Use of laundry stick

Dear editor,

My letter, "How to keep thieves at bay," published in the Nov. 23 edition generated three inquiries from Florida, Tokyo and Dhaka, Bangladesh, asking me to detail about Korean laundry stick, bangmangi. The inquirers were fascinated by its added use as a weapon to fight off burglar. I thought I should share my answer with the readers of The Korea Times.

Bangmangi is a stick made of hardwood like police stick but it's more like a reduced baseball bat to 36 centimeters (14 inches) long. Like some American women, when crossed, throw rolling pin at their husbands (I heard), some Korean housewives are armed with the bangmangi normally hiding it in the pantry (I know). My dear old wife of 50 years still keeps a faded bangmangi, probably as a trophy. Talk about women's lib.

Before the laundry machine, women took hamper to a stream, wet the laundry first and evenly spread in a four-to-five layers onto a flat stone and beat the wet clothes with the club. Dirt escapes from the fabrics with oozing water. No detergent or soap was needed. It's environment friendly.

Using the same but in a pair, at home, they repeat the beating this time on dry clothes on a well-ground flat granite stone (called laundry stone) in order to remove wrinkles from the fresh clothes. It's kind of ironing without electricity and the beating sound makes a fine percussion rhythm like tom-tom drums or some African percussion music. A scene in the opening ceremony of the Seoul Olympics in 1988 was the very setting that puzzled many people outside Korea.

Nam Sang-so

Seoul

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