to rural villages. The village dogs were not fooled by mourning garb. The butter-cheese smell of a foreign sangnom was unmistakable; the dogs duly went berserk. Not to worry. Clergy, whatever their status, have always managed to move in the higher echelons of society.
Yangban sometimes had surprising ideas about what constituted decorum. When Ch’ae Chaegong, prime minister to Chŏngjo, was holding a meeting with his ministers in the sarang-reception of his house, he was mortified to hear what sounded like someone urinating loudly in the brass chamber pot. Upon investigation he discovered his mother sitting on the pot in the next room, urinating to her heart’s content. ‘You mustn’t do that, mother,’ the prime minister said, ‘when I’m holding a meeting with my ministers.’ To which the redoubtable lady was said to reply, ‘My undercarriage produced a prime minister in its time. Is something as inconsequential as a pee now to be denied?’
The bottom line is that anyone with plenty of money is yangban nowadays. And the foreigner’s sangnom status is really marrowbone talk, only of consequence when he is unknown or when there’s trouble in the air. On the surface, where so much of Korea’s interrelating takes place, the foreigner will usually be treated as yangban unless he is foolish enough to antagonize everyone. Yangban status for a foreigner is a sort of pseudo designation that breaks down under stress. And when it breaks down, look out!
6
THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE: WHERE TO BEGIN
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