The Year of the White Tiger

2010 is the Year of the White Tiger, and therefore, is the most propitious and powerful of all the five possible tigers in the 60-year “zodiac” cycle. The Korean “zodiac” borrowed from the Chinese actually is a western translation of the concept of 띠 but is in fact quite different as the 띠 has 12 yearly cycles instead of monthly cycles.

The Korean “zodiac” is much more complicated that the western “zodiac” as the 띠 is based on 10 heavenly stems - with each identified by yin or yang, with one of the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water), and also with each assigned one of five colors – and by 12 earthly branches which are associated with animals. 10 heavenly stems X 12 earthy branches = 120 and the lowest common denominator of 120 by both 10 and 12 is 60. Therefore, 60 is the Sexagenary Cycle of the Korean “zodiac” system. Most notably with this cycle, when a person reaches 61 Korean age or 60 in actually living years, he or she has lived a “full” life; he or she has completed his or her Sexagenary Cycle and an honorary birthday celebration marking this great date is held, hoegap.

Tigers Deified

Tigers had holy or celestial qualities. First, tigers were deified as the third animal in the 띠 cycle. Then each month was assigned a representative animal and tiger is the first animal of the year, to kick off the spring [remembering of course that this cycle is based on the lunar cycles and Lunar New Year usually falls somewhere in late January to mid-February]. Each day is further assigned to each of the 12 animals, and the tiger hours are the third 2-hour block (3am-5am) in the 24 hours as introduced by the Roman Empire. Therefore to ask someone’s 사주 - year, month, day and hour of birth – is to tell their fortune - 사주하다.

A now obsolete but old folk tradition kept women at home on the first day of the tiger year as that day was Prime Tiger Day, and among mountain villages, if a visiting woman used the privy at another’s house, the family of that house would be a victim of a tiger in that year.

Tigers were also considered village guardian deities, and their images were painted on fans around images of central and important village people, monks or absent landlords. [Perhaps this could be likened to totemism, but am not sure.] Not only were they village deities but they were also transports to the other world after death. Pictured is a monk riding the propitious white tiger to the other world (not clear where the other world or the after-life is). Notice the elephant trunk on the tiger; this is due to the tiger not being earthly but mythical. Pictured taken from a Won Buddhism temple side door.

In pungsujiri, Chinese feng sui, celestial tigers were representative of the western direction, and so were painted on tomb murals and coffins in the west to ensure safety to the kings within. [I am only familiar with tigers being used in royal tombs and not high-statused yangban, which might be an oversight on my part as the representative animal for the king was the dragon.]

Other Folks Beliefs about Tigers

Tiger stones were constructed around royal tombs looking outward away from the tomb to protect the king from magui, evil spirits. These 호석 or tiger stones were the physical representation of a guardian protector and are not to be confused with the celestial tiger painted inside the tomb representing protection from the west. Their features were varied just as the character of the tiger can not be captured in stone.

Tigers were heavily used as talismans, and throughout the Yongin Folk Village this year on every door is a representative tiger talisman. Since this year is the Year of the Tiger, a tiger talisman paper is tacked on the main gate doors to prevent the evil from coming within. Talisman stamps and papers were often of both the tiger and the magpie as the magpie was an auspicious flight animals for bringing good luck and happiness and the tiger, when pronounced in Chinese, has homonymic word play on the word "happiness". Thus, the animals are often protrayed together, and here the tiger was a propitious animal. Notice also that the tiger is portrayed comically as if the animal were not fearful but a creature of jest and inspiring alarm (as they truly did in every day life until the early 1900s.)

Sometimes within a traditional house a piece of furniture with bamboo and tigers can be seen. This imagery is suggesting that the tiger is to be feared but painted or presented in conjunction with bamboo, which pops loudly and makes frightening sounds with being burned, the tiger can be overcome. The bamboo is seen as authentic protection from the fearful tiger.

Tigers in Stories and Myths

Tigers appear frequently in Korean fairy tales. In fact, the traditional fairy tale didn’t start out like the western counterpart “Once upon a time, long, long ago … ” but rather began with the mythical and mystical beginning “Long ago when tigers smoked long pipes … ” Here the tiger was given dignity as a human, and the longer the pipe the human smoked, the higher the status he (only men smoked) had. The tiger was given high class and equated to humans. Some fairy tales even suggest a brotherhood between he tiger and the human.

In the telling of the many fairy tales, tigers were portrayed as having dignity and especially as having moral conduct, for example, the tiger that ate an old woman’s only son and when the old woman wailed and lamented the tiger felt shame and became the surrogate filial son of the old woman until she died. Virtue, honor, dignity, filial piety among others were values of the Confucian society and these values were projected on the tiger in the telling of tales.

Hamoni

하모니 (Harmony) is a tear-jerking movie playing in the theaters. Koreans love the sad movies, particularly women, as the sad has been a long-term engulfing emotion of Korea due to the history of being a "shrimp in a line of whales", basically a weak little country between a line of stronger countries that have invaded her fertile womb - her land and stolen her women - in her long 5000-year history. And yet, though sad movies are popular with the female population, it is not necessary to reserve a seat ahead of time as guaranteed last-minute watchers can always get a couple seats together somewhere somehow in the theater to wring a tear, but don't expect such presumption and spontaneity for a thriller or action movie.

Though Hamoni in the hangeul-ized 'harmony' and is named so for its musical story, the title is really a near homonymic play on words with 할모니, halmoni or grandmother, as the story centers around a young woman with her baby in prison and a compassionate grandmother-type who shares her cell. In fact, four women share the cell but the movie only portrays why the young mother, the grandmother-type, and a new cellmate are in prison. The young mother was there for inadvertently killing her husband in self-defense when he was kicking her and her soon-to-be-born child. The new cellmate also was a victim of husband-abuse and accidentally killed her husband with a statue-blow when she was being physically abused. As for the grandmother-type, in a rage of passion she ran over her husband (and his lover) after discovering him cheating on her.

Some strong residual Confucian values lie superficially buried in the society as portrayed by this movie. Basically, women were (and even now, frequently by law, are) to be dominated by men, women were (even by law still are) to remain faithful and virtuous while men have cultural leniency to go philandering. And if women, even unintentionally, kill in their self-defense, the law does not allow for such circumstances. And yet for this movie to even make the screen, Christian principles within the society are apparent.

Confucian principles were for the nobility, the strong, the man while Christian principles required attention given to all humans, women included, the suppressed and the weak as all men (and women) were created equally. This movie then evokes the Christian ethos as women have been the suppressed and downtrodden of Korean society, and even today to some extent as is seen through legislature. The movie depicts women as weak (or weaker than men at least according to law) and yet the viewpoint about them is not judgmental but rather from their point-of-view for the audience to identify with their predicament, their sadness.

Christian ethos focuses not on patriarchy with its emphasis on male lineage and honor to the most aged man but embodies patrimony with its father figure (or mother figure in the movie) protecting the young. Women are the nurturers and the child, even the adopted child which has been shunned in the past, is to be nurtured. In fact, at one point in the movie the child born in prison was desperately ill and the mother, in order to take him to the hospital, had to be handcuffed. With her nurturing love, she accepted her fate but the attitudes in the emergency room of parents protecting their children from seeing the criminal and the child of a criminal and the doctor's casual joking and slighting looks even now speak of a society that still labels people on a heirarchical scale as outcasts, allowing no compassion for them or their circumstances. However, by the director addressing the criminal women's circumstances from an insider-perspective and for people to respond with sniffles throughout the movie, it is obvious that the traditional society of patriarchy is being supplanted with patrimonious compassion for those who would previously have been just labeled, and then shunned accordingly.

Seolnal Celebrations: At the Folk Museum

추석, (Chuseok) Korean Thanksgiving or Harvest Moon, and 설날, (Seolnal) Lunar New Year, are the two largest holidays in the Korean calendar. Due to the lunar calendar being counted by moons rather than by fixed periods of monthly times as is the solar calendar, this year Seolnal actually fell on February 14, Valentine's Day. Although Valentine's Day has been a borrowed celebration day, most assuredly for marketing reasons, this year Valentine's Day got little attention. While there were boxes of chocolates in red and bouquets of candy and flowers in exotic colors of pink and fuchsia, the gift boxes on the majority of store shelves focused on familial gift giving rather than that of the romantic.

While a majority of restaurants were closed, museums and food stalls with bungabbang (fish bread), cotton candy and yut candy (rice-malt taffy) near them flourished. The Korean Folk Museum was packed with people nibbling on food stall goodies and children playing the traditional games in the several courtyards. A particular favorite was 윷놀이 (yoot - pictured) with its four one-sided colored sticks and a wooden gameboard. The game was originally used for divining which of five livestock to raise in small farming communities but now most people are unaware of its origins and simply enjoy the game, especially on Lunar New Years.

Other games being played were tuho, arrow-throwing. I have heard that originally tuho was a court game for teaching young boys dexterity with the throwing arm, but now children simply enjoy the simple sport of throwing dull-tipped arrows in a vase or jar 2-3 meters away, which in itself is a good eye-hand coordination activity for active children on New Years. Neol-ttuigi or Korean see-saw (pictured) is also a game reserved principally for New Years but was once an activity for young girls of the upper classes who were locked within their Confucian home walls for preventing men from looking upon their fresh faces, a family affront as women were not to be seen by non-family members. So young girls would jump on a board higher and higher in order to catch fleeting glimpses over their courtyard walls.

Set up in white festive tents around the perimeter of several courtyards were other activities for all members of the family. Because 2010 is the Year of the White Tiger and masks have important cultural significance within Korea, one tent offered tiger mask making. Kite making was another favorite and the kites ranged from the taegukki (the Korean flag) to animal figures, particularly with the tiger, on them. Decades ago children would fly kites on Seolnal and when the kite was flying high, the children would make their New Years wish and sever the string, and if something happened like the kite flying away and not crashing to earth, their dream would come true. This is definitely a cultural practice of the past and most likely the modern child hasn't even heard of the old dream-come-true practice.

Neighboring tents offered the traditional art of hanja, Korean traditional paper, to be made into pencil boxes which were essential for the Confucian scholar and also hanja serving bowls with chrysanthemum or other symbolic flowers stylized in their centers. Unsurprisingly for present-day Korea, all ages and both genders were participating in the hanja crafts. About some aspects like arts and crafts, men under 30 or so do not feel their manhood threatened by participating in what was formerly a woman's artform; in a way, the younger generations have been eMANcipated from specific sexual spheres of expectations.

Several food tents were also located on a strip and for a token amount of money a sample of some traditional delicacy could be purchased. Lines were long and people patient for the tasty food trifles. While people waited, a nearby tent served briskly and efficiently a never-ending flow of chrysanthemum tea, but just a wee sip in traditional tea set services, of course minus the elegant and time-consuming ceremonial service of the Choseon Dynasty. Chrysanthemums were not only for tea in Korea but were medicinal and also profoundly artistic, particularly as they are known as one of the Four Gracious Plants which together are a cyclical balance of seasons of which the chrysanthemum was the representative of autumn.

The area, however, which caught the most attention was for the deok (rice cake) maker. A man in the traditional hemp working class garb with his shock of black hair tied with a white cloth bandana-style related stories of long ago, stories related to ddeok. After 2 or 3 stories with the children correcting him in his telling, he would empty a dishpan of steamed rice onto an immense hemp cloth and with his large wooden >mallet begin pounding. Young boys volunteered to pound and pound among the cheers of the spectators, for with each successful pound and softening blow of the mallet, the crowd was that much closer to a traditional and favorite rice-cake treat, and one that was hand-made! As soon as the rice had been pounded into a glutinous mass, doughy wads were rolled in bean-powder and the crowd delighted in receiving even a tiny cake of yellow bean-powdered coated rice cake, the most traditional food of Seolnal.

Seolnal: Lunar New Year's Day

On the morning of Seolnal, Lunar New Year Day, Koreans are to wash with pure water, a form of absolution and symbolic cleansing from last year's happenings, and then to don new clothes [most preferably the traditional hanbok] which is also symbolic of starting anew. Even in modern-day Korea with its Western influences, Koreans are still tied to their folk traditions of giving honor to their ancestors in the form of ancestral rites, charye. Only men do the deep bow, saebae, before the ancestors' memorial tablet as only men are linked by blood to the ancestors. Their wives serve the food and men, before they do the bow, arrange the food according to colors: white food in the east and red food in the west. [Paying such careful attention to food arrangement is only of importance when honoring the dead.]

Once the ancestors up to the fourth generation have been honored and bowed to three times, gije, [sije, honoring the ancestors 5 generations removed and upward is rare nowadays], then all descendants (the women by marriage are included this time) descend upon the food and enjoy the food that has been 'blessed' by the ancestors.

The typical new year food is ddeokguk or rice-cake soup [pictured left in lower right corner]. This is served following the charye ceremony and all members of the household turn one year older after eating the soup. This aging process is based on a cultural concept of collectivism rather than individualism, that of every individual celebrating his or her own birth day. With the traditional Korean aging method, when a child is born, he or she is one year of age at birth as from conception his or her development process began. [A side note to this is that Koreans also regard the womb period to be 10 months in duration instead of what Westerners consider to be 9.] Confusingly, a child born a few days before Seolnal would be considered to be one at time of birth and two at Seolnal.

This year I was invited to my Korean friend's house for the good luck meal of ddeokguk. The food was various with several meat dishes reflecting the honor of the ancestors performed earlier [which unfortunately I was not invited to observe]. The red meat had been on the western side of the table and the fish, virtually always complete with eyeballs and innards, had been on the eastern side of the table. Other dishes had been arranged between according to the judgment of the eldest son before the three-generation male-members of the household did head-to-floor saebae to their ancestors.

Moving Pojang-style

Due to the high mobility of Korean households and enterprising individuals cashing in on that mobility, especially in the busy dual-parent working households, a somewhat new style of moving has evolved. Pojang! Pojang is the concept of packing for carrying out purposes and the concept was originally for packing up an item for taking it out of a store. Now pojang has been broadened in meaning and refers to packing up a home by hired movers and unpacking the goods in the new home in accordance with the owners specifications.

When hiring movers, an agent will come and briefly look through the house to evaluate the quantity in number and in volume of items to be moved. Then clarification on 이반 (regular) or 포장 (packing for carry-out) will be determined. If the customer chooses 일반-style, then he or she is expected to have everything ready in boxes or containers for easy removal from the apartment [a very time-consuming process because not only do boxes and containers have to be found - not easy on the street or from stores because some elderly people earn a little extra money by collecting boxes and reselling them to recycling centers - but all breakables must be carefully packed]. If 포장-style is chosen, then the customer just opens the door, maybe directs some traffic or packaging specifications, or as in my case, just takes a few pictures now and then to document the incredible speed of the movers, be responsible for the well-being of my terrified cat or to tell the movers the neighbor's bike needs to remain the neighbor's bike.


In Western culture it would be considered arrogant of me now to help pack and unpack my own possessions, but here, I was not expected to do anything. When the lady who was assisting the packing came in, I greeted her and explained to her because of my dislocated rib I couldn't help. She just said "Of course" and took charge. I was shocked that she not only efficiently put things in crates but she also scrubbed out my fridge and the frozen food spills in my freezer, and when we got over to my new apartment, she scoured my cupboards. If I would have known that was included in 포장-style moving, a lot of scrubbing pain could have been spared.

The two men were equally brisk. One whizzed into my bedroom and packed all my clothes in clean plastic containers. He found my vacuum in a closet and vacuumed the cat fuzz off the backs of the wardrobes and all pieces of furniture. The other poor guy squinted through the whole moving time due to long-haired fluff floating from behind the books and bookcases as he moved them.


As the objects were cleaned and packaged for careful transporting, they were put in the living room and quickly whisked out the door to the hired elevator truck [an additional and separate expense not included on the original 포장 moving agreement but agreed on before the actual packing began]. A fourth person operated the elevator-truck and unloaded each load into the moving truck. Once all was loaded, I whizzed through the apartment checking for forgotten items, jotted down the numbers from the city gas meter and closed up the apartment.

Then the reverse took place. The movers got everything in my apartment and I briefly directed where the items should be and made sure the extension cords were laid behind the big items so I could easily reconnect my electronics... And then a friend called so I went to lunch. When I returned a half hour later, the three movers were walking out of my new apartment. Everything had been unpacked, the curtains rehung and the floor had been mopped. How awfully easy even though 3 of the 4 curtains were hung in the wrong rooms and 2 of them were hung backwards. I paid the movers the balance and we were all happy! 5 hours and 20 minutes from arrival to departure. Incredible!

Proselytizing

Since religion (Protestantism) was introduced in about 1880, native Koreans have been the principle ones to take religious beliefs to fellow Koreans. Even today there is quite a bit of proselytizing on the street, in the subway and frequently door-to-door. Jehovah's Witnesses travel in pairs, usually of young people with one young person having English speaking capabilities. They stop people to chat with them on the streets and ultimately to put their printed materials in the others' hands. The Watchtower and Awake are the two magazines I have received a number of times, and every time I find an article or two that is quite interesting. I don't really like being 'disturbed' when I'm going somewhere, and the Jehovah's Witnesses are very persistent, but I at least try to talk with them for a few moments since they do get rebuffed quite a lot for what they sincerely believe in and try to share.


Today two women came ringing my doorbell and they represented the Church of God, specifically the World Mission Society Church of God and they were excited about sharing about the Heavenly Mother. I've spoken with a pair of women before but cannot understand why this particular church places so much emphasis on the New Jerusalem Mother or Heavenly Mother when Jesus is the one who died for people's sins and should be the focus of people's deep appreciation and awe. And today, unfortunately, I didn't have time to spend chatting to delve deeper. They did however place in my hands their brochure 세상에서 가장 아듬다은 말 어머니 Mother which roughly translates as "Mother's Most Beautiful Words" - see www.watv.org for more information. They were also very insistent that I repeat "Heavenly Mother" before they left and said their farewell in English too, "God bless you".

I've received pamphlets, brochures, flyers, booklets and packets of tissues with church advertising on them by pairs or groups of usually women on street corners, at hiking trail heads or other areas proxemic to the church(es) the people represent. Sometimes there are flyers on my door [actually anything posted on my door is one of my pet peeves ... more on that later] and deposited in my mailbox [the same pet peeve]. What I have deduced from people proselytizing is that since Korea has been a society based on word-of-mouth, connections and invitation to events, proselytizing is a way of making others aware of church activities. The methods of placing printed materials in others' hands is used for many kinds of advertising - examples, store opening announcements, pizza discount event prices, etc. and so, strange as it seems for churches to use such sometimes very annoying practices of getting paper in pedestrians' or other people's hands, the churches are simply following a trend in marketing to raise awareness of their church and services.

Moving Superstitions

Two years when I was first moving into my present apartment, a friend gave her advice on how to properly prepare a home: the first action to take upon moving into a home was to plant or put a vial with a bamboo shoot on the northern-most wall or window of a home. Either this would ward off evil or be auspicious for me - I can't remember. Not sharing that superstition and certainly not understanding the reasoning behind it, I didn't do it but when I arrived at my new home with the moving truck I did notice that on the biggest bag of stripped wall paper and trash that needed carrying out was a vial of bamboo. Evidently when a person moves, the vial is also the last object to be removed from the house. The previous residents of my apartment also applied clear orchid-printed contact paper to the sliding glass windows on the north. If there is any special significance to that, I don't know but I do know that bamboo, plum blossoms, orchids and chrysanthemums are the Four Gracious Plants with each symbolizing a season (respectively winter, spring, summer and fall) and en masse having special significance to calligraphers who often painted them individually or collectively.

Another symbol in my house is shamanistic in origin, a yellowed paper about seven inches square with red text of some kind on it. The paper is hung over the lintel of my bedroom door and it is likely that connected with it there was a shamanistic house-moving gut (exorcism) held to help move or appease the house spirits. The meaning of the red square-stylized text is unknown to me but in a couple of days I will move again ... and my new home is devoid of cultural and shamanistic symbols. With off-white walls and windows without contact paper, I can create my own atmosphere and if there is any symbolism involved, it will be created through my books ... the symbols of a scholar [maybe just symbolism only, but the kind that is more propitious to the brain].

A Cultural Taste of Vietnam

Browsing a street in Hyewha, one of the vital culture zones for youths at leisure, the warm brothy soup at the Paris-Hanoi restaurant caught my eye and led my nostrils. Vietnamese food is tasty, light and refreshing. A pot of jasmine tea and a petite teacup were on my culturally vermilion table even before I sat down to order beef pho (noodles). I love the ambiance of Asian restaurants and the ambiance at Paris-Hanoi clearly showed the historical culture-exchanges between China and the Kingdom of Anam (the former name of Vietnam). Red predominated and sprigs of fake but authentic looking flowers graced slim lacquered vases. Dragon images and lattice decor reflected the Asian spirit. On the round inlay-worked shelves, however, were uniquely Southeast Asian art and the fuller-faced Buddha of a dark metal typical of the south.


Other cultural similarities yet differences lie on the table. Though round chopsticks are used in both Vietnam and China, Vietnamese use shorter chopsticks than the Chinese but slightly longer ones than the squarish Korean chopsticks. The Vietnamese also use the culturally borrowed short bowl-shaped soup spoon of the Chinese whereas Koreans use a long handled flattish-bowled spoon.

The soup bowl came with its side-dishes of lemoned onion slices, instead of the ubiquitous pickles or kimchi of Korea, and fresh bean sprouts with lemon to squeeze. Two sauces, one sweetish and nutty and the other peppery, are for mixing and spicing up the soup broth to one's own taste. And while noodles are in all three cultures, each culture has its own unique cut and varying ingredients not to mention soup bases and principle herbs for flavoring ... and today's Asian flavor is definitely Vietnamese!

Moving Fortune-Teller

Near the Namdaemun Market in an underground alley a bevy of women were excitedly gathered around an object of great amusement. And where women are gathered, especially middle-aged women, foreign women get accepted, so I peered over the shoulders of the women who went from being enthralled to jabbering away. Sitting cross-legged on a mat on the cement was a middle-aged fortune-teller dressed in mix-match of western and traditional: a western coat over his traditional mauve-purple hanbok, white BYC socks and wearing a rather full beard for a Korean. Many fortune-tellers have a straggly hair or beard appearance but his was neatly clipped and his nails were manicured, projecting himself apparently as a scholar-gentleman. With great fanfare and ado he was offering his astounding insights on moving dates and the women were loving it. Not only the ladies though but even male passerbys would stop to listen, chuckle at the ladies and myself before moving along.


Never looking up, the fortune-teller would scratch down prospective moving dates, cross out some, circle others, consult his raggedy dog-eared date-almanac and then scratch out others. Finally after soliloquizing to himself as if no other were around and filling a sheet or two with Chinese characters and numbers, he would circle a date and declare it the best - a Saturday for both of the ladies who consulted him and which in fact is the easiest date for housewives and hubbies to coordinate moves (coincidence?). His phenomenal charge for all his enthralling monologue and hard work was a whopping 5000won (about $5).

Snowy Day at Lake Park, Ilsan

Snow, snow, the pleasure of children to be doubly enjoyed at Lake Park in Ilsan. The Lake Park is principally designed to be entertaining to Korea's young [as are most culture centers today even though there is a burgeoning aging society]. Lake Park is attractive to children, parents with children and dating couples. Others are certainly welcome but they would very likely be in the minority if they looked around and paid attention to age.

The pictures here were taken about three weeks ago when Seoul and its vicinity enjoyed a surprising amount of snow that stayed for a few days, long enough for children to get some delight while parents met transportation and housing difficulties. The snow was, however, a time for at least one family to spend time together and build a snowman that looked surprisingly like the Cheju Island harubang (traditional grandfather stone - pictured) with its bulging eyes.

Ice-skates would be a needless expense as ice is rather uncommon for any length of time. However, shoes and boots work perfectly well, especially when father gets some out-of-office exercise and drags his screaming daughter across the ice in zippy play.


The time to play with children - as is evident by parents and their offspring in parks and public places - is until the children reach middle-school age. After that time, seeing parents and children together gets to be rather uncommon. Part of this is due to the "education hell" that children compete against through high school in order to get good grades for enterting a prestigious university. But until that time, kids can enjoy time spent with their parents and 눈설매 (snow sledding) is a favorite for the little kiddies.


I couldn't resist posting this picture because it just shows how uncommon a big snow is and what means of snow removal must be used. These two "snow removal" vehicles are little more than toys but they had to do suffice. The smallest one in the foreground could barely move the little scoop of snow as it just couldn't get traction on the tiled walkway.