Translational Difficulties

There are a lot of Korean words, as you might guess, that you can't translate into English and vice versa. Someday I'll write about those words. But today I'll just introduce one: han.

I've been meaning to write about this one for a while, ever since I read the Television Without Pity recap of a West Wing episode that aired in October. The episode was about a North Korean pianist who gives a concert in Washington, DC, and asks President Martin Sheen for asylum. Martin Sheen doesn't exactly say yes and he doesn't exactly say no -- he just says that because there are some delicate secret negotiations going on with the North Korean government, he can't help directly, and that the pianist needs to decide for himself what to do.

Putting aside the extreme unlikelihood of a North Korean pianist getting that close to the Prez, I'll harp on the definition of a word the pianist uses to describe his state of mind to Martin Sheen. Verily, it was han. He doesn't explain it to the Prez, he just asks Martin if he knows the word, and then plays a very sad song on the piano. Later, the Prez says this to a staffer:

"There's a Korean word, han. I looked it up. There is no literal English translation; it's a state of mind -- of soul, really. A sadness. A sadness so deep no tears will come. And yet still, there's hope."

Very nice, very topical, very culturally aware. And wrong.

Han is indeed a deep, deep sadness. The word was originally used to signify the kind of sadness that would cause a dead person to linger in "this" world, becoming a guishin, or ghost, rather than departing for "that" world. There's a story about a Goguryo era general who died in battle, but whose coffin could not be lifted by his soldiers until his wife came to say that he should come back in peace to his homeland. The weight of han was lifted after his wife spoke, and the soldiers were able to then carry his coffin back.

Han is an interesting concept, and I'm delighted to see a Korean word introduced on network TV in the States. But. Han does not include any hint of hope. None. It's sadness, through and through. Deep, terrible, unhealing sadness.

Now, what the writers may have meant, if I want to give them credit, is that the concept of han in Korean culture is often paired with the effort to overcome the sadness. Korean songs or plays or whatnot may feature someone suffering from han and their struggle to resolve it. But han in of itself doesn't come close to including any kind of ultimate, faint hope.
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Random factoid: the Japanese do not have Christmas off. They do, however, have a holiday celebrating the sea.