Taehun Kim/ Chapter 4 part 5 A/ Wed 1,2

Working and Recreation in Korea: The Same?

 

Every culture has fables, stories that were passed down through generations, which teaches a lesson of some sort. When it comes to stories that give the moral, it seems that people around the world think similarly. There are numerous fables from different cultures that have the similar plot. For instance, a Korean fable called "Kongji and Patzzi," is similar to "Cinderella" in that hard-working and good-natured person is rewarded. Additionally, like the famous fable "The Ant and the Grasshopper," which encourages people to work hard, there is a Korean version of the fable, called "The Man Who Became an Ox." However, the way in which the moral is delivered is different. In Aesop's version, the moral is delivered by illustrating the difference between the hard-worker and the lazy one; that is, the hard-worker is rewarded for his work, while the lazy one suffers. In the Korean version, the 'reward' part is left out. Instead, the main character suffers, and learns a lesson in the end. To give you a brief summary of the story, there is a lazy young man who hates to work. One day, he meets an old man who gives him an ox head mask, which turned him into an ox as soon as he wore it. The lazy man is then sold to a farmer, and works restlessly until he is eventually turned back into a man. After experiencing this, he learns a lesson and works harder than anyone else from that day on.

 

Other than "The Man Who Became an Ox." there are lots of Korean fables that punish people who are lazy, and reward hard-working people. From this, you can tell that Koreans regarded working as one of the most important thing. This is only natural, if you consider the geographical factors of Korea. 70 percent of the Korean territory is made up of mountains, thus to produce food, it requires more work. Additionally, rice, which is Korean's staple food, is very hard to grow and demands continuous care. Naturally, our ancestors would have wanted to teach their children how important it is to work hard, so they would have made these stories. And since scaring the children works best when it comes to teaching them a lesson, the stories would feature a lazy person suffering from their laziness.

 

Although our Korean ancestors stressed the importance of working, working and recreation were not always two different things. For them, work and recreation were closely intertwined; recreation was something that could be done anytime, anyplace; even when working. Conversely, work could affect recreation. You can see this viewpoint in few different cultural traits of Korea.

 

You can find evidence of recreation in the work songs they sang while working. The purpose of the work songs was to ease the tough field work. While they were singing the songs, it made working something that could be enjoyed, as if it was a hobby. Also, big agricultural events, like the rice planting, was something like a festival in ancient Korea. Rice planting was a job that required many workers. Thus, almost all men in a village would help each other out when planting rice. Therefore, with most of the villagers present, it would naturally become a mini-festival. After the planting was over, they would all eat and drink Korean rice wine. From these examples, it can be inferred that work and recreation weren't two different things with nothing in common, at least in Korean culture.

 

On the other hand, some recreation activities were done in relation to work. When it was the day of the first full moon of the lunar year, Korean people came together and played many traditional folk games. To name of few, they played tug-of-war, flew kites, and burned mockup house made up of hay. The intention behind these games was to wish for a good harvest. In fact, Koreans even read fortunes based on the results of the games. This is another factor that shows not only how important agriculture was to Korean people, but also that work and recreation is inseparable.

 

In conclusion, judging from the fables of Korea, such as "The Man Who Became an Ox," Korean people put an emphasis on working hard and diligently. However, just because they stressed working, it doesn't mean that work and recreation were two different things. To Koreans, these two were things that weren't much different from each other. Work could be recreation and vice versa.