October 14-24, 2007
The 12th annual Fall Fellowship in Korean Studies visted Korea from October 14-24, 2007 with ten participants, including five textbook editors, one freelance textbook writer and four professors of literature, history and anthropology. Accompanied by Yong Jin Choi, senior director of Korean studies at The Korea Society, and Mark Peterson, professor of Korean studies at Brigham Young University, the fall fellows began their studies on the campus of the Academy of Korean Studies in Seoul, which also provided support for the fellowship.
There, they participated in introductory briefings on Korean architecture and economics and local field trips to the Samsung History Hall and Leeum Museum. Leaving Seoul, the group embarked on a five-day excursion to major cultural and historical sites throughout the rest of the country. The first stop was Ch'ongju and its Early Printing Museum. For the next two days, the participants were exposed to the spiritual pulse of Korean society through an overnight stay at the Unmunsa Buddhist convent outside Taegu, where they ate and prayed with the nuns, before continuing on to Haeinsa Buddhist monastery, where they viewed the ancient wooden blocks used to print the Tripitaka Koreana, one of the oldest Buddhist texts in the world. A visit to Yangdong Folk Village, where residents live in the rural, agrarian manner of their ancestors, helped the participants understand the deep influence of Confucian values on Korean society, past and present. A tour of Hyundai's high-tech shipyard showed the participants a view of Korea's modern history and a glimpse of its future. Before returning to the U.S. through Seoul, the tour visited the Kyongju International Exposition.