Opinion: The History Behind `Shaping the Future With Clay`

The World Pottery Expo, entitled `Shaping the Future with Clay` is taking place in Kyongki Ichon, Yoju, Kwangju from August 10 to October 28. The event is expected to draw over 500 pottery lovers from Korea and abroad, promoting Korea as a country renowned for its pottery arts.

Many Japanese are already showing great interest in the event, foreshadowing an overwhelming number of Japanese participants in the expo. Although it is not clear how the expo will proceed, the Japanese will certainly have the opportunity to see with their own eyes the roots of their pottery arts.

When we talk about Japanese pottery, we usually refer to three styles ~ Sassuma, Karass, and Arita pottery. Theses three styles are distinct and belong to three different schools of pottery. Yet, they share in common the fact that all three were established by Korean potters.

After 400 years, even the Japanese cannot deny the historical fact that Korean potters founded these schools. They not only admit it but actually publicize founding potters such as Sassuma’s Shim Soo Kwan and Arita’s Lee Samg Pyong.

If one travels to Arita, which the Japanese call the birthplace of pottery arts, one can see how they have mythologized Lee Sam Pyong. From Lee’s massive tombstone, which stands on a mountainside carved out for this particular purpose, to Izmiyama Mountain where he is said to have discovered the white porcelain, all the sites where he stood or laid down have been consecrated.

There are no signs that suggest that the Japanese are trying to hide Lee’s Korean identity. On the contrary, it seems like a nameless potter in Korea may have achieved his fame because the Japanese dragged him away.

Below the consecrated grounds, in a city of 60, 000 people, Arita boasts 700 pottery shops. Shops that have been in the business for 15 to 16 generations are common. The famous Hwang Ran Sa pottery company, whose pots our sisters took with them for their marriage when we were kids, is one of these businesses. Arita has become a world center for pottery because of Lee Sam Pyong and Korean potters like him.

The Go Ran Sha pottery from Arita has taken Lee Sam Pyong’s name and sold its pots not only to our sisters, but also to royal palaces in Europe, surpassing even the Chinese Jing T’uh Jun pottery. All this while the birthplace of masters such as Shim Soo Kwan and Lee Sam Pyong holds its hands up in loss. Just like the kimchi exports from Japan whose labels spell `kimuchi` the Japanese saw early on the superior quality and aesthetic value of Korean pottery and made its works into world class products, now called Sassuma yaki or Arita yaki.

Kimuchi or Arita yaki, we can’t start a fight over the fact that the Japanese turned originally Korean products into world famous products as long as the Japanese do not deny the fact that they are Korean.

At the expo, the Japanese will see the past and future of Japanese pottery and accept the influence of Korean pottery on Japanese pottery. One hopes that the general Japanese perspective on the history of both nations will follow such a balanced and fact-based course.

Kim Byung Jong (Professor, Seoul University)