Makkoli - An Historical Perspective

Makkoli, makgeolli, makgoli (막걸리) is a traditional, in fact oldest, alcoholic drink of Korea. Historically, it was made of rice and a fermentation process, but now it may have wheat in addition to the rice to add an additional sweetness to the fermentation process, and also because wheat is much cheaper to produce. Unlike other alcoholic drinks, some say that makkoli utilizes and intrigues the 5 tastes (as does another traditional schisandra berry Korean tea, omijacha (오미자차, 五味子茶), named because the tea comprises five (오) distinct flavors: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and pungent).

History of Makkoli

The history of makkoli can be traced back to the Kojoseon period by documentation in The Poetic Records of Emperors and Kings (Jewangun-gi) written in the Goryeo Dynasty during the reign of King Dongmyeong. When the drink came to be called makkoli is unclear to me, but throughout history it has been called by many names. In the Goryeo Dynasty it was frequently called ehwaju (이화주), which is literally 이화 "pear blossom" plus 주 "drink", a cultural name as the drink though made of rice was made when the pear blossoms were blooming and so it appears to be a more seasonally appreciated drink.

Korea until the 1960s/1970s was predominantly an agricultural society with the majority of population as peasants. However, the name ehwaju seems to have been more frequently used by the aristocracy than the peasant class. The more common widespread name for makkoli was nongju or rather the drink of peasants - nong (농)  or peasant/farmer plus ju (주), drink. The drink was a big part of farming celebrations and particularly important as a drink for gut (exorcisms), fertility ceremonies or any ceremony for that matter, and especially for holding memorial services to the sky.

During Japanese occupation of Korea, however, makkoli was forbidden as a drink. The reasons for forbidding the imbibing of makkoli was to control the population by behavior modification, making them abstemious for probably multiple reasons but mostly so that the rice used in making makkoli could be exported for the colonial powers' personal gain. The theory is that if a power controls the food supply and celebrations of a people, the people will be easier to subjugate.

Marketing of Makkoli Nowadays

Nowadays, there is a lot of diversification of makkoli. Until quite recently, makkoli was considered a drink of the lower class, grandmothers and grandfathers, and people "from the sticks". However, with extensive marketing makkoli is gaining in popularity and young people are starting to also enjoy the drink in the newly introduced flavors:

present marketing of makkoli

chestnut makkoli

black bean makkoli

ginseng makkoli

blackberry makkoli

(many kinds of fruit) makkoli

makkoli cocktail

Makkoli started to be sold to Korean-Americans in the US in 1987, but the industry was very limited. Now, Korea is actively marketing the Korean rice wine to many countries and building up an export clientele. Already it is more widely sold in the US, Canada, Singapore and other countries. Japan, not to be outdone, has a similar product called makkori (マッコリ), the Japanese pronunciation of makkoli, which undermines some of the Korean market as people confuse the Japanese brand with the authentic Korean brand.

Even President Lee Myung Bak has used it as a Blue House banquet drink. Whether his choice of drink for  a banquet was conscious or subconscious promotion of the drink, it was probably aimed to garner support of Koreans by serving such a representative Korean drink.

One of the fairly recent marketing strategies for raising drinking interest in makkoli was to hold a festival and give a prize to whoever could offer the best marketing English name for makkoli to the foreign community. The winner determined by the Korean Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries was "drunken rice". "Mackohol" and "mackelixir" were runner-ups. However, in an 11-country survey "Korean rice wine" was determined to best convey the idea of makkoli. Some netizens pointed out that "drunken rice" is not a suitable anglicization, and in an international context, may reflect poorly on Korean cuisine in general. The name makkoli still sticks.

The Popularity of Makkoli

In former agricultural times, makkoli was the most popular drink of the common people. It was drunk by the peasants after working in the fields, at all ceremonies if it could be had and in jumak or Korean public inns. Although having fallen out of fashion through the years of Japanese control and the subsequent Korean War, it is now being promoted in our modern health-crazed age as a "well-being" drink. (Yes, Korea uses well-being as an adjective instead of a noun.)

Because makkoli has approximately 6-8% alcohol while soju has anywhere from 20-40%, the well-being value of the drink is raising interest in it as a meal accompaniment instead of the harder liquor. Also, makkoli is unfiltered unlike soju and sake (Japanese rice wine) and so it contains lactic acid and some beneficial bacterium found in yogurt. It also has dietary benefits unlike beer which contributes little to health and soju which contributes nothing but a flat-out inebriated buzz. With fiber, vitamins and trace minerals it stands out now as a "healthy" drink. And with the trendier bottling of makkoli in fancier bottles, with brand names and the addition of flavors, makkoli is once again becoming widely accepted in the Korean, as well as the international, community.

I want to thank my students, Kim Yeon Ju and Lim Jun Hwan, for outlining this information and providing the pictures. Makkoli in Wikipedia was also very helpful, among other sites for minor information.

Autonyms and Exonyms : Korea

Autonyms

An autonym is the name that a group of people or a nation uses to refer to itself - an autonym, endonym or self-appellation. (South) Koreans have three principle autonyms for referring to themselves when speaking their native language:

한국인 (hanguk-in) - the more formal "Korean person"
한국사람 (hanguk saram) - the less formal "Korean person"
대한민국 (dae Han minguk) - "country of the great Han (people)"
한민족 (han minjok) - "citizen of the Han"

What is central to all of these names is "Han", a powerful tribal and apparently roving people who occupied vast territories of the steppes in what is now Manchuria, and perhaps neighboring areas of Mongolia and Russia. This "Han" has no relationship to the imperial Chinese Han Dynasty that largely ruled between 206 BC and 221 CE, but can be traced back to the 삼한 or "Three Han", a grouping of confederacies that ruled about the time of Gojoseon's demise. It is also thought to be linked to the Turkish and Mongol "khan" or "king".

Exonyms

An exonym is a name given to a group of people that differs from what they call themselves. The "People of the Great Han", as they refer to themselves, are known in English as "Koreans", which is likely a twisting of "Goryeo" but was spoken and written "Cauli" by the Italian sailors who happened into Goryeo waters during the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392) and thus was entered onto Western maps as "Cauli" or, via a later twisting, as "Corea". Another exonym which I find very interesting was used by the Chinese to reference Korea; they called Korea 동방예의국 or "the country of courteous people of the East" in reference to Koreans taking the concepts of Confucianism, which had originated in China, and out-Confucianizing the Chinese; thus, the Koreans were recognized as a people of manners and who gave high esteem to the proper heirarchies and classes.

Korea also has been attributed the nickname of "The Land of the Morning Calm" because Joseon (朝鮮) from the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), translates into English as "morning calm". The term was coined into English by Percival Lowell in a book "Chosun: The Land of the Morning Calm" (1885) and later creatively rendered as "land of the morning calm" in a poem by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). Koreans later back-borrowed the English phrasing when referring to their country; however, in recent years the Korean government has been re-fashioning a new country imagery (not exonym, but rather a refocusing away from a now unwanted exonym) — "sparkling Korea", "Korea sparkling" and "dynamic Korea" — to counteract the stagnant imagery of the Confucian ideal of calm unchangingness and invoke more globalized imagery not resistant to change and thus modernization.

Derogatory Names

OK, I didn't want to go around and ask different ethnic groups what derogatory names they had for Koreans, so I just asked groups of Koreans themselves. At first they remained collectively silent on a topic that would disparage themselves, but when I reversed the question and asked what derogatory names they had for some of their neighboring countries - principally Japan and China - their lips spilled terms. Surprising, Koreans seem to have more abrassive terms for Chinese people than Japanese, which I find quite odd because the Japanese controlled Korea quite recently during colonial times (1910-1945) and rancor still crops up between the two groups because of that. And then ironically, the three groups of people I asked couldn't give me a derogatory term from Chinese concerning themselves, but they were all quick to tell me that Japanese contemptuously referred to Koreans as 조선인 (joseon-in) but they emphasized it was the slurred intonation of contempt and Japanese L1 that recreated the naming into the derogatory 조세징 (josei-jing). Joseon was the dynasty that was ruling when Japan invaded the country and later colonized it. It seems to me that the name itself wasn't derogatory but took on a blasphemous etymology when used by the Japanese when referring to the people as their colonial subjects and it seems the twisting of the pronunciation likewise twisted the meaning. [Case in point for "Joseon-in" now being disparaging in itself, North Koreans are referred to as 조선인 by the South Koreans, which is not derogatory but reflects the era in which the division of ethnic people was created.]

Neither of the groups were familiar with the English derogatory term for Koreans - gook - which stems probably from the Korean War (1950-1953) when the UN, principally American, soldiers were here in Korea and repetitively heard people referred to as 한국사람, 영국사람, 미국사람, etc. (respectively Korean, English, American) with the common denominator of all the names being "국" or gook, meaning "country" and then 사람 "person". I was glad that this derogatory form had fallen out of common usage and that, even if the word "Korean" is spoken in epithetical tones, it is the tones and not the word choice that shames the speaker and negatively labels the Korean people now.

Holonyms and Meronyms

Holonym and meronym are paired opposites as revealed by their Greek semantic origins: holonym is basically "whole" + "name" and meronym is "part" + "name". The holonym of the Korean peninsula is Asia as both North and South Korea can be labeled under the classification of "Asia". The meronyms (or subsets) of Asia concerning the Korean peninsula are DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and the ROK (Republic of Korea).

Airport Museum of Korean Culture

The Incheon International Airport has hosted a museum on Korean culture since 2008. The museum is not easily accessible but is found in the extension terminal, terminal 2, and only ticket-holders flying out of that terminal have access to the terminal and the museum. It's not easy to find either. To get there, as one comes up the escalator in the second terminal, the museum is located to the right and on the second floor. It’s my opinion that not many see or know about the museum as, for such a busy terminal that services a mega number of flights each day, I was rather surprised to hear that the museum only receives about 150 people on average a day. Older people and children are the most frequent visitors, foreigners comprise 50-60% of the visiting clientele, and middle-aged people and university students are a rare breed indeed to visit.

The museum collection is divided into four primary sections: The Royal Culture, Traditional Art, Traditional Music, and Print Culture. When I asked one of the tour guides (I think she's the same one who toured me around 2 years ago) about how the selection in the museum was made, she told me that all choices were made by the Director of the Korea National Museum. As I'm blogging before flying, I'm using the old brochure (pictured) and will enjoy another tour and the updated brochure when I go to the airport for my flight so I am yet unaware of how the museum has been changed within the last few months. Supposedly, three months ago major renovations of the museum took place and I'll be interested to see the changes and to know the selection process for the cultural treasures in the newly arranged museum. The museum is free and its purpose is to promote Korean culture ... so of course it's free!

So what's been in the museum since the museum's inception in 2008 until early 2012?

THE ROYAL CULTURE

Jongmyo (Royal ancestral shrine)
[Historic Site No. 125]
Jongmyo has been dedicated in the ancestral tablets of successive kings, and Jeongjeon, the central building of the shrine is also called Taemyo exclusive of Yeongnyeongjeon [sic]. Jeongjeon was dedicated to the ancestral tablets of four ancestors [King Mokjo, King Ikjo, King Dojo and King Hwanjo] of King Taejo early in the Joseon Dynasty, but after that it was altered to the place for enshrining the spirit tablets of four ancestors [great-great grandfather, great grandfather, grandfather and father] of the then king and deserving kings and queens among successive kings during the Joseon Dynasty. Jongmyo was a place for memorial services where  the state attached the most importance together with the Sajikdan, a place for holding a ceremony to pray for the god of land and grain. For that reason, its style of building has the highest formality.

Dosanseowondo (Painting of dosanseowon)
[Treasures No. 522]
It was painted by Gang Sehwang [1712-1791], a literary artist in the later Joseon Dynasty, in 1751 (27th year in the reign of King Yeongjo) depicting the actual scenery of Dosan Private Academy. Seowon means a private education institute for holding a ceremony for the repose of great men and for studying Confucianism. Dosan Private Academy was first built to pay tribute to the memory of Lee Hwang with the nom de plume Toegye [1501-1570]. The painting depicts Dosan Private Academy and its surroundings in the style of the early Namyong Painting.

Donggwoldo (Painting of the Eastern Palace)
[National Treasure No. 249]
This is a record painting which depicts Changyeonggung (palace) and Changdeokgung (palace) east of Gyeongbokgung (palace). It is presumed to be painted before 1830 by the painters of the royal painting institute. It is a valuable material which shows the features of the then palace including accessory buildings. (As I have learned, this is the painting that has helped and is helping in the reconstruction of the palaces since many have been destroyed by fire from kitchen fires and the fires of invaders and by Japanese occupation.)

TRADITIONAL CULTURE

Seokgatap (pagoda at Bulguksa)
[National Treasure No. 21]
Korean stone art with the introduction of Buddhism. Stone sculptures reached maturity in the later Three Kingdom Dynasty and were at their height in the United Silla Dynasty. Seokgatap could be called the set pattern of stone pagodas in the Silla period owing to its supremacy in balance and formative beauty.

Naesosagoryeodongjong (Goryeo bronze bell of Naesosa Temple)
[Treasure No. 277]
Naesosagoryeodongjong is a Buddhist bell, which occupies the first place of Buddhist metal craftworks. In Buddhist countries, various kind of bells have been mainly made of copper.

Gamnodo (a Buddhist painting)
[Treasure No. 1239]
This painting depicts the ritual of providing with Amnita to save sentient beings who suffer from tortures of hell. It is the oldest painting in Korea.

TRADITIONAL MUSIC

Sound of Korea
(Music conveyed through touch-type computer panels and is referred to as Music Experiential Space) Meet the sound of saenghwang, the only Korean chord instrument, as well as drum, hourglass-shaped drum and the flute.

PRINT CULTURE

Mugujeonggwangdaedharanigyeong (Dharani Sutra)
[National Treasure No. 126)
This is a roll-type dharani sutra printed on Korean paper by wood-block printing. It was found in Seokgatap (also represented in this museum) when the pagoda was dismantled for repairs in 1966. It is the world's oldest wood-block print.

Hangeul (Korean alphabet)
Hangeul is phonogram [sic] invented by King Sejong and the scholars of Jiphyeonjeon, a royal research institute, in 1446. It is unprecedented in the world on account of its objective - a crusade against illiteracy. Principles of invention referring to the shape of sound-producing organs and heaven, earth and man, and obvious proclamation time [sic]. Hangeul has been a foundation of diverse cultures by filtering into the spirit and life of Korean people for the last 560 years [sic].

Worincheongangjigok (Songs of the Moon's Reflection on a Thousand Rivers)
[Treasure No. 398]
After Queen Soheon passed away in the 28th year of the reign of King Sejong (1446 AD], King Sejong ordered his son, Crown Prince Suyang [King Sejo-to-be], to translate a Buddhist book into Hangeul and compile it in order to pray for the repose of her and this is the result "Seokbo Sangjeol" [Episodes from the life of the Buddha.] Upon seeing his son's work of devotion, King Sejong was so moved by what his son had written that in the 29th year of the reign of King Sejong [1447 AD], he composed the hymns of praise known as the Songs of the Moon's Reflection on a Thousand Rivers, based on two phrases [sic].

OK, so I shamelessly copied what was in the brochure. In February 2012 on my last visit to the museum, I took pictures but the angles just aren't right and the lighting is so shadowy, so I'm not posting them. Anyway, the names of the tangible and intangible treasures are correct and sufficient for looking up more on each of the treasures in this museum if someone is inclined to do so. The items selected in this museum are a bit of an irony to me, as many of the artifacts reflect Buddhist culture which has not been mainstream since the reign of the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, since King Sejong that is. But then maybe that does make sense because Confucianism was a philosophy that spurned ostentation and the material but focused more on the mind and the aesthetics of society. Confucianism therefore does not lend such an attractive display for a museum!