Tag Archives: Korean

Korean Superstition – Hair cutting

Nationality: Korean
Age: 62
Occupation: Truck Driver
Residence: Cerritos, California
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: Korean

It is bad luck to cut your hair or fingernails at night.

 

My informant first heard this superstition from his father some time during the late fifties in his hometown, the rural city of Daegu in Korea.  When he took out nail clippers from his drawer one night, his father ordered him to put it back in the drawer.  His father warned him that it was very bad luck to clip your nails at night.  Suk-Won’s father had learned from his father that at night crows lurk about and would pick up the discarded nails in their beaks and drop them off into the fields.  The nails would keep the seeds from sprouting and suck the nutrients out of the soil.  Afterwards there would be seasons without any good harvest.  The nails would have been easily accessible to the crows because Koreans who lived on farms during 1950’s and even now have paper doors that slide in their homes.  They do not have the hard wooden doors with knobs as we are accustomed to in America.

I do not believe that nails in the soil are detrimental to the growth of crops.  However, people in the countryside were sensitive about anything pertaining to their harvest because that was their only means of living.  Particularly living in the city nowhere near the action of agriculture, I do not heed this superstition at all since there.  Once again the Korean culture has an extremely negative view on the crow.  Farmers were superstitious that the crows would not only bring death through merely crowing in front of their homes but indirectly by preventing a successful harvest.

Korean Origin Myth

Nationality: Korean
Age: 62
Occupation: Truck Driver
Residence: Cerritos, California
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: Korean

A spirit descended from the heavenly skies in search of a bride. If you feed animals garlic for a hundred days, they will transform into women. Thus, the spirit imprisoned a tiger and a bear in the Baik-Doo Mountain for a hundred days, feeding them garlic. However, the short-fused tiger escaped before the hundred days while the patient bear waited. The bear consequently transformed into a woman, and the spirit took her for his bride. They bore a son, the Dang-Goon, the creator of Korea. That is how the country of Korea came to be.

 

My informant first learned this myth in his elementary school in Daegu, Korea.  His teacher taught his class how Korea became what it was that day.  She started with this particular myth that explains how the great predecessor was divinely created – directly from a heavenly spirit and a bear turned into a woman.  The children believe the story completely, especially since Baik-Doo Mountain is an actual mountain.  Everyone in Korea is familiar with this myth; it is something that has been told from generation to the next.  It has become a vital part of the Korean tradition.

It is common for the Koreans to use animals in their narratives and give the animals characteristics.  Oftentimes, the tiger is portrayed as conniving, ravenous, and temperamental.  Therefore in this myth, the tiger cannot stand the hundred days and escapes.  The bear is usually portrayed as wise, slow and lazy, though.  The bear in the myth remains patiently.  Although this myth shows the bear in a positive aspect, in other Korean stories, the bear can represent stupidity and indolence.  I was not surprised to hear that the bear was the animal that waited long enough to become a woman.  In my opinion, Koreans have such a myth as this to reinforce the idea that their first king was not a mortal being but a direct descendent from a god.

Korean Crow Superstition

Nationality: Korean
Age: 62
Occupation: Truck Driver
Residence: Cerritos, California
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: Korean

If a crow cries in front of your house, death is near.

 

My informant first heard this when he eleven years old, living in the rural city of Daegu, Korea.  He had woken up early in the morning not to the rooster’s crow but to the cawing of a crow.  His father also awoke to chase the bird away.  His father cautioned him to be careful for the rest of the week because crows usually caw in front of a household that has death in its near future.  The cawing of these birds struck such fear in families.

The crow is not a welcome omen in the American culture, either.  I would think so because the crow is a fowl that is completely black.  Usually black is a sign of something ominous, evil, and more specifically death – hence, people wear black to funerals.  In Korea the term for crow has the meaning “blacky.”  I remember pulling into our driveway with my mother, and she was disconcerted to see a crow resting on our porch.  She chased it away as he described his father had done.  The black ominous figure casts a shadow over people who believe the crow brings news of death.

Birth rituals

Nationality: Korean-American
Performance Date: 14 April 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Jean is a Korean-American woman whose parents moved to the United States in 1966. She shared with me some customs and rituals that her family performed during her first pregnancy.
“I’d gotten an ultrasound and so was told that it was a 70% chance we’d have a girl [they did]. Mom insisted on my lying down, and then she held a string tied around a pencil over my belly and watched it turn slowly. When it stopped in a particular position, she then declared I’d be having a girl for sure.

“My non-Korean husband and I also wanted to give our daughter a Korean middle name, so my mom went to a name broker for a list of lucky names using the second syllable that would be part of it. In Korea, each generation of a particular branch of a particular surname shares one syllable in their first name. There’s literally a list of syllables for each generation (my dad showed me the family book, written in Chinese characters, which he owns because he is the first son of a first son and so on), and the list specifies whether or not the syllable will be the first or second part of the name. All of the male siblings and cousins in that family will have the same syllable. My dad even discovered he had a cousin very far removed because when they met for the first time, they shared the same syllable in their first name. Usually the naming happens after the baby is born because things like date and time of birth affect the naming, but because we were in the US and needed to put something on the birth certificate right away, mom and the broker used the due date. Since this naming is usually applied only to the males of the family, which may be why quite a few Korean people have commented that my daughter’s Korean name is more masculine than feminine.

Mom also made me a traditional after-birth soup, seaweed soup (mi-yuk gook), which I ate for several days, [one recipe available here: http://koreanfood.about.com/od/soupsandstews/r/miyukgook.htm] and then she asked if I could please stay home and not go out with the baby for 3 months. In the olden times, the newborn and mom didn’t go out for that period of time, which makes sense because of cold weather, too many folks who might pass on sicknesses, and general infant mortality rate. We then had a 100-day party (small) to officially celebrate her birth, and then on her first birthday, my parents held a really big party to celebrate their grandchild’s coming out. My daughter wore a traditional hanbok, and at the ceremonial table, several items were placed in front of them. The item she grabbed first would mean something about her life to be. She picked up uncooked rice, so my mom said she would never be hungry. (Pencils represented a scholar; money meant she would always have money; string meant a long life, etc.)”

These traditions are interesting because they reflect beliefs shared by many cultures regarding the importance of birth in determining the way a child’s life will progress. For example, the family book containing the name syllables and the tradition of each member of a generation sharing a particular syllable is similar to the less ritualized Western traditions of “family names” that are passed on through generations- my father is Edward Alexander Jr. and if I had been a boy, I would have been Edward Alexander III.

The 3 months ritual and the 100 days party are very interesting because they are traditions carried over from a time without pre-natal care and obstetrics, yet they still survive. Also interesting to note is that because Jean and her husband were living in the U.S. and needed a name right away, they modified the naming tradition a little bit and had the broker use the due date for the baby. It is possible that future generations of her family will continue to do the same thing, if they continue to live in the United States.

“Gook” and “Tianmu” Origination Legend/Starcraft and Koreans.

Nationality: Asian American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Room 4203B, 920 W. 37th PL. Los Angelos, California 90007
Performance Date: 4/22/2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant is a third generation Chinese American male student. He grew up in Irvine, California. During dinner in a shopping center, he mentioned the following origination legend of the word “gook” (He was eating Korean food, which prompted his anecdote):

“Informant: Ok, so, why are Koreans called gooks?

Collector: Why?

Informant: Well, during the Korean War, the South Korean troops would applaud the American soldiers when they came walking through the fields to liberate them and they’ll cry out, “Megook! Megook!”, which means “America” in Korean. However, the American soldiers, in all their wisdom, felt that the Korean soldiers were identifying themselves as gook, “me gook”; hence they started calling them gooks. So the Koreans are called me “gook!”, me “gook!”. “Oh, you call yourself gook! I get it, you guys are all gooks!”

Collector: Ok, so where did you hear this?

Informant: I heard it from my Korean friends.

Collector: Do you know where he heard it from?

Informant: He’s Korean [laughter]. He was probably born knowing this story, kind of like how he was born knowing how to play Starcraft, and born knowing that they created the sundial.

Collector: [laughter] Well, what do you think is the importance of that little tidbit of history?

Informant: The term “gook” is often used to apply to Southeast Asian populations, as well as Koreans. This kind of says that Koreans are indeed number 1.”

This legend is set during the Korean War from 1950 – 1953 and explains the origination of the racial slur “gook”. My informant’s tone of voice implies that the Americans are, as he says, liberators (“the good guys”) but nonetheless foolish. The foolishness of the American soldiers lies in their assumption that everyone speaks English and in their misunderstanding of the Korean that the Koreans are speaking. The legend suggests that the American soldiers hold a sort of bigoted assumption that everyone naturally speaks English.

Interestingly, I, myself, have heard a variation of this legend in 2005 from a cram school math teacher in Tianmu, Taipei, Taiwan. Here’s a bit of background on me: I’m a third generation Chinese Taiwanese male student who was born in Taipei, Taiwan. I speak English and Chinese. I lived in Taipei for two years before moving to New Jersey, where I lived for seven years. After that, I returned to Taipei where I finished high school.

My cram school math teacher performed this legend as a joke item in between math tests.

For more information on Tien-mu, click this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianmu,_Shilin_District.

As I remember, the story goes:

“Do you know where the name Tianmu comes from? Back in the 1960s, when American Soldiers occupied Tianmu, they would come into the fields and ask the Taiwanese farmers, “Where are we?” But, the Taiwanese farmers, unable to understand English, said, “Tee-yah-buo?” (‘Tee-yah-buo’ means ‘I don’t understand’ in Taiwanese), “Tee-yah-buo?”. The American Soldiers misunderstanding the farmers said, “Oh! Tian-mu! Tian-mu. Ok. OK.” Hence, Tianmu is called Tianmu.”

*My cram school math teacher performed the legend in Chinese; however, it’s been too long for me to remember the exact way he performed it.*

Both my informant and my legend deal with post-world war affairs in East Asian. While the “gook ” legend originated during or after the Korean War, the “Tianmu” legend originated during or after the American occupation of Taiwan in the 1950s, when the U.S was still fighting the Pacific front. However, the story could have also possibly originated in the 1960s when U.S soldiers stayed in Tianmu to help the reconstruction of Taipei’s economy. The legends both show a cultural remembrance in how the U.S shaped East Asia in the 1950s to 1960s post world war II and overall, portray the Americans as a positive influence yet foolish in their approach. Moreover, the tone both the legends were performed do suggest a sort of respect for the work the American soldiers did in Korea and Taiwan.

Another interesting thing my informant mentioned in his performance of the “gook” legend was:

“kind of like how he was born knowing how to play Starcraft, and born knowing that they created the sundial.”

There seems to be a widespread belief on the internet and in online gaming folk culture that Koreans are really good at Starcraft, a online real time strategy game. A simple Google search on “koreans are good at starcraft” yields 2,770,000 results.  More information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft_II:_Wings_of_Liberty.

Also, there seems to be a widespread belief that  Koreans think they invented everything, hence my informant mentions that his Korean friend was born knowing that his country created the sundial, which is not a widespread belief. A quick Google search on “koreans invented everything” yields 2,670,000 results. This is possibly a result of widespread rumors of legal claims that Korea has made to the World Heritage Foundation on several cultural artifacts, which are generally considered Chinese cultural items, such as Confucius, soybean milk and the Dragonboat festival…etc.