Korean Rice Cake Metaphors

Korean rice cakes is one of Korean traditional food. Like many other countries, Korea has various kinds of traditional food. Among them, one that is always on the table is rice cakes (ddeok). Korean rice cakes is made from rice or cereal flour and is either steamed or boiled. It is prepared for all occasions whether happy or sad, for Korean birthdays, festive days, or funerals.

Korean rice cakes (fancy)

Korean birthday cake (baekseolgi)

Starting with baegil (a feast for a baby’s 100th day) followed bu dol (the first birthday), and every birthday thereafter, Koreans always prepare ddeok for birthdays and the most meaningful is baekseolgi (white rice cake) made of white rice flour. The white color of baekseolgi has the symbolic meaning of purity and wishes for the child to grow in purity and honesty.

Special rice cakes (ddeok) for special days

Korean rice cakes have long been an essential part of ritual ceremonies such as weddings and ancestor’s worship, a memorial service held on the anniversary of one’s ancestor’s death. In Korea, special rice cakes commemorate special days.

A table is set with rice cakes as an offering for ancestor memorial services on two other special Korean festival occasions — Ddeok soup (tteok guk is prepared on the lunar New Year’s Day (Seollal) and songpyeon on Full-moon’s Day (Chuseok, August 15th by the lunar calendar. After the ceremonies, ddeok is shared by families. It has been a custom to share ddeok with neighbors when they move or begin a new business.

Ddeok metaphor in Korean proverbs

The word, ddeok is easily found in Korean expressions, taking on as many different meanings as there are kinds of ddeok.

• When something is very easy to do, you say 누워서 떡먹기, which literally means “That’s as easy as eating rice cake while lying down”, meaning the same as “It’s a piece of cake”.

• 그림의 떡 is “You can see it, but you can’t eat it”, meaning “pie in the sky”.

Some proverbs hint at ill-hearted people in the world:

• 떡 주고 뺨 맞는 다 - "You give him a rice cake but he slaps your cheek in return."

• 떡 덜러는데 돌 준다 - "You ask for a rice cake but are given a stone."

Though ddeok has less impact in contemporary Korea than in days of old, ddeok still is buried as a metaphor in the Korean language.

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The above information is taken from the article Korean Rice Cake.

Making Ddeok

Ddeok, Koreans’ favorite traditional food for special occasions

The Ddeok Museum:

Located in the district of Jongno in Seoul, the Ddeok Museum exhibits unique items that show customs of Korea, such as ddeok (Korean rice cake), utensils for making ddeok, and traditional kitchen utensils that are now hardly found even in the countryside of Korea. The museum runs several programs of making traditional Korean food, including ddeok, to enhance the understand of Korean culture.

Ddeok (rice cake) means more than just a cake of rice to Koreans. It is a symbol to remember and celebrate special days of one’s life. 

• On New Year’s Day, Koreans make ddeokguk (soup with thin slices of rice cake) as they believe they become a year older by eating the dish. 

ddeokguk - "birthday soup"
Also "New Year soup", as the ddeok is sticky
and therefore symbolizes luck "sticking" with you in the New Year.

• To celebrate the 100th day after birth of a baby, baekseolgi (snow white rice cake), which symbolizes holiness, is placed on the table setting for the ceremony. 

• On a baby’s 1st birthday, parents usually put susugyeongdan (millet balls rolled in red beans) on the table on the day of celebration. This is based on the traditional belief that the red color of red beans prevents misfortune, and these rice cakes are shared with one’s relatives or neighbors.

Beginning from the 100th day after the birth of a baby, ddeok is used to celebrate important milestones of one’s life: 

• birthdays including hwangap (the 60th birthday)

• weddings

• coming-of-age

• commemorative rites for the deceased

Ddeok is both a good meal replacement and a snack as it is made with rice, and each pieces is beautifully shaped. The history of ddeok in Korea is long and diverse: Koreans first began making ddeok back in the era of the Three Kingdoms (the 4th - 7th century) of Korea, and there are more than 200 kinds of ddeok.

However, with the introduction of the Western culture in the modern era, ddeok lost its popularity to bread and confectionery of the West. Many Koreans are now more familiar with bread than with ddeok, and they eat ddeok only for the holidays. Instead of making ddeok at home, they usually purchase it for ancestral rites. The Ddeok Museum, located on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the Institute of Traditional Korean Food building, is a private museum dedicated to preserving the tradition of ddeok. Various antiques, such as cooking utensils used to make ddeok and traditional kitchen utensils that used to be owned by the director of the museum are currently exhibited in the museum. The elderly Koreans are often filled with nostalgia when they see the relics displayed in the museum.

On the 2nd floor of the museum, mockups of beautifully shaped ddeok are exhibited by type, season and ingredient. The exhibition hall shows traditional tools used for making ddeok at home, such as the pouring board, the rice-cake mallet, and the large mortar, as well as antique households and mockups related to kimchi. On the 3rd floor, table-settings for various rites of passage from birth to the death of a person and 40 kinds of ingredients of ddeok are exhibited.

In addition to seeing the exhibitions, visitors can wear hanbok (traditional Korean costumes) and make Korean traditional food like osaek-songpyeon (five-colored half-moon rice cake), dasik (Korean tea confectionary), bulgogi (Korean barbecue), and kimchi.

Food explains its country best. Food experience in the Ddeok Museum will give visitors a special opportunity to understand Korea better.

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Information found in the e-book “A guide to Touring Industrial Destinations of Korea”

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Back in late December 2011 in Hoegi-dong, near Cheongryangni, I passed a "modern" method of making rice. Well, compared to the present-day's modern method of using rice powder and large machinery to hydrate and make the powder into soft and chewy "cake" in a self-contained production room, this was pretty old-style. In the kiosk beans were actually being ground to make the bean-cake, much like rice could be ground. The tiny shop had two machines working and baskets and baskets of ground beans ready for grinding further into cakes. Was really fascinating to see! And because the food was freshly ground, the taste was very alive. Unfortunately, shortly after I took these pictures, the shop was replaced by another. Too bad. It's a great loss to older culture to see those more traditional styles of food production disappear.

The shop had so many choices of rice (and bean) cake. I think the beans being ground
were actually the stuffing for some of the rice cake.

Zip-lining the New Year in!

Occasionally on Facebook is a posting by Kim's Free Travel offering an almost-free trip that is sponsored by the government. The point of being "free" is to encourage tourism to distant places and to get pictures of foreigners having fun. Yeah, in the 5 places scheduled to visit, Youngryeong Kim, our guide, had to take pictures of us having fun and send them back to the government. Almost scared how these picts will be used, but in the meantime, our whole busload of very internationally mixed people had a blast!

On a side note, our bus represented one of the most diverse trips I've ever been on, and we weren't clique-y but could easily shift groups a bit and mix and mingle before migrating back to the friends we knew or new friends we made on the bus. Nationalities that I remember: Korean (our guide), Taiwanese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Singaporean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Mongolian, Kenyan, Egyptian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Turkey, Croatian, Czech, Madagascar person (Malagasy?), Peruvian, Mexican, French, and the Korean-American and myself the only Americans. Amazing mixture of very fun people!

Most of the people from our very cool international group!

In and around Gangjin, Jeollanamdo

1) Gangjin Dawon Tea Plantation (cancelled and was re-routed to a Literary Museum)

2) Dasan Chodang (cancelled but re-routed to a Literary Museum and on to Chaeseokgang)

• The house where Jeong Yak-yong (pen-name Dasan, 1762-1836) lived during his exile. He was a scholar of the late Joseon Dynasty and is noted for his great contributions to the development of practical learning in Korea. After he was expelled to Gangjin for writing a secret letter of appeal for religious freedom, which later was named ‘the Hwang Sa-yeong Baekseo’, he lived in the house for 18 years while studying practical learning, Silhak. Most of his renowned books were written in Dasan Chodang. 

3) Baengnyeonsa Temple (re-routed ... the government changed the IT on the day of departure)

• The temple’s most popular attraction is Forest of Common Camellias

4) Maryang Port (map)

• the port area with elevation nearby and where we with other will view the rising New Year sun
• a location where many Koreans gather to watch and celebrate the New Year in (Good location because Koreans greatly enjoy watching the sun rise over the East Sea or over the water ... the water plays is like a giant reflection pool, a feature of many Korean temples; water is where the dragons, symbols of good luck, reside)

새해복 많이받으세요! 2017 is here!

5) Gaudo Island - the southern ocean (map) (photos)

• Little island connected to the land with a long pedestrian bridge
• Will walk through the bridge
• Beautiful landscape on the bridge
• Here we will ride the zip-line
• Where we will also have a big sashimi feed! (FREE, usual price 20,000 KRW)

6) Gaudo Island Zip-line

• 1000 m length ... a whopping 1 kilometer long!
• longest in Korea
• (FREE) usual price: 25,000 KRW

And with everyone laughing and expressing crazy energy after that incredible zip over the water, we made our picture purchases of ourselves coming in for a landing, and then happily got on the bus for the long trip back to Seoul.

Thus begins another year ... and one that sure started with a lot of energy!

Woodblock Print Exhibition 2016

A woodblock print exhibition entitled "인쇄문화의 고판화 II" or in English "The Blossom of Print Culture Ancient Asian Woodblock Prints" was put on by Taegyo Order monk Han Sun-hak, owner and curator of a private 4,300 woodblock and woodblock print collection operating from his Gopanhwa Woodblock Museum. Director Han put on the exhibition and then hosted guided tours. My friend and I were very privileged to be among a small group of woodcarving enthusiasts as he guided us through his exhibition a week after the exhibition had officially closed, giving us running commentary on the key woodblocks and prints on display and how their printing process was achieved. Absolutely fascinating!

"Ferocious Tiger in the Forest", Late Qing Dynasty
47.5W x 47 L x 2.5H cm (woodblocks, not the print)
This woodblock print is the "face" woodblock of the exhibition. Actually I should say 'woodblocks' as the print made by Director Han was done with seven individual woodblocks for imprinting with four different colors: black, red, green and yellow. The woodprint is 47.5 x 94 cm, so finding woodblocks that size would have been tough. Therefore, the using of two woodblocks to print one color. 

Woodblocks and woodblock prints in this exhibition were from Korea, China, Japan, Tibet and Mongolia.

"Illustration of the God of Longevity", Ming Dynasty 1572
97W x 213L cm

"Woodblock of the Bodhisattva of Power",  Qing Dynasty 1812
51W x 50.4L x 3H cm (the woodblock)
One of the most impressive artistic pieces to me - This phenomenal woodblock was carved on both sides, and each side was for imprinting a half of the bodhisattva. Director Han points to the woodblock as he explains the care and precision in not only carving it but in aligning the carved lines to get as seamless an image as possible. Image printed by Director Han.

"The Ten Traditional Symbols of Longevity, Woodblock Print", Late Joseon Dynasty
99W x 56.2L cm
I have a huge fascination with the 십장생, the 10 symbols of longevity, and the word was one of my first Korean words. Some of my students of very long ago and I were hiking in Daejeon and we came across a fantastic picture of the 십장생 where two large trails met, and I remember being almost entranced by the colorful imagery. My students taught me the word describing what I was seeing, and the images of natural beauty still snare my attention.

"Woodblock of Tigers and Magpies", 20th century
30W x 88L x 2.7H cm (x4 woodblocks)
The screen was printed by Director Han from four separate blocks with carving on both sides.

Another "Woodblock of Tigers and Magpies", 20th century (scarlet colored)
29W x 86L x 2.7H cm, almost identical to the woodblocks used for printing the above screen

"Woodblock Print of the Beautiful Woman in the Qing Dynasty", Mid-Qing Dynasty
48.5W x 95L cm
To create this delicate print, each color had to be individually aligned and imprinted.

"Woodblock of the Lotus Sutra Illustration", Joseon Dynasty 17th century
29W x 17.5L x 3.5H cm
I need to learn the reason and value of the wood braces gripping both sides of the woodblock.

"Board with Letter Paper", Late Joseon Dynasty
21.3W x 12.5L x 2H cm
Woodblocks were used for imprinting letter paper, and a letter paper style in the latter part of the Joseon Dynasty was to carve a picture with vertical lines as if creating the concept of bamboo behind the image. Very stylistic of the time.

So many woodblocks and prints on display. Of particular interest, but not pictured, were the very ancient (16th century?) Japanese folding screens with graduated blue imprinting (still vibrantly colored, must be indigo) and which needed many woodblocks for the creation of just one picture! Mandalas from Tibet and Mongolia were so carefully and minutely carved. And a woodblock on the five moral rules with illustrations; at some point in time the woodblock was deemed useless as books with that content had already been printed so the woodblocks had been cut down and formed into a trashbin box! Amazing rich history told through these woodblocks ... I must study Korean to unlock some of these secrets!

4th Gopanhwa Museum Woodblock Carving Exhibition

Winners for the 4th woodblock carving competition at Gopanhwa Museum in Wonju were divided into a number of categories, only the top are posted. Out of the approximately 150 woodblock submissions, about 20 were selected and classed into four prize-winning categories, which were the outcome of three levels of artistic background -- professional, art student, and amateur.

Grand Prize 

Most Excellent

Excellent (x2)

Gopanhwa Museum "Special" (x8)

Other categories like Splendid-Encouragement class (x7) were also made. Certainly not all of the 150 woodblocks submitted were on display -- only 30-40 -- but it was a grand display of talent from the professional all the way down to soldiers, me the foreigner, and young middle school students. 

GRAND PRIZE - W5,000,000

MOST EXCELLENT PRIZE - W2,000,000

EXCELLENT PRIZE - W1,000,000

STUDENT EXCELLENT PRIZE - W1,000,000

Some very splendid pieces!

GOPANHWA MUSEUM "SPECIAL" PRIZES (x8)

very colorful mixed media woodblock prints - submitted by art students

CHERYL, ONE OF THE "SPECIAL" PRIZE WINNERS!

named by the museum curator(s) "학과 연꽃" (Cranes and Lotus)

Prize winners in attendance (x4) with Director Han

Prize winners of the top classes and the single "special" prize winner in attendance
(left to right) excellent winner, most excellent winner, Director Han, grand prize winner, myself a winner of a 'special' original recognized for its "liveliness" and "life-likeness"

Suspension Bridge to Mt. Gamaksan

The recently constructed longest suspension bridge (150 meters) in South Korea is getting a fair amount of tourism. Warren Kim, leader of the Seoul Hiking & Nature Group, organized a busload of hiking enthusiasts to walk the bridge and climb the mountain behind, Mt Gamaksan, which offers a dramatic view from the sharp, rocky summit. From the summit also a person can look toward the north, beyond the DMZ, and get a clear view of North Korea, and on a clear day even the city of Gaeseong (the city that allows trade between North and South Koreas) can be seen. Because of this spectacular view, Mt Gamak is sometimes said to be "the closest mountain to the DMZ" which is not really true but is a great drawing card for tourism. But due to this reason, even the temple on the mountain trail to the top has a wishing pagoda for peaceful unification, and for Catholics, a Mother Mary figure on the peak.

As the date of departure approached, rain was in the forecast, but luck was on our side. The rain appeared as snow, the first snow of the year, and we got excellent pictures and had a fabulous time. 

Excellent W4,000 mountain herb bibimbop here!

Photo credits go to Warren of Seoul Hiking, Dong Wook Kim, and Eric. Nice shots, guys!