Tag Archives: Korean

금시초문 (Geum shi chomeun)- Korean Proverb

Age: 21

Text: 금시초문 (Geum shi chomeun)- hearing something for the first time

Informant: “It’s a four-character proverb or idiom. Each syllable has meaning, like “gold, time, first, escape,” but together it means hearing something for the first time. People say it when they are surprised by something they just heard. I like to use it as a joke, but most people use it as a surprised exclamation. Not all Koreans use it. It’s something more educated people tend to use It’s part of the culture. It’s something people in Korea say, especially when speaking to older people. If you use it with older people they might be impressed. I first heard it in 8th grade Korean school, we were learning four word proverbs.”


Interviewer: “Can you give an example of how you would use it?”
Informant: “If someone said, ‘Oh I heard this person is transferring to UCLA,’ someone could respond, ‘That’s a geum shi chomeun,’ meaning this is the first time they’ve heard that news.”

Context:

The informant learned this four-character Korean idiom while attending Korean language school in eighth grade. The phrase was introduced as part of a lesson on traditional four-character proverbs that are common in Korean speech and writing. The informant explained that although the expression is not used by everyone, it is often associated with more educated speakers and can be especially appropriate when speaking with older people. The informant mostly uses the phrase humorously among friends.

Analysis:

This example is a proverb or idiomatic expression, a form of verbal folklore that circulates through language and everyday conversation. Four-character idioms are especially common in East Asian traditions and are valued for their ability to carry complex meanings in only a few syllables. Although each syllable has its own literal meaning, the phrase can only be fully understood when the words are interpreted collectively. This shows how certain forms of folk speech require shared cultural knowledge to understand beyond a direct translation. The informant notes that the phrase is often associated with educated speakers and can be used to impress older people, showing how language can carry cultural prestige. In this way, the idiom reflects not only surprise, but also the value placed on education, tradition, and respect for elders in Korean culture. At the same time, the informant mentioned that they sometimes use the phrase jokingly with friends, which shows how folklore is dynamic and can take on new meanings in different social contexts.

Doljanchi

Text:


“So when I was one, I had this huge birthday party, and they laid out certain things — like a stethoscope, or money, or rice that symbolizes success. And then the baby has to pick one of them, and that’ll determine their path in life. A stethoscope would mean a doctor or something like that. I think I chose the rice. That’s from my Korean side.”

Context:


Doljanchi (also Dol) is the traditional Korean first-birthday celebration, and, officially, the Doljabi ceremony plays a vital role as an object-choosing ritual. Objects placed before the child vary by family and period but generally include objects that symbolize prosperity, health, scholarship, longevity, and professional achievements. The informant, who is half-Korean, inherited this practice from her father’s side and recalled it with pride, linking it to what she saw as a broader Korean cultural ethos of persistence and upward mobility.

Analysis:


Doljabi is one of the most recognizable folk rites in Korean culture, a fortune-telling performance at one of the earliest celebrations of a child’s life. Its endurance, even among second-generation Korean Americans, speaks to its profound cultural resonance. But most importantly, it’s not truly believed that the child’s choice is literally determining their future. The ceremony is more of an aspirational blend of parental hope and communal adornment. The informant’s observation is especially rich in that she ties the Doljabi to an understanding of Korean national identity, where the practice is not simply a matter of family heritage but an expression of a people’s relationship to ambition, hard labor, and prophetic evolving throughout life itself. And this shift from family tradition to ethnic pride is exactly how folk traditions maintain meaning in diasporic contexts: they become bearers of a larger tale about who a people are and where they have come from.

Seaweed Soup

Collection Date: 02/12/2026

Context:

During an in- class fieldwork session, my informant, “NJ” told me a saying and idea popular in Korean culture. He explains two scenarios in which seaweed soup should and should not be eaten, according to Korean folklore. He is Korean American and as far as I know, has lived his whole life here in America.

TEXT:

“Don’t eat seaweed soup before an exam”

Nathan explains that parents warn their kids not to eat food with seaweed such as seaweed soup before an exam. He explained that the slippery soup will cause the information to slip from their head. NJ explained how the idea of eating seaweed soup doesn’t just apply to parents and schoolchildren, but to other areas of life as well. For example, NJ explained that in Korean culture, pregnant women will eat seaweed soup as well. This is done because performers believe that it will help the women have a smoother, easier birth.

He said this is a popular Korean saying. His parents told him as a kid, passing on the saying.

Analysis:

It is an interesting belief that seaweed soup, a slippery dish, should be avoided before big moments. The idea is that it might cause students to slip up or forget what they studied during the exam. The same idea applies to pregnant women, but in this second case, the slippery quality is actually a good thing.

Logically, this belief makes no sense. But, something about it just sounds right. There’s some kind of pseudo logic or vernacular reasoning. If you eat something slippery, you’ll be slippery. The qualities of a food being slippery or sticky don’t actually have much, if any, effect on students’ exam scores or mothers giving birth. But somehow the saying still makes sense. I could imagine that it is especially helpful in moments that are really stressful (exams, pregnancy, etc). These are moments where we can feel anxiety and maybe powerless.

But, the simple saying acts as a illogical solution to get back that control. How do fix something which logic won’t help? Simple, make your own logic. I can imagine that the belief functions similarly to when athletes wear their favorite socks or shoes on game day. It offers a way for people to manage their anxiety and gain a sense of control in high-pressure situations. These superstitions allow performers to channel their anxiety into an easy action (or inaction) so they can feel better prepared for the task. It also lets them relax. In the test example, students who worry about forgetting what they studied can rest assured they won’t. They didn’t eat seaweed soup, so they probably won’t forget.

It’s also interesting that the same quality and food, slippery soup, can have a positive or negative connotation depending on the context. For exams, seaweed soup should be avoided, but for a pregnant woman, seaweed soup is a blessing. What would happen if a pregnant woman were taking an exam? I don’t think the answer matters much because the logic depends more on the context than any actual rules. The family that told their child, or the person who decided to eat soup that day, chooses the meaning. It doesn’t matter whether the rules are accurate or realistic, so long as they are believed in. Belief is what gives them power. For example, my informant NJ doesn’t encounter seaweed soup often here in LA, but he doesn’t avoid slippery foods. But perhaps if he wanted the qualities, then he would choose to believe in them. Or, if he were stressed about an exam, he might consider changing his diet.

Additionally, this is a fun superstition passed from parent to child. This sharing of beliefs and wisdom can bring families closer together. It sounds silly, but a nervous child might easily be calmed by the saying. That relief they feel will bring them closer to their family and make them appreciate the support. Instead of just saying “don’t worry about it, you’ll do great,” they offer a simple solution to make exams more manageable. This could help the children feel supported and cared for while parents support their achievements.

Korean ghost legend

Text:

“The folklore — or legend — I want to share is a Korean ghost legend that I heard from my mom growing up. I heard it when our family first moved to the United States, when I was in second grade, around Halloween.

The story my mom told me takes place in her high school — an all-girls high school back in Korea. In the last stall of the school bathroom, a ghost pops up out of the toilet and asks if you want red or blue toilet paper. Unless you ignore the ghost and walk out, or say you don’t need any toilet paper, you’re not safe. If you choose either option — red or blue — the ghost kills you or drags you down into the toilet with it.

As for where my mom heard the story, she didn’t specify who she heard it from, but there’s a Korean word called quedam, which refers to well-known, typical ghost stories, especially ones set in schools. Korean high schools are large buildings, and they get very creepy at night with the lights off. My mom said a similar legend originated in Japan, among Japanese schoolgirls, and eventually found its way to Korea, where it became widely known across Korean high schools.

The ghost targets a specific group — students — and the story only occurs in a specific location: the last stall of a school bathroom. I don’t think the legend goes into the ghost’s origins. It’s not specific to one high school or one region. I think its purpose is simply to be a scary story that makes you think twice before using the bathroom late at night at school.

Korean high schools have a unique system where, unlike American high schools that end around 3 p.m., students are required to stay at school until late at night — sometimes until 10 p.m. — to study for college entrance exams. So the school gets dark, and that’s exactly the context where these kinds of ghost stories become very relevant.”

Context:

This text was collected from a sophomore civil engineering student at USC. He shared this legend in a recorded interview, recounting a story he heard from his mother when he was in second grade, shortly after his family immigrated to the United States. The legend centers on a bathroom ghost in the last stall of a Korean school, which offers victims a fatal choice between red and blue toilet paper. The informant learned through his mother that the legend likely originated in Japan among schoolgirls before diffusing into Korean school culture, where it became widely known under the broader category of quedam — a Korean term for traditional, well-known ghost stories. The legend is deeply tied to a specific institutional context: the Korean high school system’s requirement that students remain on campus studying until late at night, which creates the dark, isolated conditions that make the story feel plausible and threatening.

Analysis:

This text is a legend: it is set in the real world, targeting a specific location and population, and designed to feel believable rather than fantastical. Thus, Linda Degh’s point that legends function as debates about belief is useful here: the story doesn’t demand full belief, but it enacts enough doubt that a student alone in a dark school bathroom at 10 p.m. might hesitate and feel scared. This is also the legend’s social function; it governs behavior within the folk group of Korean students, creating informal rules around a vulnerable, isolated situation. Moreover, the story’s transnational diffusion from Japan to Korea is a clear example of oicotypification: the core structure travels across borders while adapting to fit the local institutional context of Korean school culture. The legend also does what ghostlore characteristically does: it attaches supernatural danger to a specific, mundane location, transforming an ordinary school bathroom into a site of folk belief. The story’s survival across generations and national borders speaks to its resonance with universal anxieties around isolation, darkness, and vulnerability.




Pig Dream

Age: 51

Text: My family informant told me about a long-standing superstition among Koreans, in which having a dream about a pig is viewed as an omen for good luck, particularly for money.

Context: This superstition was told to me by my father over the phone when the topic of dreams came up. He mentioned having a dream with a pig appearing in our apartment, and regretted not being able to buy a lottery ticket the next day, as the dream slipped his mind as he carried on throughout his day with work and other responsibilities. He explained that in Korean culture, a pig dream is seen as a good omen for financial success, and it can be deduced from his regret that he shared this same interpretation. While he could not recall where he first heard this superstition, he said that most people who were born and grew up in Korea know about this superstition. Later on, he sent a Korean blog post that explained the origins of the superstition, with the blog explaining the linguistic background of the pig superstition. Before Korean (Hangul) was created, Koreans used Chinese letters (Hanja), and they noticed that the Chinese word for pig (don) sounded just like the word for money (also don) in Korean.

Analysis: This is an example of a traditional folklore in which its origin cannot be pinpointed to a specific person or time, and is transmitted orally from my informant to me. At a surface level, beyond the language explanation, I could see why a pig dream could be interpreted as fortune. With Korea having a history of famines among the commons, the physical traits of a fat and well-fed pig naturally makes it a symbol of prosperity. In fact, in North Korea, where its aspects like famines and strict social hierarchies mirror previous Korean kingdoms, beauty standards share themes with this pig superstition. While South Korea obsesses over skinny figures, a round face and “healthy” body is seen as beautiful in North Korea, as it signals the individual as well-fed and wealthy. Overall, I believe this pig superstition’s origins offers an interesting cultural and historical insight of Korean communities from its origin that came from a wordplay between two languages, and symbolisms that stemmed from a struggling society.