A Common Sense of Human Civilization — Preface

Preface

Talking about history is a pleasure, because it lets us look back over our past. It is all the more fascinating because it lets us consider how we came to be where we are today and where we are going, and so gain a sense of direction for the future. The history we have learned so far was explained on the basis of written records, which makes it a short-sighted history; and because the authors of the history books were Europeans, East Asia was missing from its content. By examining astronomy, geology, archaeology and genetic genealogy together, we have become able to see the history of humankind on Earth broadly and on a large scale.

In this book I have gathered the stories of an architect — what I have seen and felt over the years. This is not a history book but a personal essay, so I have not cited my sources in detail, and most of the photographs and drawings were taken from material already posted and known on Google. Since my intention is to bring hidden facts to light and show them to the world, I ask the reader's understanding that I accept the risk of raising some suspicion of partial plagiarism.

While studying the cultural history of world architecture, there came a moment when I reached what was, for me, a great realization: that every culture on Earth shares a common property — it evolves. If we look at life through genes, from the very beginning there was a chemical substance with the ability to copy itself, which we call DNA. It is the ability of genetic material to keep copying similar material. That ability created life, and so the living things of today came to be. It seems to have gone on copying all this time — making bacteria, then frogs, then monkeys, then people. In this way life, and the culture that life conducts, has its limits, but it also has permanence. It has never once been broken; it has continued unbroken to this day.

When we think it through, all the many cultures that exist in the global village today share a single ancestor. We are all connected now. We do not exist alone; I, and other living things, and their cultures, all came from one household if we trace them back far enough. Life branched out in many directions from one origin at the beginning. The culture that life conducts also has this oneness. This is one of the greatest lessons Charles Darwin taught us.

It is common sense for the modern person to understand that before the stone architecture of the Mediterranean there were wooden architecture and carved cave temples, and that before stone pyramids there were pyramids built of earth (mounds) and dolmen temples made by hauling small stones together. That kings of Greece came to China and India, shaved their heads, became monks, learned Asian religion and culture and took them home, so that Mediterranean religion and culture flourished — this is in the historical records of China and India, but European scholars, worried about the pride of the white race, do not mention it.

The destruction of Earth's environment that we humans are now committing is the destruction of life, and in the end it is the beginning of killing our own family. How did such a right ever pass to us? When you think about it, humans are the very youngest in our family of life. I find myself wondering: if we viewed humankind as the life of a single person, how old would it be, and how much time would remain? And I wonder how the end of this youngest child of life on Earth will come. I also want to talk about what contribution the East Asian peoples — the first people to appear in the genetic history of humankind — made to the development of human culture and civilization, while their descendants carried on into the North and South American continents and pushed inland into Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and Eastern Europe.

In the autumn of 1978, while I was designing the national hospital of Guatemala, I visited the ruins of the Tikal culture on the Yucatán Peninsula in Central America. It felt like finding, on the opposite side of the globe, forms resembling the Chinese characters (漢字) of East Asia. From then on, for 35 years, I studied the cultural history of East Asia, compared it with world history, and came to think about the past and future of humankind.

Because my university graduation thesis was a report on the characteristics of traditional Korean architecture, I came to work alongside the master carpenter on the restoration project of Korea's National Treasure No. 1, Seoul's Namdaemun (Sungnyemun) Gate. Then, on February 10, 2008, Sungnyemun burned. I drew on my personal records to help with the Sungnyemun reconstruction, so Sungnyemun became both the first and the last project of my architectural life. It was from the time when, at a young age, as a Ministry of Education cultural-heritage specialist, I gave special lectures on East Asian architecture at Seoul National University and Yonsei University, that my hobby of history began to ripen.

Today, among intellectuals in many countries, the work of finding one's "roots" is being actively pursued. The project that began in 2008, "new genetic evidence reveals clues to the first human journeys," provided groundbreaking information for our knowledge of genetic genealogy, and as it was widely publicized by National Geographic, new views on the DNA of the world's peoples began. Recently, as the economies of Korea and China in East Asia have developed at astonishing speed, archaeological excavations and discoveries have also advanced steadily. We have moved beyond a theoretical form of history that relied solely on records, and now have broad knowledge that includes genetic genealogy and archaeology. Because the world histories published up to now were based on deficient knowledge of Eastern history, I felt keenly the need to find a new common sense based on new knowledge.

I began to look with interest at the region around the Korean Peninsula in East Asia, where the Great Wall, the Beijing–Hangzhou Grand Canal and the Silk Road begin. Beginning with the start of metal culture through the discovery of coal in the Neolithic age, I saw East Asian wooden architectural forms in the stone architecture of Greece, and here in East Asia I could see the process by which the pyramids of Africa and Mexico were born and grew. I saw what Mohenjo-daro's city planning had in common with East Asian city planning, and I saw that the site plans (伽藍) of the world's palaces and temples took shape here in East Asia.

That modern humans who left Africa could sustain steady population growth in Southeast Asia, where they first began settled life, was thanks to the natural environment of Southeast Asia, which provided a nursery for humankind with abundant food and a warm climate. The rivers flowing down from Everest, the roof of the world, into the Indian Ocean and the Pacific provided a home for modern humans; so it was not hard to imagine that the natural wonders spread between China, with its 1.5 billion people, and India, with its 1.2 billion, hold the roots of human culture and civilization.

It seems that East Asia is where modern humans, having migrated along the coast from Africa toward the rising sun in the east, for the first time confronted winter — the season of death — evolved from a wild life to an artificial one, and at last adapted to an inland life that overcomes nature. Out of the discipline and ability to overcome nature arose the religion, art and science of modern humankind. It seems that the formation of culture and civilization began here. They penetrated inland, pioneering what is now the Silk Road and reaching the Mediterranean region and Eastern Europe; and continuing along the coastal route they had already walked from Africa to East Asia, they followed the Pacific coast and advanced into the North and South American continents.

The modern history of modern humankind began when Genghis Khan of East Asia conquered Europe and passed East Asian culture on to Europe. In modern history, Europeans armed with guns and cannons seized the lands of Asians who shot bows, and the British Empire appeared. America, a new nation founded by Europeans on a continent of Asian peoples, went through two world wars and has led in political and economic influence. Humankind is still uncivilized, so it could not prevent the slaughter of six million Jews, and it cannot stop its wars of religion, so the killing goes on. Even now we have not been able to rescue the twenty million people of North Korea in East Asia from the dictatorship of the Kim family.

It is the immaturity of modern humankind that confuses creationism with evolution and commits slaughter for the sake of its own religion. The confusion of spirit, emotion and intellect that we are experiencing now is the immature face of humankind, and we cannot escape the worldwide conflicts that come from religion. The population explosion of humankind continues, nature is seriously polluted, and it is predicted that in the next 50 years, 50% of the life now living alongside humankind will disappear.

In speaking of history, is it not the common sense of the modern person to look back on the past and consider where humankind now stands and where it is going? I saw, in a mother's body, the secret of humankind from the process of its formation up to today. In the secret so well hidden in a mother's womb — the process of a baby growing — I could see the process of human evolution. I came to compare the history of humankind to the lifetime of one person, and to see what age we are at and what the world of the future will look like, and I want to share this with the reader.

Understanding that the Atlantis spoken of by the Greek philosopher Plato was in fact East Asia, we can look down upon the future from modern history, in which the culture and civilization of humankind that began in East Asia moved westward, circled the globe, and is returning again to East Asia. Before long, a more mature humankind will see an age of good family life, when it begins raising children who are space travelers.

Now modern people must understand the past fairly and find common ground to unite, and must recognize the task of setting a direction in which the people of the world are one family, the religions of the world one Absolute Lord, keeping within it a balance of male and female functions, and living to protect the environment for the sake of a beautiful future home. I hope this book will become an occasion for establishing a new worldview and view of life based on such recognition, that the effort to establish a proper concept of living for the modern person begins now, and that, made more complete, it will become a guidebook for the modern person.

Contents

Chapter 1: The Conception of Humankind

(The Secret Hidden in the Mother's Womb: The Past of Humankind)

The Appearance of the Universe and Life

The World of Things That Have Life

The World of Things That Feel

The World of Things That Think

The World Seen with New Eyes:

The Genetic Position of East Asia:

Human History and the Age of Humankind:

.........................

Chapter 2: The Infancy of Humankind

The Beginning of Culture and Civilization:

Customs Shared by the Native Peoples of the Americas and East Asia:

The Development of Language:

The Development of Writing:

The Ancestors of Goguryeo and Baekje on the Korean Peninsula:

The Development of Dwellings and the Formation of Cities:

................................

Chapter 3: The Childhood of Humankind

1734 BC: Our Ancestors and the Astronomical Event of the Five Planets Gathering in Lou (五星聚婁)

City Planning in East Asia:

Carts Drawn by Oxen and Horses:

The Sapsal Dog Shape and the Lion Shape:

From the Struggle for Survival to Culture and Civilization:

Dolmen Culture:

The Evolution and Distribution of Pyramids:

China's Northeast Project:

The Development of Pottery and Metal Tools:

Yin-Yang and the Five Elements and the Days of "7":

East Asian Medicine and Yin-Yang and the Five Elements:

Oriental Medicine and Yin-Yang:

Oriental Medicine and the Five Elements:

The Five Elements and the Organs of the Body:

The Five-Element Division of the Body:

The Five Elements and the Properties of Things:

Yin-Yang, the Five Elements and Natural Health:

Acupuncture:

The Origin and Distribution of Religions:

The Story of the Huns:

The Cave Temples of East Asia:

The Great Wall and the Beijing–Hangzhou Grand Canal:

The Silk Road:

Shanxi Province, Where Many Beauties Are Born:

Science and Invention in East Asia:

.........................

Chapter 4: The Adolescence of Humankind

Genghis Khan's Conquest of Europe:

Three Languages:

The Confusion of Reason, Emotion and Spirit in Humankind's Adolescence:

..........................

Chapter 5: The Future of Humankind

Comparing the History of Humankind to One Person's Lifetime:

The Modern and Future World:

..........................

Conclusion: