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Last eunuch's surname

When I was a student in Korea in 1977 I met a man introduced to me as the last living eunuch from the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom. At that point, I understood there was one other living eunuch as well, but the man I met was in his 60s and he had become a eunuch and was a young child in the last-gasp years of Joseon before 1910.

2019-07-17 17:19

The lesser surnames

The previous two installments in my “Frog Outside the Well” series have been about the dominance of the surnames Kim, Lee and Park. Today I want to look at the lesser names, the obscure names of Korea.

2019-07-07 17:50

Prominent surnames

Recently I wrote about the fact that Korea is very unusual, even odd, I would say, in that 21 percent of the people have one surname - Kim. And it adds to the oddity that Yi comprises 15 percent of the population and Pak 9 percent. I pointed out that no other country has such a concentration of surnames. Today's question is: How did the aristocratic families of Silla and then Goryeo maintain their status through the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom?

2019-06-30 18:00

Revival of rural economy

I wrote in November of a trip to visit a traditional village in the rural countryside. I was quite pessimistic and titled my article, “Death of Korea's Villages.” Today I'm going to write about the opposite phenomenon. I recently visited Wando and Gangjin on the south coast of Korea to find they are thriving rural communities.

2019-06-18 17:29

Korean surnames

Korean family names are unlike those of any other country. First, there are so few. Roughly 250, traditionally. In recent years there is a scattering of new names, mainly of immigrants, some from China and some from other countries. But traditionally, there were only around 250; compare this with Japan - over 10,000 surnames.

2019-06-11 18:10

Korean folktales as protest literature

Last time I wrote about the Heungbu-jeon - the story of Heungbu, also called the story of Heungbu and Nolbu. My point was that the story was written at a point when younger sons (like Heungbu) were being disinherited and the eldest son (like Nolbu) were taking control of all the property of the parents' generation. I presented my thesis that the story is really a form of protest literature, giving voice to the disenfranchised and pointing out that the newly emerging changes in inheritance practice were unfair to the sons who were not the eldest. This is one of the themes of my “frog outside ...

2019-05-26 17:24

Heungbu and Nolbu

All Koreans love the story of the two brothers, Heungbu and Nolbu. I'm going to tell the story today, but conclude with a twist that most people don't know when they tell the story. Let's start with the story (or you'll never get the “twist” that I will offer).

2019-05-20 16:40

Registry of adoptions

I had a heartwarming experience on my recent trip to Korea. Met an old friend who I had never met before!

2019-05-03 16:45

1694 wedding gift

Once in a while a researcher finds a document that changes everything. Such was the case for a 1694 document where a mother-in-law gives a wedding present to her daughter-in-law.

2019-04-25 17:30

Ancestor ceremonies today

After writing about modern “jesa” - ancestor ceremonies in today's Korea - it occurs to me that many readers do not understand much about ancestor ceremonies, either today or yesterday. Korea readers will largely know from their own experiences, but the foreigner has probably only read about “ancestor worship” and has not attended a ceremony. Let's look at the ancestor ceremonies briefly today.

2019-04-08 17:34

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Code of Ethics