Author Archives: bpbutler

First Korea

Nationality: South Korean
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: He lives here in LA but is from South Korea.
Performance Date: April 23, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Description: The first king essentially. The first Korean kingdom’s king. Which would eventually as time passes get slit into a lot of different kingdoms which they slowly die off and the kingdom becomes Koreo. But yeah. Technically the first Korean King Dangun Wanggeom would be the Legend. Um The myth associated that he’s the son of a god and he is given the land by his father to rule over and he… crap… it’s kinda weird… but he chooses… now that I’m saying it it sounds really weird. He comes down and finds a bear and a tiger and tells them that if they can live in a cave for i think forty days… or something like that… on only onions and stuff then they’ll make them human. The tiger runs off all bitter eventually. The bear and the tiger try it. The tiger just runs off. And the bear turns into a woman. That prince, technically god’s son, marries the bear and founds the first Korean country with treasures from his dad. A sword a mirror and…. I can’t remember what the last thing was. He came down with a sword a mirror and something else. Yeah. Wait. Yeah. He’s technically the found of the first Korean country essentially. In old Korean times there were a lot of Korean gods. There’s the god of the mountain and the god of the earth so. One of the god’s son. It just says he’s the son of one of the chief gods essentially. There’s not a specific set of gods in tradition. At least traditionally.

2. This piece illustrates the ideas associated with the founding of Korea. This appears to be taught more by word of mouth than by actual school teaching, but it is possible that it would be used in a history class studying the legends of the area.

3. I went into his dorm room and asked him if he had any good Korean folklore for me and this was the first one that he told me. Apparently it is one of particular Renown.

4. This piece takes into account Korea’s belief in the humanity of animals. They, very much like the native americans seemed to believe that humans were not the only ones with souls. What’s fascinating about this particular story is that it highlights that every animal essentially wants to become a human. The bear will do anything to become human. The tiger on the other hand flakes out and doesn’t get this great honor. It also speaks a lot about Koreans view on determination and perseverance.

Korean Wedding

Nationality: South Korean
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: He goes to school here in LA but is from South Korea.
Performance Date: April 23, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Description: “This is based on what my parents did, cause they did partly western and partly eastern. The ceremony was held the normal way but the proposal was… the ceremony was held the western way… cause how long was it? It was like 1990 or something. So yeah. But the proposal was actually kind of traditional style in the sense that uh. So when you ask the daughter’s hand in marriage you don’t do it. Your friend does. As with most societies Korea was very patriarchal. So the son comes and then the father has to kinda sell his daughter essentially and the dad has to act like he needs to be paid a lot or something like that. And so there’s this back and forth going on between who is essentially the best man and the dad going like I’ll pay you this much and then the dad saying nah, nah. It just goes back and forth. And then.. Oh wait no… how much the… oh wait no… how much the husband’s family will by the daughter for. That was it. My bad. Like the father of the wife would go oh she’s worth this much. And the best man would go nah nah that’s waaaay too much. And then while that’s going on the to be husband is hiding back in the background watching. Well he’s not supposed to see but… you always kind of do that. Apparently that’s what my dad did. He kinda saw from the background. I heard this pretty recently too so I was pretty surprised. People don’t really do that anymore. They’re more western. And then eventually the son shows up with the mount and then they take the wife and they just get married. There’s a ceremony. I guess in Korean weddings they still dress up in traditional clothes and they sit together in like this mini altar kind of things. They just kind of eat and then take photos. But in the past it would be like that the entire time. There’d be celebration depending on how wealthy you are. If you’re rich it’d be pretty big, if you’re a commoner probably not as big. But, eh. The traditional clothing is hanbok. It’s like a dress for the most part. The guy also wears hanbok. It’s just traditional clothes. There’s normal ones and then there’s fancy ones. Although nowadays people only wear the fancy ones. Though, normal clothes make more sense. But it’s actually surprisingly comfortable it’s just a lot of layers. I’ve worn one as a kid before during special holidays. There’s winter ones and summer ones. The summer ones are very thin… like pretty thin. The winter ones are thicker and there are multiple layers.”

2. My friend got this story from listening to his parents proposal story. They experienced this tradition on a first hand account and then told him about the practice as he was growing up.

3. I walked into his dorm room and asked him if he could tell me some Korean folklore. He had so much and was able to dish it out really quickly.

4. There’s a lot of things you can take away from this. It’s easy to tell that these traditions find themselves in a more patriarchal system. In America, it would be considered outrageous if you had to pay for your bride. Still, on the other hand, many other cultures still do this as well. It’s a fairly common practice in other cultures. Still, there are specifics here that make this very Korean. First of all, the fact that you just find a friend to go barter for a wife for you is interesting. This gives insight into Korea’s belief system on trust. They obviously keep their friends close and give them power to influence their lives and their pocketbooks.

The Sparrow’s Gourd

Nationality: South Korean
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: He goes to school here at USC in LA but is from South Korea.
Performance Date: April 23, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Description: “There is the story of dobu hours… is that how you pronounce it? I forgot, crap. Crap I forgot what the other one was called. Oh, Dorobou Hour Bru. That was it. So Dorbu was, crap. Who was who? Well one of them is poor and one of them is rich and the poor works for the poor one except the rich one treats the poor one really baddy. And the poor one goes out to the woods to chop some wood with his copper axe and he… wait no… no that wasn’t it. No that’s a different story. Well it’s still about this poor man. So a sparrow hurts its wings and kinda lands near his house or something like that. So the poor man who is kind, treats the bird out of his kindness and says thank you and promises to give him something in return. A few days later he comes back with a gourd seed and he tells the poor man to plant it. And he’s like, the poor man is like, ok fine I’ll plant the seed. He plants it, he lets it grow and the gourd got MASSIVE. In the legend it’s as big as he is. And when it matured he cracked it open and there’s like jewels and treasures. But there’s only like three or four gourds there. They all had something very specific in them. I only remember one had money, like A LOT of money. And then so the rich one got jealous and so he intentionally broke a sparrow’s wing and the fixed it so that he could also get a gourd seed from it. Except because he intentionally broke the wing and then fixed it that’s not right. And that’s not nice. And since it’s a children’s folktale nice things don’t get you anywhere. And so the gourd side instead of having gold or jewels it has evil spirits. And then he runs out of the neighborhood screaming. Yeah.”

2. This story represents a clear ethical value held by the Chinese people. They value honesty and tell these tales to their children to impart that characteristic to the generations to come.

3. I walked into his dorm room and asked him if he could tell me some folklore. He very happily said sure and shared this story with me.

4. You can definitely see this story trending throughout other cultures as well. I’ve even heard them over here in the U.S. They impart a love for the broken and a sympathy for the lower class. At this point, it’s safe to conclude that it was the poor class that ended up spreading this tale the most. There would be no reason for the rich class to spread a tale that puts them in a bad light. Also, this variation of the tale tells us that the people spreading this story were heavily involved with gourds.

The Water King (Yu the Great)

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: He goes to school here at USC in LA but is from Shanghai.
Performance Date: April 23, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Description: “Also, it’s in ancient china actually there’s floods. Like overflowing areas. Like the river is filled with like water like and what is spilled over everywhere and there’s a kind of like very kind king who is also skilled at like water engineering and he maybe he studied how to maybe to conduct water so he used his he spent ten years dealing with this problem and finally he succeed like. And he’s like he’s made a legend people person by the after that. Yeah so he engineered to stop floods like.”

2. Great Yu is a character who’s full capabilities may or may not be actually true but we do have a good guess at the validity of his existence. Most believe that he’s true even if some of the stories have been embellished. There are more practical accounts as well.

3.  I walked into his room and asked him if he could tell me some folklore. This was one of the first accounts he told me. This must mean that it’s pretty well renown in Chinese culture.

4. This performance says a lot on the culture and history of China and the minds of the people that live there. Because of the flood, no matter how large it actually was, they obviously really respect the power of water. Historically, the Chinese people have had a knack for engineering. They’ve always honored and respected occupations like that. Because of this, it’s understandable that they would create a god like figure out of him.

Chinese Weddings

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: He goes to school here at USC in LA but is from Shanghai.
Performance Date: April 23, 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

“There were many Chinese girls that didn’t have sex before the wedding and on the wedding night old people like men and superior persons in the family put like a kind of like close in like a white close in on the back and so for the woman’s first time there’s some kind of bloody thing on the cloth and you know and some people make it like the handkerchief so it has that nice red thing on the clothing. This clothing is made like a handkerchief thing so it stains. It’s very popular in asian culture. It’s a long time ago. They don’t do that today. Very Asian thing.”

2. My friend achieved this knowledge just by growing up in the culture. He doesn’t remember anyone really telling him anything. He did say that he hasn’t been to a wedding like this because no one really does it like this anymore.

3. The context of this story is my friend’s dorm room. I practically just walked in and asked him if he could let me record him saying some folklore. This piece was mentioned when I asked him to divert from tales and go into traditions a little bit more.

4. He tended to believe that this was generalized to the Chinese people. However, I’ve recognized that this practice, although with multiplicity and variation, throughout the entirety of the globe. For example, I know that in ancient Hebrew culture wedding ceremonies were quite similar. They would consummate the marriage at the wedding and toss a bloody rag over a curtain. These practices have obviously evolved over time and the view of sex has as well. Because of this, the Chinese practices have changed, but according to my friend, the Chinese still value waiting for marriage to have sex very highly. In that sense, these old customs still influence the current day.