Tag Archives: Korean

Tofu

1) After a Korean exits prison, a white block of tofu, nothing else, is the first thing that they are supposed to eat. By doing this, they have a better chance to live a life of purity from that point after. 

2) My Korean mother told me about the “folk item / food” that is tofu because she said she wants me to know that even if I make a grave mistake, I will always have a chance at redemption if I assume the right mentality. 

3) My Korean mother told me this when I was eating dinner with my family. I asked if there are any Korean foods that have a traditional / folk significance, and after a moment of thinking she came up with the above example.

4) This practice started in the prisons of the Joseon dynasty, but is now seen in modern-day Korean noir films. Perhaps tied to its longevity is the fact that tofu is already such a staple food for Koreans. Also, in prison they only give inmates bean rice for food (no tofu). Tofu is also made from beans, but it is an elevated form of bean to the one included in rice in prisons. 

Even Monkeys Can Fall from Trees

Original Phrase: 원숭이도 나무에서 떨어진다
Translation: Even monkeys can fall from trees.

K is a Korean American whose parents are of Korean ancestry. He is currently in college. He says that he had heard this proverb from his parents. This piece is memorable to him because he tries to take this message to heart when it comes to doing anything.

Context: This proverb came up in a discussion about proverbs. There was a back and forth between interesting proverbs and what they meant before this piece came up.

This proverb is very similar to other childhood proverbs in that it uses animals to teach children an important lesson in life. This lesson is that even the best, most specialized people can still fail. So do not be over confident. This is because monkeys are typically seen as adapted to living in trees. They spend all their time swinging from tree to tree, often looking like there isn’t a care in the world. In reality, however, these monkeys will still miss and fall from the tree. This message is pretty important to children as it teaches them to be humble about their skills. If you become arrogant and comfortable with your skills without being sufficiently cautious, you can still fail.

Stretching To Grow

Background:

Informant is a half-white, half-Korean student studying at USC who has lived in America their whole life.

Main Piece:

“It’s literally like, when I was in Korea—I’m short as fuck—and like every morning my aunt and my mom would get all the cousins and they would pull our legs—they would stretch the shit out of our legs every like, morning or night or something, so that like we could be taller. I didn’t grow [laughs].”

Context:

This conversation was recorded in-person. I asked my informant whether they knew of any Asian customs.

Analysis:

Being tall is somewhat associated with East Asian beauty standards—this is often done in comparison with Europeans, who are on average taller than Asians. In my informant’s case, they experienced a form of contagion magic that acts as a folk belief (the belief that being in contact with someone’s legs and physically stretching them out would make the person taller). The act of physical contact is perhaps what continues this custom, as the person feels like there is control over the act of someone growing taller, which is always an unknown. Belief in this custom has perhaps waned, as noted by my informant who laughs at the fact that they’re still short. 

Songpyeon

Background:

Informant is a half-white, half-Korean student studying at USC who has lived in America their whole life.

“I feel like it’s not a tradition, just a holiday, on 추석 (Chuseok), which is like the Korean Thanksgiving, you eat like, rice cake also. You eat this like little, there’s like little colorful ones, I think they’re called 송편 (songpyeon, lit. “pine cake”), and they have little things in it, they go bad really fast.”

Context:

This conversation was recorded in-person. We were discussing holidays that we celebrated that had traditional foods usually eaten on said holiday.

Analysis:

Food is a major component of ethnic identity. As Elliot Oring notes in his book, Folk Groups and Folklore Genres, “it is unlikely that anyone who feels some stirrings of identification with an ethnic group cannot think of some dish recipe, or kind of meal that they particularly associate with their group” (35). Songpyeon is seen as quintessential to Chuseok, as it also carries symbolic belief, to show gratitude to the year’s harvest. Songpyeon is a type of dish made from rice, which is a staple crop in Korean food (there are also many other dishes that involve rice—tteok is a whole classification of various rice cakes). Making songpyeon invariably leads to a large quantity made, it is reasonable for it to be served on a holiday like Chuseok, traditionally celebrated with the entire family. As folklore, food serves as a symbol of in-group identification, creating a sense of community. Especially with members of a diaspora, food is also a way to stay connected with their culture that they otherwise would not be exposed to.

“무망” college predictions.

B is a 21-year-old Korean male originally from Busan, South Korea. B is currently a college student in Los Angeles, California.

B informed me of this folklore while I was in a college dorm chatting with him about the college admission process. I did not approach B with the intent of collecting folklore, but after he brought it up naturally in conversation, I requested B’s permission to record his folklore experience. The following is B’s story.

B: So there’s like this thing called “무망” (mudang) it’s kinda like an exorcist. Exorcist? Or whatever. But they’re not not really exorcists, but, they’re people who can like talk to ghosts and.. well, these ghosts are more like Gods who can like guide people, like.. like show visions you know? And I talked to them and I wanted to like um know what college I wanted to go to. Like what actually fits me really well. It’s like a fortune teller kind of thing. And I gave her a list of like all the schools I wanted to go, and like what schools would be the best. And the list had like USC um… Cornell.. what is it, Colombia or like anywhere, Carnegie. And she pointed to like these-uh, she divided the schools into like “O” “triangle” and “X” and the “Os” signified-like, they signified that I would get into that school. “Triangles” would be like, she wasn’t sure because there’s like a… waitlist-like waitlist thingie in America and.. it’s not exactly the same in Korea so like she didn’t know what it was. And “X” would be, um, I wouldn’t get there sadly laughs. And surprisingly, she got like seven out of nine guesses correct. And the last one was Columbia, and she put a “O” there. Or it was a “triangle,” no, I think it was an “O.” And I was expecting that I would go there but I failed, so like I was really disappointed with that. But, she got everything right, and she pointed to like USC.. or somewhere and she told me that I would go somewhere like, somewhere warm instead of like the cold areas which is like normally the east side, East Coast. Like the, all the Ivy Leagues. And, well.. I wanted to go to the East Coast but she told me that I would go somewhere like warm and I though it was uh.. bullshit. But, here I am laughs.

Reflection: At least in terms of practice, the Korean mudang in B’s account sound quite similar to American fortune tellers who both read cards and speak to spirits to predict futures. I am admittedly skeptical about the legitimacy of fortune telling, but it is hard to believe that the mudang was able to successfully determine seven out of the nine colleges correctly, especially without previous knowledge about the colleges . This odd and difficult to explain occurrence has at least made reconsider my stance on fortune telling. Based on B’s story and the continued popularity of Shintoism in Japan, it seems that shamanistic practices are still able to fulfill a need within modern East-Asian societies.