노을 위의 은빛 창문에서 구만리 희미한 세상을 내려다보고,
바닷가 문에서 삼천 년 상전벽해를 웃으며 보고 싶다.
손으로 하늘의 해와 별을 돌리고 몸소 구천의 바람과 이슬 속을 노닐고 싶다.

From a silver window overlooking the sunset, I look ten thousand miles to the dim world below.
On the seaside door, I want to contemplate the three-thousand-year-old sea change with a smile.
After turning the sun and stars in the sky with my hands, I want to play in the wind and dew of the afterlife.

Is ‘turning the sun and stars in the sky with my hands’ easier than changing the male-dominated society of Joseon? These words of a child genius poet living in the Middle Joseon Dynasty reveal an intuition about her future as a female poet who would not be able to fulfil her dreams. Her name was Heo Cho-Hee, pen name Heo Nanseolheon (1563-1589), and she was just eight years in 1570, when she wrote a famous Sangnyangmun, from which these words come. It is a commemoration verse for Baegongnu of Gwanghanjeon, and remains her only prose.

Sangnyangmun 

A Sangnyangmun 상량문 is a detailed description of a new or restored house in Korea. It describes the reason for the new construction and how it was carried out. Whether the house was completely built or restored, it includes details of the date, time and carpenter’s name. The Sangnyangmun was hung in a place where it could be seen from the Maru 마루, that is the open living space where the family gathered. The nobility would ask a famous writer of the time to write this Sangnyangmun for their house and a grand ceremony called Sangyangsik would be held on the day of its installation. It was very important for the pride of the family to know who wrote their Sangyangmun and how it was written.

As Fiction

The title of this text tells us that many gods came together to celebrate the completion of a new palace called Baegongnu 백옥루 in the heavenly kingdom called Gwanghanjeon 광한전. The eight-year-old writer, Heo Cho-Hee, creates an fictional story, explaining that the reason for writing the Gwanghanjeon Baegongnu Sangnyangmun 광한전백옥루상량문 is that there was no proper writer for a Sangnyangmun 상량문 to celebrate the completing of a beautiful palace in Heavenly Kindom, so she was invited to write it. It is impressive that she imagined that such a celebration would take place in heaven, but her confidence and ambition to be invited to write something that even the gods would not dare to write is extraordinary. Even, the understanding of the nature of a Sangnyangmun, the description of the east, west, north, south and the six rays of the Porang 포랑, and the detailed description of the lives of the gods are beyond the observation and imagination of children.

Heo Cho-Hee

What does it mean for a woman to imagine herself invited into utopia and to imagine her writing being used as an important description of theconstruction of a heavenly palace, shaking off the gender distinctions and constraints of the Joseon Dynasty? This was a time when women were subject to many social restrictions due to the male-dominated patriarchy, so what were the circumstances that allowed Heo Cho-Hee, later Heo Nanseolhon, to nevertheless have the opportunity to develop her talent as a woman writer?

Shakespeare’s Sister in the Joseon Dynasty

The open-mindedness of Cho-Hee’s father, Heo Yup, was influenced by his teacher, Seo Gyeongdeok. Seo was an enlightened intellectual ahead of his time, steeped in Taoist ideas about the relationship between human and nature and the equality of men and women. As a student of Seo’s, Heo Yup nurtured his daughter’s talents by giving her the same educational opportunities as his other sons. Even he gave her own beautiful name, Cho-Hee, although it was difficult for a women to have their own name in the Joseon Dynasty.

Heo Bong, her eldest brother, who passed the state exams at a young age and rose to a high government position, sent his younger siblings, Heo Cho-Hee and Heo Gyun, to study literature with the poet Son-Gok Idal. Son-Gok Idal was a very talented poet, but he was prevented from entering the government because his mother was not noble. This story was an important inspiration to Heo Gyun when he wrote Tale of Hong Gildong, one of the first novels written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet. Not only the way of writing, but also his teacher’s inability to recognise his talent due to the caste system, must have given him a critical awareness of the absurdity of the world.

Heo Gyun, her younger brother, asked a famous calligrapher Han Seok-bong to write down Gwanghanjeon Baegongnu Sangnyangmun 광한전백옥루상량문 and have it published in woodblocks for the first time in the year of Heo Cho-Hee’s death, 1605. She had been unable to cope with life as a woman after marriage. In 1606 this first edition was taken over by Zhu Zhifan from the Ming dynasty. In April 1608, Nanseolheon Jip 난설헌집 was published and widely read in China and became very popular in Japan, gaining her a reputation as the leading female poet of her era.

A copy made by taking a rubbing of the original woodblock inscription exists in Korea, from which other versions have been derived.

어영차 동쪽으로 대들보 올리세. 새벽에 봉황타고 요궁에 들어가 날이 밝자 해가 부상 밑에서 솟아올라 일만 가닥 붉은 노을 바다에 비쳐 붉도다.

어영차, 남쪽으로 대들보 올리세. 옥룡이 하염없이 구슬못 못 마신다. 은평상에서 잠자다가 꽃그늘 짙은 한낮에 일어나, 웃으며 요희를 불러 푸른 적삼 벗기네.

어영차, 서쪽으로 대들보 올리세. 푸른 꽃 시들어 떨어지고 오색 난새 우짖는데, 비단 천에 아름다운 글씨로 서왕모 맞으니, 날 저문 뒤에 학 타고 돌아가길 재촉한다.

어영차, 북쪽으로 대들보 올리세. 북해 아득하고 아득한 북극성에 젖어 드는데, 봉새 날개 하늘 치지 그 바람 힘으로 물이 높이 치솟아 구만리 하늘에 구름 드리워 비의 기운이 어둑하다.

어영차, 위쪽으로 대들보 올리세.

Eoyeongcha, raise the girder to the east. At dawn we flew upon phoenixes into the palace, and as the day began the sun rose from beneath the Eternal, and ten thousand strings of red sunset shone upon the sea.

Eoyeongcha, raise the girder to the south. The jade dragon cannot drink from the pond where the gods live. After sleeping on the silver plain, he rises at noon in the shade of the flowers, laughing, calls the nymphs and strips them of their blue jeoksam.

Eoyeongcha, raise the girder to the west. The blue flowers wither and fall, the five-coloured oriole cries, we greet the Queen Mother of the West with beautiful writing on silk, and ask her to ride back in her crane after sunset.

Eoyeongcha, raise the girder to the north. The North Sea, far and far away, is drenched in the North Star, the phoenix bird’s wings spread to the heavens, and its winds lift the waters high, and the clouds over the ten thousand miles of sky are dark with the clouds of rain.

Eoyeongcha, raise the girder upwards.

Gwanghanjeon Baegongnu Sangnyangmun 광한전백옥루상량문 contains the idea of a realistic supernatural drama in that it depicts the transformation of a woman into the protagonist of an ideal world by setting a fictional line that goes beyond the limits of reality, which she could not achieve as a woman. Cho-Hee, who was forced to give up her dreams when she married at the age of 15, probably couldn’t have been more eager to go her imaginary utopia, the Baegongnu in Gwanghanjeon, where the Sangnyangmun she wrote about hangs.

Post Script

Our friends and sisters in architecture –  WoWa, Women Writing Architecture 1700-1900 at ETH Zurich – put out an open call for stories from all over the world. I contacted the team, but unfortunately I could not bring this amazing story to the people because Heo Cho-Hee was 100 years earlier than the research period of WoWa, although it is directly related to construction, utopia, writing, feminism and women as architects.

What Can We Learn from the Story of Heo Cho-Hee?

This is the story of a woman who was able to make a name for herself in the world with the support of her insightful father and brother, a story still relevant, both today and in Europe, a different geographical context. In Switzerland, the right to vote for women was won through the votes of men. This country, whose votes were cast by fathers and brothers close to the women, is somewhat different from radical feminism, which excludes men. If we respect the different histories and backgrounds of individuals, we can see the world in a different way, beyond the broad categories of men and women. And if we understand the importance and respect the value of different human figures challenging diverse urgent issues in the world, we can evolve into a complex and interwoven cooperation.

Women who make their own way as pioneers may not be recognised for their importance, and it may take a long time for even a small number of them to be recognised. An example is Heo Cho-Hee or Heo Nanseolheon, a woman who wrote about architecture 100 years before women in Europe, who has, so far, not appeared in histories outside Korea.