#16. 의자왕 -- The Korean Casanova

백제 (Baekje) has always had my sympathy. It formed a part of the Three Kingdoms Era of Korea, along with 신라 (Silla) and 고구려 (Goguryeo), but it seems that 백제 was decidedly the weakest of the three kingdoms. 신라 eventually destroyed the other two kingdoms and unified Korea; 고구려, at its heyday, controlled a large part of China and Mongolia, occupying about five times the land the size of the Korean peninsula.

백제, on the other hand, never seems to have had that golden era comparable to its two rivals. Instead, the most remembered figures of this sad little kingdom lived right as it was going through its final moments, destroyed in the hands of the allied forces of 신라 and the Tang dynasty of China. Whether it really did not have a golden era, or whether the records were destroyed in the hands of the victors, we will never really know, as 백제 fell in 660AD, more than 1300 years ago.

One man's name lives on, however, and his name is arguably used more frequently than any other figures from 신라 or 고구려 in modern-day Korea. His name is 의자왕 (King 의자, "의자" was just his name, and does not mean a chair or a healer. His parents named him, hoping that he would be just and merciful; "의" means "just" as in "정의롭다", and "자" means "merciful" as in "자비롭다."), and his legacy is admittedly questionable, as he was the last king of 백제.

According to the popular legends that most Koreans know, he was actually a decent king. 백제 prospered under his rule, and he was politically talented. But he gradually became interested in the decadent lifestyle, holding parties, drinking nightly, in the company of three thousand beautiful palace maidens (궁녀). When 신라, allied with the Tang dynasty (당나라), attacked 백제, he was not able to defend the country, and surrendered to the allied forces. He was eventually taken prisoner of the Tang dynasty, and died there within the year.

The three thousand women decided to throw themselves from a cliff into a nearby river, preferring to take their lives themselves rather than be captured by the allied forces. The cliff where they supposedly killed themselves still exists in the city of 부여, and it is called 낙화암 (It means "the rocks of the falling flowers:" "낙" means to fall, as in "낙하산 parachute"; "화" means a flower, as in "조화 artificial flowers" "국화 chrysanthemum" or "무궁화 rose of sharon"; "암" means rocks, as in "암벽등반 rock climbing," "화강암 granite.") It is a beautiful little place, and if you can visit, you should!

I remember visiting here as a child, and feeling down all day thinking about all the poor women who fell to their deaths.

Koreans managed to insert some humour into this sad story, however. Nowadays, if a man seems to be surrounded by many women, he will likely have been called an "의자왕" by his friends. For example, if a man always seems to be in the company of several women (whether romantically or not!), his friends might say something like:

니가 의자왕이냐?

 or, "Do you think you're King 의자?"

There is definitely a lot of humour in this expression, and it is one of those expressions that will make people laugh. What's better, because it is derived from history, Koreans of any age will get your reference, and it's not offensive at all! So this expression is used both online and offline.

That being said, this notoriety of 의자왕 saddens me a little bit, because it seems that there are no actual records in history that King 의자 was actually into that luxurious and decadent lifestyle. Rather, in the official records, he seems to have fought until the very end, and decided to surrender because he did not want any more sacrifices of his people, and in fact, 백제 was at one of its most prosperous periods under his rule. In particular, the mention of the three thousand women appears first in a 20th-century literature (there may have been a few women, but probably not three thousand!) But as people say, history is written by the victors, and he really did not have any choice in the matter. And for better or for worse, he is still remembered, and at least some people believe that he was a good king.