Characteristics of Cholla-do Culture and Psychoanalytic Understanding

Lee, Moo Suk

Abstract

The author studied the characteristics of Namdo culture and discussed Namdo people's personality that undercurrents the Namdo culture from the psychoanalytical point of view. Namdo people like to listen to music (Pansori) and enjoy poetry and paintings. Namdo people enjoy the taste of their lives and have artistic creativity. Namdo people are wise and honest. They are generous. But when they encounter in humane violence, they fight against it at the risk of their lives. Such characteristics have been revealed in the history of civilian armies and Donghak Minjung Uprising, and the May 18 Kwangju Democratization Movement in the contemporary history. Cholla-do people are humane. Even among shamans, there were no self-imposed-god shamans but there were only inherited or trained shamans who sustained their human position to the end. Such personality of Cholla-do people are related with the geographic characteristics of Cholla-do. Located in the southern end of the Korean peninsular, Cholla-do is right next to the vast sea and it has farming land and rivers which produce relatively abundant food. It has abundant marine resources and the climate is moderate, too. We can assume that such an abundance must have given unique personality to Cholla-do people. In addition, there lived in Cholla-do region, even from the prehistoric era, inhabitants who has higher cultural standards than those of other regions. The evidence of this is the biggest distribution of dolmen tombs and jar-coffins in Cholla-do region. Han(bitterness) underlies the personality of Cholla-do people. Cholla-do music and art carry pathos in them. This pathos is not the feeling of grudge waiting for revenge, but it is rather the sublimated pathos which escalates frustration and bitterness to art forms. The author refutes based on literature the argument that revenge and rage are Cholla-do people's personality and that Cholla-do culture is the revenge culture.