Unending trials return.
千辛萬苦 (천신만고) means To endure trials of every kind in their extremity. odyssey means A long, arduous journey; an adventurous wandering. East Asian idiom and Western myth mirror the same human truth.
The Meeting
After the Trojan War there was a hero who took ten years to return home, and in East Asia there was a truth one could reach only after enduring a thousand hardships and ten thousand torments. One was a physical voyage across the sea; the other, an ordeal that runs through the whole of a life.
Western Myth -- Odysseus and the Ten-Year Homecoming
Odysseus was a hero of the Trojan War. After the war it took him ten years to return to his homeland, Ithaca. He endured them all -- the one-eyed giant Polyphemus, the witch Circe, the world of the dead, the song of the Sirens, the whirlpool Charybdis and the monster Scylla. In 1889 the word odyssey settled into English as a common noun meaning "a long, arduous journey."
From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Nintendo's Super Mario Odyssey -- odyssey has become, in Western culture, the byword for "every great journey."
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Oxford English Dictionary"odyssey" etymology entry.
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Etymonlineodyssey word origin.
Eastern Lore -- A Thousand Hardships, Ten Thousand Torments
Cheonsinmango (千辛萬苦) means "a thousand hardships and ten thousand torments," and it speaks of enduring trials in their utmost extremity. In the Chinese classics and Korean classical literature, it was used to express the sum total of the suffering a hero undergoes to reach his goal. The eighty-one ordeals that Sun Wukong and his companions endure on their journey to India in Journey to the West are a representative example of cheonsinmango.
If Odysseus's journey is a homecoming -- "a return home" -- cheonsinmango is an advance, "a pressing on toward a destination." The direction differs, but the weight of the trials is the same.
Where the Mirrors Meet -- Where the Two Myths Converge
Both carry the common theme of "a return through unending trials."
Odyssey in Greek myth and cheonsinmango in East Asian tradition captured the same human truth.
Both live on in everyday language. Odyssey endures in English, cheonsinmango in Korean.
Yet their modes of expression differ. The West conveyed this wisdom through a mythic character, the East through a combination of Chinese characters.
Mnemonic -- One Line to Take Home
- ✓ odyssey = derived from Odysseus. A long, arduous journey; an adventurous wandering.
- ✓ 千辛萬苦 = a thousand hardships, ten thousand torments. Trials of every kind, endured.
- ✓ Remember it in one stroke: "Odyssey and cheonsinmango -- two different civilizations telling the same story."
"Myths do not die. They breathe still today, within odyssey and cheonsinmango."
