What "Kyungha" and "Inseon" mean (We Do Not Part main characters): the names as two-character poems, book summaries (a theory)

[Peter]

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(UPDATE, May 18, 2025: See also a comment below for my theory on the name "Inseon")

In We Do Not Part, the name the main character -- Kyungha -- I believe is really a two-character poem which tells the entire story, which reveals or reinforces the central point of the book.

Han Kang is not the type to pick a name at random with no meaning at all. Koreans, I believe, will pick up on the subconscious-metaphorical meaning. Non-Koreans will have a harder time which is why I am writing this out after theorizing it.

Han Kang, being engaged in a major project here, is unlikely to have chosen the name at random. Making a character's name an ultra-abbreviated summary of the entire project would also seem like something she'd do. (Now that is an extreme in minimalism.)

The two-character name, in the traditional of spare East-Asian poetry, says a lot more than its length might suggest.

Hear me out. The meaning I want to argue for is this:

"Down below the capital."

The character starts in Seoul. She goes on a journey far to the south, far "below" Seoul. This works on many levels: Jeju Island is far "below" Seoul on the map, but there are also many psychological or political-historical levels, including the idea of going to "hell" or the "underworld."

I believe we see several indications of this meaning in textual clues. Is it a coincidence that the character is never assigned a "family name"? She remains only "Kyungha" (경하). There is also generally no use of Hanja (Chinese characters) in contemporary written Korean. A few decades ago, we might have seen the character's name in Hanja and seen whether the "Ha" was the character denoting "water" or "below" (and the latter's many associated meanings).

Looking at the two characters of the name, in turn, will help get my point across:

- Kyung (경): A time-worn way in Korean to refer to the national capital and its immediate vicinity is: "Kyong-gi" or "Kyung-gi" (경기). In our time, the state surrounding Seoul uses this name.

(In the unfortunate post-2000 ROK-government romanization system, it's rendered as "Gyeonggi" [경기도]). We also see the name in a train line known as the Kyong-ui Line (경의선): opened in 1905, it linked Seoul or the capital region [경기] with with the far-northern city of Uiju [의주] on the border with Manchuria. You can ride this very-same refurbished Kyong-ui line today, from Seoul Station to a point close to the DMZ at Munsan and a tourist-extension to Imjingak Station which is right up against the DMZ, a fast 78-minute trip if you time it right -- for the trivial one-way price of $1.50 to $2.00 USD, depending on the exchange-rate at the time.)

- Ha (하): This character, when attached to other characters, usually means below/under/down(ward)/descend. A few typical uses are: underground metro (subway): "Ji-HA-chol" (지하철); getting off the bus: "HA-cha" (하차); subzero temperatures: "Yong-HA" (영하).

(side-note: The translators/editors choosting to write the character's name -- "경하" in Hangul -- as "Kyungha" in English, is one of many cases in which the old romanization system is tacitly recognized as better. It works a lot better for non-Koreans' use. People want to be "Mr Kim" and few if any want to be "Mr Gim." The awkward and unpleasant "Gyeongha" ends up difficult to pronounce, is distracting, and even sounds ridiculous to try in English to those unaccustomed to what that mish-mash of letters is supposed to sound like).

The name Kyungha in Hangul (경하) will tend to be unconsciously understood by Korean readers, but cannot be so-understood by readers with low-level- or no-Korean.

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The following is adapted from a private text-conversation with another member of this group, in which I go into more depth on the theory, on my "reading" of the name:

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(quote, message sent to me)

I read this on Reddit: Did it occur to you?

"A trivia for non-Korean speaker.

Kyung-ha is the main character of We Do Not Part.

'Kyung' means capital city. And 'Ha' means water.

The name of the river that flows in Seoul is the Han River. And 'Kang' means river.

Therefore, 'Kyung-ha' can be interpreted to as Han Kang herself."

(end quote)
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____________

(my response)

It's true that "Ha" can mean "water" in names (the Hanja character 河), that's not the normally understood meaning of "Ha" in common phrases, especially as a suffix. A different 'reading' of the name occurs to me.

In names, "Ha" can be any of several characters of the Hanja, which in Hangul form are all conflated to the "하":

- 河: associated with water;

- 荷: associated with the idea of carrying burdens;

- 霞: haze, mist, or a gentle cloud; by extension,. something light and beautiful; or the state of dimness ("to become blurry or hazy; to grow dim; to be overshadowed");

- 夏 and 昰: summer.

- 下: associated with the concept(s) "down"/"below."This is the far-most-common appearance of "Ha" in everyday language, especially when used as a suffix. (Basement is "Ji-HA," literally "earth/ground-BELOW"; Subway is "Ji-HA-chol" or earth-below-railroad.)

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The Reddit commenter proposes We Do Not Part's "Kyungha" is "京河" (capital + water). That is possible but it seems too shallow a meaning to satisfy me.

Han Kang gives us no Hanja letters, so we are left uncertain (as with very much else here) what's really going on. I've given the six Hanja characters I believe most common in given-names, and arguments might be made for many of them. I don't like the "code for her own name" theory based on the "河" theory (Ha as water). Han Kang must have been thinking of something far beyond making "Kyungha" simply an alternate form of her own name.

I want to argue for the reading of the name as the most-common use of "Ha" in Korean in word particles: the concept "Below."

The name "Kyungha" could mean "Below the Capital."

Jeju Island is about as far from the capital as can be. But the real point is not (only) to designate physical distance. It also designates psychological and political distance, and has connotations, dehumanization of the victims, and horrors seen "down below."

__________

In the Korean language, people traditionally use this phrase to refer to travel to Seoul (as Koreans are so fond of using indirect expressions):

"I'm going 'up' to Seoul" (상경하다).

When leaving Seoul or the immediate capital region, the saying is:

"Going back 'down' to one's hometown" (하향하다).

The "Ha" in that second phrase -- "Going 'down' to one's hometown" -- refers to the direction 'down' (i.e., going down to get home). And note that it is "down" and not "back"! The phrase obviously has a metaphorical meaning, not a strictly directional connotation.

(These phrases are still in use today, even if now considered dated. You can still see the relevant characters to refer to trains: trains heading towards Seoul and trains away from Seoul are distinguished by those characters. Any Korean native-speaker would recognize this, and the phrases "Going up / going down" to/from Seoul)

The symbolism of these (phrases is not lost on anyone. Seoul's ultra-privileged position to which one goes "up"), against the under-privileged position of rural places or provincial cities (to which one goes "down"). The embedded idea: To leave Seoul is to go to some lesser or relatively unimportant place. (Compare our phrase "sold down the river" for a similar directional metaphor.)

In We Do Not Part, the Kyungha character's entire existence -- to the extent there is a sustained story -- is that she leaves Seoul and goes "down" to this far-distant, end-of-the-Earth-type, frightening place: Jeju Island.

Knowing what the character does, the name "Kyungha," in this reading, is a subtle reinforcement that Jeju is of low status. By extension and more importantly, it's that the victims back in the late 1940s did not matter. The victims (in this narrative, in Han Kang's project) were discarded cruelly, their deaths covered up. That is the message of the entire book (it got a bit directly preachy and political towards the end).

Co-existing meanings of "going down" (in the "下" reading, 'Ha' as "down/below") that I'd see in the name "Kyungha" are:

- Literally the movement southward (to Jeju);

- Figuratively "going out" of normal life (I think the narrator also mentioned that she'd rented an apartment just south of the Seoul city line, in chapter 1, during her depression; possibly foreshadowing her coming psycho-spiritual quest "down there";

- Going "down" symbolically to an unimportant place (to a place so unimportant that no one cared about the victims. The victims that the book almost-contextlessly presents as having been killed arbitrarily and cruelly, for no reason, out of nowhere, in a crazy manifestation of evil; with the villains probably laughing over the corpses and covering up the killings);

- Literarily, or psycho-spiritually, "going down" to Hell or some underworld (the nightmares, visions, the dreamlike parts of the bok; what I've proposed to be the shamanic-channeling at the heart of this story).

Kyungha, the character (who is obviously also Han Kang herself), leaves Seoul -- physically, psychologically, and politically -- for a journey down below, far below, to the extremity of the Republic of Korea on Jeju Island; and indeed beyond the physical realm: a journey down into Hell, where she uncovers the evil deeds of those on the political Right in the 1940s.

As Han Kang never reveals which "Ha" it is, there is also space for some of the others even while giving primacy to the Ha-as-Below reading. (Recall: "荷," associated with the idea of carrying burdens, the historical burden of the alleged massacre and cover-up by Rightists, Han Kang's project here; "霞," the one that can mean "to become blurry or hazy; to grow dim; to be overshadowed" also speaks for itself).

To return to the theory proposed by someone on Reddit that "Kyungha" is a code for "Han Kang." There is no need to find hidden clues that Kyungha is Han Kang herself. It could be hardly more obvious that it's her! In the narrative of We Do Not Part, the narrator specifies that she'd written the Human Acts boook! Although We Do Not Part is, naturally, a novel and not a memoir, that Kyungha is largely a literary version of Han Kang herself she makes no attempt to conceal. I like my own theory that it's a two-character poem that also summarizes the entire book.


(UPDATE, May 18, 2025: See also a comment below for my theory on the name "Inseon")
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[Paul]

That’s fascinating. I hadn’t given it any thought, but that makes a lot of sense.

[Peter]

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Related: the We Do Not Part character Inseon (인선)'s name struck me all along as likely symbolic (before I thought about "Kyungha"), given the usual associations of the character "선."

The characters behind the name Inseon/Insŏn:

-- 人 (in): Person

- 善 (sŏn): Referring to kindness or good-naturedness; virtue.

-- 鮮 (sŏn): Goodness, freshness, newness, beauty.

-- 宣 (sŏn): have mercy; treat(ing) others with kindness

Without excluding those more-usual meanings or associations of the character "sŏn," there is a more intriguing Hanja character-possibility.

Given the religious overtones of the book (my theory is the entire We Do Not Part project is a conscious exercise in shamanic-channeling), I'd propose:

-- 僊 (sŏn). This character 僊 connotes the doctrine of the Taoist Immortals. It can also signify "nimble movement."

One way to refer to a Taoist Immortal in Korean is: "선인" (僊人; Sŏn-in/Seon-in). Notice that that's a reversal of Kyungha's friend's name (In-sŏn/In-seon).

"Traditionally, [sŏn] refers to entities who have attained immortality and supernatural or magical abilities later in life, with a connection to the heavenly realms inaccessible to mortals." (Wiki)

Another term is: 神仙, shin-sŏn, "Taoist hermit with miraculous powers." The Taoist hermits and immortals are long associated with moutnain-dwelling, and Inseon lived on a mountain as well.

Cf.: "We do not part." We are immortal? The sacred victims are immortal?