officials report to work in traditional clothes. The ministry also provides free admission to palaces and other ministry-sponsored events to those who wear hanbok.
Also at the forefront of the campaign in the private sector are such ``hanbok lovers'' as Youn Sung-soo, director of the Doorae Korean Traditional Lifestyle Center, and Park Oh-yea, director of the Sunmi Korean Clothes Institute, who eagerly defend the beauty and practicality of the traditional clothes and try to correct the deep-rooted general bias against hanbok.
(90)``More than anything else, we should change our deep-seated prejudice toward the traditional Korean clothes. When we talk about hanbok, we often complain they're too uncomfortable to wear. That's absolutely not true. The real traditional hanbok is convenient and practical in every sense, not to mention beautiful,'' said Youn.
In an effort to promote practical Korean clothes, the Doorae Center and designer house Jilkyung-yee, one of the forerunners in introducing Korean clothes, held a joint forum in downtown Seoul last Saturday.
(91)``When I was reading a book the other day, the writer said our Korean clothes are beautiful, which is true, but uncomfortable, which is not true. I was really upset about the word, `uncomfortable.' I don't understand what makes people have such a negative opinion about our own traditions,'' said Park Oh-yea.
Traditional Korean clothes are widely perceived as uncomfortable. But the clothes now regarded as traditional hanbok are patterned after formal costumes from the Choson dynasty, not everyday clothes, Park explained.
(92)``If we trace the history of our clothes back to the ancient kingdoms of Korea we see very practical and easy-to-wear clothes. The charming clothes you see in this room are made according to the practical forms and styles found in ancient Korean clothes,'' said the 70-year-old expert on the history of Korean attire, pointing to clothes on display. ``And these are the real traditional Korean clothes for everyday life.''
(93)When Park suddenly asked the crowd what people usually do as soon as they return home after a day's work, some 20 participants of the forum looked puzzled and remained silent.
``We change our clothes right away, don't we? The Western clothes press your body very tightly. And it's natural to feel uncomfortable about that. That's why the first thing you do when you come home is to put on pajamas or other comfortable clothes,'' said Park with excitement on her face.
(94)Unlike Western clothes with a fixed size, Korean clothes have enough breathing room regardless of whether they are the original ancient forms or a recently rediscovered style, argued Park. Therefore, she said, they can be clothes handed down from father to eldest brother to younger brother without any problem _ the one-size-fits-all concept just as in the modern sense.
(95)Only very recently has what people call ``updated'' or ``reworked'' traditional Korean clothes been on the market, explained Lee Ki-youn, chief of Jilkyung-yee. Nowadays, with the new style of traditional Korean clothes appealing to the public, some cheap imitators have undermined the image of the modernized Korean clothes, said Lee.
``The problem of those Westernized manufacturers is that they don't understand the real mechanism behind our traditional clothes. They just follow the rules that the clothes should fold the body tightly, which means the outline of the body will be shown mainly for sexual attraction, regardless of whether you're in good shape or not,'' said Youn responding to what Lee pointed out.
(96)``Our Korean clothes have lots of breathing room. The overall shape of the clothes is circular and delicate, not sharp-edged as Western ones. All of which suggests that it's not for sexual attraction, it's for directing the attention to the face, where your heart and real character can be expressed,'' said Youn.
Korean clothes are flexible. Whether overweight or skinny, the clothes will adjust to your bodily form naturally so that people don't realize the change, Youn argued.
(97)``Furthermore, in sharp contrast to the enormous amount of the pollutants resulting from chemical dyeing used for Western clothes, modernized Korean designers stick to natural substances and dyeing materials, which are not harmful to the environment,'' said Youn.
(98)While Youn was raising his voice in favor of our forefather's wisdom in making clothes, one participant asked about the fact that even the modernized Korean traditional pants don't have zippers, causing embarrassment in public places.
(99)``The fact of the matter is, pants with zippers cause health problems because they block the flow of air from outside. But Korean pants with only strings allow much ventilation, which is definitely good for your health. What is more important, better health or a small inconvenience?'' asked Youn.
(100)When a couple of participants mentioned the importance of education at school in reshaping the concept about traditional clothes in the discussion, Park Oh-yea replied, ``I really don't understand. Why do you have to wear our beautiful clothes only when you're in prison. When I looked at the two jailed former presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo on TV wearing traditional clothes, I was so sorry. Not about the ex-presidents, of course. But about how neglected our clothes have become to represent our soul and tradition.''