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.