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“Han” (한) is one of those Korean concepts that’s surprisingly difficult to translate into English. In many cultures, stories about sorrow, loss, and suffering can be grouped into genres like tragedy. Han is a little different. It isn’t really a genre of its own, and Korean literature or art isn’t normally categorized as “Han.” Instead, it’s more like an emotional thread that can run through very different kinds of literature, music, film, and art. It can involve grief, regret, resentment, loss, or a sense of injustice — especially feelings that don’t simply disappear with time, but linger and become something you carry with you. I’ve been working on a project that explores places in Seoul through this idea of Han. Rather than treating Han as something that only exists in literature or art, I’m visiting places connected to difficult moments in history and looking at what happened there, what traces are still left, and how those memories became part of the city. So it’s less about making a heavy academic explanation of Han, and more about using the concept as a way to travel through Seoul and understand the different layers of time and memory attached to certain places. I’m curious whether the idea of Han itself is interesting from a non-Korean perspective, and whether exploring a city through a concept like this sounds interesting. Also, this one is taking quite a bit longer to put together than I expected lol. submitted by /u/malangmoo |
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