The Korea Times
As a young graduate student interested in Korean history and the Korean family system, I was working on analyzing jokbo. I wanted to do a study of an ideal "yangban" clan. As I was looking at various jokbo, my adviser, Ed Wagner, suggested I look at the Deoksu Yi-ssi, who he said were an ideal yangban clan. The word "yangban" means "two groups," and refers to the "mun" (civilian) and "mu" (military), the two main branches of officials. He went on to mention that the most prominent representatives of both the mu-side and the mun-side were found in that clan: Yi Sun-sin and Yi I, the latter well-known by his art name, Yulgok, meaning "chestnut valley." Graduate school brought me one more twist of fate regarding the Deoksu Yi-ssi. I was studying the jokbo one day, when the head librarian of the Korean collection came to my study carrell with a twinkle in his eye, and said, “Come follow me.” He took me to the sub-basement — the Korean collection was in the basement of the Harvard-Yenching building, and below the basement there was another basement where newly acquired books were bein
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