Hello everyone. In the first video in this lesson, I introduce a unique Korean concept, Maum, in English, mind-heart, which is the combined faculties of emotion and reason. Today, I'm going to talk about this intriguing concept of Korean philosophy with my students who study at Sunkyunkwan University. I'd like to thank you all for accepting my invitation, I'd like to start now. Can you please, very shortly, briefly introduce yourself, maybe Niki first. Hello everyone, my name is Niki, I'm from Hungary, I'm doing my PhD at Sunkyunkwan University for Confucian Studies. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Hey, my name is Haim, I'm from Israel. I'm doing my Masters in Media and Mass Communication here in SKKU. Thank you. Yeah. I'm Will, I'm from the United States and I'm doing a Masters in Korean philosophy. Thank you for coming and I'd like to introduce to you regarding Maum, so I would like to share one slide, but very simple slide. For Koreans, the term Maum is so familiar to me, so I'm not very sure whether foreign learner of Korean have any difficulties to use Maum, which can mean mind and heart, or mind or heart. So I just want to check whether you have faced some kind of difficulties or confusing situations regarding Maum. In your daily conversation, you guys have heard about the word Maum, right? Yes. Okay. So Haim and Will, Have you ever found any difficulties or confusing usage regarding Maum before? Maybe, in the beginning, when I started studying Korean, how to use 심장 and Maum. 심장 and Maum. Okay. Maybe like confusing. Okay. What about Haim? It's pretty much the same when I started learning Korean when I came to Korea. The usage of Maum, when I would translate it to English would sometimes be mind, sometimes to be heart. Yeah. That would be confusing because in the beginning, I didn't understand why would that word mean both meanings. Yeah. Okay, and then both of you, Niki and Haim, you are not confused with the use of Maum anymore or still you have? Yeah, no problem. Okay. How about William, Will? I've never used this word in daily conversation. I've only studied it in an academic context. Okay, good. This is really good because we have beginner and advanced speakers in Korean, so it will be great to talk with. I'd like to show you, just very quick check, have you ever heard this word or have you ever used this word? 마음먹다? Yes I've used it. Okay. William? No. If you literally translate 마음먹다, which means that eating mind or I eat mind. But it can be translated into maybe decide, okay, one more, 마음에 지니다, keep in mind? It seems to be Korean translation of English expression, "keep in mind", but we have much variation, 마음에 두다, 마음에 새기다, 마음에 지니다, a lot. There are a lot of variation. But anyway, regarding these two expressions, how do you think? Is this close to emotional expression, or is this a kind of closer to reason or decision or something? What I want to say is maybe sometimes you should decide how to translate Maum into reason, mind or emotion heart. How will you categorize this? I would say it's a bit more closer to emotions. When we decide the emotions are stronger, I don't know what I'd think about it. Good. How about Haim? For me? It's actually the opposite. Just innately thinking about those two, thinking about it in a more logical-based or reason-based content. How about William? How do I feel when I read these phrases, whether or not it's reasonable or emotional. So how do you think? You can't just correctly translate your English translation. But you can recall if you ever heard about this expression in K-drama or something, just think about it and guess. I mean just going off the translation it seems more like logic. Yeah, I think so. I guess maybe Niki feels that in order to decide you should have emotional motivation, motivated by your emotion. But that might be very close to Korean mind I think. There is a kind of example of the sentence: 나는 그를 도와주기로 마음을 먹었다. I decided to help him something like that. In order to '마음을 먹었다' eat mind, Koreans feel like there should be some more, we should be empowered by our emotions maybe or in order to keep in mind also, although I think more people will categorize these case of Maum as reason-mind, I guess so. More people may even for Korean, they should categorize these cases from other cases. They might think that, oh, this is the more like reason-based. But in order to help out, decided to help someone out, or in order to keep in mind someone's saying or someone's like lesson, we feel like there should be something more than just our reasoning or reasonable decision. Nevertheless, I think, this Maum is closer to reason mind. How about this '마음에 걸리다' Have you heard? Yeah. How do you think? In English, actually all these are translated into mind rather than heart, right? But how do you think? '마음에 걸리다?' It would appear There's more of an emotional background. Haim? For me it's the same. It's more of an emotion related thing because I don't know. It gives me the impression of something that relates to our feeling, which makes it in my brain go more towards emotion than reason. I guess so, yeah. Exactly I think because '마음에 걸리다', the first impression is this is related to my feeling. Something stuck in my mind, immediately your brain will start to work, something like that. Once it is stuck in my mind, it doesn't mean that 'oh, I feel bad,' or 'I feel good' and that's all. But rather, we should keep like operating your brain to solve these problems. Maybe, order like is reversed way, but maybe, and then how about this, 마음에 들다. To me, I always use it to something related to emotion or like maybe the food I like. It's maybe not just food that I like, but also eating that food with friends and it gives me some like really nice memories. Yeah. Yeah, even though but maybe I don't think we can translate it into English as it enters my heart, right? Is it? How do you think? If you like it, you can express that using heart, William? Please, native speaker. How do you think? Can it be related to heart in English expression? Yeah, I think going along with Niki's description of it. I think that if you have some sort of positive memories Of eating this type of food or something like that, then it would be more kind of emotion-based. Right. Emotion-based, but what I'm asking is, can you use heart for expressing this state of mind? I think it's possible. Please, how to say? Because I'm not a speaker in English, so in English how to express this case? Maybe heart-warming. Heart-warming, oh, okay. That's what comes to… It's heart-warming, if I like it, you can say heart-warming, right? Yeah, you could. Okay. Good. These are examples, I like his or her straightforward character or something. I think because I had these sentences from my online audience, many people actually think that this expression is emotion-heart based. Yeah, as most of you mentioned, but how about this? The other one? 마음이 끌리다, Heart? Mind? or what? How about this? 마음을 터놓다? Right. No, it's because of William, because I didn't put any English translation here. William, have you heard about this expression 마음이 끌리다? I don't believe so. Okay. How about 마음을 터놓다? Yeah, I don't think either. Okay. All right. 끌리다 Is attract or drag. Attracted or dragged. Okay. Your mind is moving but it's not like just the very naturally and voluntarily moved, but it seems to be, we feel kind of like maybe forced, but it's not compulsory feeling, but I'm attracted by something or I'm something like that, this is 끌리다. And 터놓다 is open up. Okay, I will not say more. Please, how do you think? I think in translation it's usually heart. I think it's more translated to heart. Can you give a sentence of your translation? I poured out my heart to somebody when something happened to me and I want to talk about it. Okay. So for 마음을 터놓다, right? Yes. Okay. How about 마음이 끌리다? Yeah, with that one, I'm not really sure, but I don't know maybe, Haim? Okay. Thank you. I have no idea about that. Both of them, first of all, it's like in my mind, more heart-related so feeling- related or emotion-based, and for 마음이 끌리다, I think maybe you can say close to my heart, because the original translation if you go to English is attraction, something that speaks to you, so close to my heart kind of has the same meaning, but not fully. Close to my heart just means that this thing is extremely important to you, therefore, it's so close to your heart. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I guess so. So maybe that. Okay. How about William? I like Niki's translation of 마음을 터놓다. I think I agree with that, yeah also with Haim. My sense of what the top Phrase is referring to is maybe you're unconsciously attracted to something or something that you don't really have control over necessarily. If it doesn't really matter what you like or don't like in your conscious mind, if something is attractive to you, it just yeah, maybe mentally consciously doesn't matter. It would be a more emotion thing. I see. Okay. If you are attracted by someone's plan… My purpose is not to teach you or let you clearly sharply divide a side of use of Maum. But rather, there are a lot of ambiguous use. Sometimes emotion comes first, but the reason should follow; sometimes reason is stronger, but if there is no emotional response, then you're reasonable decision might not be very supported. by Koreans. For example, 마음에 지니다, keep in mind, in order to keep mind in English context, you don't have to. I don't know. How do you feel? Like you don't have to think about your emotional response, am I right? Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. You should memorize in your brain. rather you don't have to warm your heart. But for us, actually Korean, if you say 마음에 지니다, you do not feel warm- hearted response. If you just memorize something without emotional basis, then it seems to be you are not honest or you're not faithful. If you just memorize in your brain. But any other further emotional response follows then people may think that oh, this is not your… I mean, they do not take it as a serious. For Korean, when we use Maum, sometimes it can be categorized into reason; sometimes it can be categorized into emotion. But we are not really sharply separate these sides, usually come together. Other examples? Can you imagine, think of any other examples which might be confusing? No. Not now. If you do not have other examples at this moment. Then I just want to ask you, do you think Maum is confusing? Or after you learn Korean, you're not confused the use of Maum anymore and what's the difference? I think at first, to Korean learners, it can be difficult to learn Maum and how to use it. Especially because there are so many expressions with Maum so it can be confusing at first to how to use it in which context. After that, I think it becomes kind of a habit. You automatically say it without even realizing what you are saying. It is good and so you're not confused with Maum anymore? I don't think so. I want to hope I'm not confused about it. How about Haim? For me, it was the same, in the beginning it was confusing because everything I would learn, for the most part would be in Korean and then immediately to English or to Hebrew. I would rely on that, and then for the most part of the translation would always be heart, not mind. In my mind, till today, Maum is more of heart related, more emotion related, less reason. I can't say I'm confused by it because like Niki said, it kind of, I kind of came to terms into just realizing that in Korean, you just use it taking both mind and heart put together. Which is interesting because it's different from maybe a western mindset of understanding those terms. For the most part, I would say that I'm not confused, I hope. Okay. How about the Hebrew? Except for the English. How about in Hebrew, are there those kind of ambiguous or ambivalent room between emotion and reason, or as like English or other western language, there are sharp distinction between emotion and reason? I feel like it's pretty much the same as English in the sense of, we would always detach the two, and we would make it an objective to define if it's more heart-related or if it's so emotion, or if it's more mind related, more reason, logic-related. Maybe if you dive into Hebrew more linguistically, you will find different things. But just thinking about daily usage of the language, I would say that it's pretty much like English in separation of the two. I see. How about Hungarian? I will say very similar. The expressions we use for heart is really close to emotions and not reason. I see. All right. Then Will, how about you? How do you think? This kind of practice, it's linguistic practice of using Maum to integrate and combine both sides of mental faculty. How do you feel? How do you think? Yes. I do feel like using it in practice with speaking to convey how you think or feel is difficult and confusing. I will say that my background of the term Maum is a little different from, I think Haim, in that in academic papers, at least the ones that I've read, always translated as heart-mind and they're attached. There wasn't any leaning to one or another. But I do think that the term is difficult to understand. Except for difficult to understand, how do you see? Because as you said, in East Asian philosophy or the comparative philosophy. in field of comparative philosophy, nowadays many people use the translation of mind-heart rather than just mind or just the heart. Do you like this kind of practice? But problem is in English as a language, there is no those kind of combining these two faculties. The practice of these equities always, even though we know that Sim is not as mind, heart, but here we just put together and then put slash. Nevertheless, do you feel that those kind of new translation which containing both sides of mental faculty is helpful for us to think any further? What I wanted to say is, do you think after you accepting this expression. For example, Haim and Niki are already get used to use this term, Maum. Any difference? If you compare the when you didn't have this concept and now, you are familiar with this concept. Do you think any difference? Niki said it is habit. Yes. That's right. Language practices needs habit and practice. After that, do you find any difference? Yes. I think that if some of these expressions do have one expression lean more cognitive, or logical and one expression can lean more emotion that maybe the translation would be easier for a Westerner to try and understand if they were… if it leans emotion to use heart first heart-mind, and if it leans logic to use mind heart. That would be helpful probably. Yeah. I like it. Because always comparative philosopher they just translate Sim or Maum into mind heart. Because for them, mind is important and heart is kind of following or secondary thing. But as William said, as we have seen actually sometimes Maum express heart first and then mind follow. Sometimes mind first and then heart follow. Maybe it's better to distinguish those situation. Okay. I'd like to turn to the last page. Thank you for taking part in today's activities. I'm just brainstorming and I wanted to listen to your response to the concept of Maum. The main takeaway from this activity and lesson is actually the uses of the word Maum in Korea is very unique. As a combined faculty for both reason and emotion, we can see both aspects. The important thing is not just habbit of Maum expresses both, but rather when they take reason side it still requires something more. When we grasps aspect of emotional side, still there should be reasonable or reasoning should follow, something like that. If you revisit those expression a little bit further in real context, it seems to me that Korean require most functions work together all the times. Well, I'm not sure, I haven't fully unpack the meaning of these kind of combinations but I just wanted to talk about these two categories that are very close relating. Koreans may find it is silly to divide Maum into two categories like this. I just made a push to divide Maum into different categories. But as we have seen, these categories always work together. Even though I categorized this situation, which is used Maum into reason side or emotional side. But as we have talked actually these are close linked. Okay. I don't know. It can be said maum is naturally different from the Western ideas of reason and emotion binary. I hope we can see that understanding of language is quite very important to understanding of culture and philosophy. Thank you so much for coming and I hope you enjoy this session. Thanks guys. We can see how language is important to truly understanding of culture and philosophy. As simply translating walks into another can lead to a difference in meaning and nuance. I hope our conversation has shad some light on the Maum, Korean mind-heart, or heart-mind. I will see you in the next lesson.
