Courtesy of Dynamic Wang
What you’re doing right now doesn’t feel like culture. It’s just real life. Culture is what other people do. Culture is exotic, mysterious: something to be preserved, treasured, and protected from unfair use and exploitation. Korean culture features intangible concepts such as han, jeong and nunchi. It is represented by artifacts such as the hanbok, the hanok and pansori.
And so we pour over photos of the past, looking at the clothes, the backdrops, drawn in by elements of what Roland Barthes called “punctum.” Something which rises from the scene, shoots out like an arrow, and pierces us. Look at the old man’s hat. Look at the way the kitchen is arranged. See the children play. We can see the culture of the past alive in these photos. Images of old Korea receive huge fanfare on social media for offering us a window into a life we can recognize but not fully understand.
But what if someone took a photo of a Korean coffee shop or a university classroom today? That wouldn’t feel like culture; just a bunch of twenty-somethings sat around in hoodies, Crocs and baggy t-shirts drinking ice-americanos before going back to their apartments. There’s nothing special about that. People wouldn’t want to analyze or immortalize such a trivial scene. Such photos are not subject to analysis or devotion.
But then imagine that photo of the lecture hall or coffee shop we took was being looked at by someone 200 years in the future. Imagine a group of sociologists and anthropologists discussing the meaning of the hoodies, how baggy t-shirts were a symbol of what people at the time called individualism, and how the Crocs were a dying vestige of an ancient religion called Taoism: the holes being the continued presence of the void and Yin Yang in society. The haircuts would be representative of something. The ice americanos interpreted. Some correctly, others incorrectly.
The only thing that stops us seeing what we do as culture today is time. Well, time, distance and misunderstanding. Culture can and probably should be understood as that what the majority of people do in society. People don’t really wear hanboks today in Korea. They are more of a fancy dress reserved for special occasions. Real Korean culture is blue jeans, a black belt, and a black tshirt. Bonus points if you can have a pair of Jennie’s Gentle Monster sunglasses while doing the "cat walking on the frozen river" challenge. Korean culture is rice (but it’s slowly changing towards bread, bagels and bakeries). It’s taking the subway. It’s Instagram. Korean culture is what the majority of people do today.
Clothes
And there’s something else that is completely Korean culture, done by almost all of the citizens here and yet rarely if ever talked about as culture or featured in any dramas, K-pop videos, or YouTube analyses. It’s the act of changing your clothes as soon as you get home.
People will often discuss the idea that unlike in the West, when you enter a Korean home, you take off your shoes. There’s normally a cupboard by the door and a little entry step so as to provide something akin to a decompression chamber in a submarine of a science fiction movie. The outside and the inside are delineated and disentangled in this space. However, I also took off my shoes before entering people’s homes when growing up in England. And I went to people’s homes a lot. Parents were always throwing dinner parties, barbecues and galas were held in gardens, and sleepovers were a regular thing. Because there was also the possibility of guests at our house, when we got home, we took off our shoes, perhaps our jacket, and that was it. We continued on with our day. Our outside clothes and inside clothes were often the same. Now this was only the experience of people around me. I can’t generalize everyone and I’m sure there are many Europeans who do change as soon as they get home. But we didn’t always.
For Korean people, however, this is anathema. For hygiene, for culture, for tradition, for the very act of abandoning the beauty standards and outward facing role you have been playing in society, when Korean people get home, they change into baggy house clothes, often something akin to pajamas. When I told my Korean students that I wasn’t used to changing my clothes when getting home a few looked at me as if I was a barbarian: as if I had just put my elbows on the table, chewed with my mouth open, asked a woman her age, and then open my umbrella indoors while popping to the "toilet." They found the act simply incomprehensible. We followed this up with a few simple questions. “Raise your hands if you generally change your clothes when you get home.” Everyone did without exception. Moreover, they looked around confidently, knowing that this was what was expected of them. Of course, if they were now living by themselves or their mum or dad weren’t home, they might longue about in their jeans. But this was the exception rather than the rule.
When parents or friends come and visit, I have to remind them to bring shorts and comfortable clothes for the house. Sitting around on the floor with our backs to the sofa, pajamas are essential. Often people remark on the beauty standards in the country, and they are right to. Make-up and an effort in one’s appearance is not only linked to morality and social standing, but also seen as being a hard worker and respecting other people. But those sky-high standards stand in stark contrast to the otherwise ignored absolute lack of beauty standards inside the family home. Bums are scratched, snoring happens, face masks are strewn over blotchy faces, and hangovers are nursed with all sorts of belching and other noises.
You rarely go to other people’s houses in Korea. Coffee shops, restaurants, and pubs are more the norm. In those places you are dressed up and see people looking good. But there’s a whole culture that goes on inside houses. Unfortunately, because it’s seen as general day-to-day life, we rarely think of it as culture. It doesn’t seem special enough. But that’s the point. The very fact that so many people behave in similar ways points to it being a genuine culture and not simply a tradition or a gimmick. This is Korean culture when they take off their clothes.
Dr. David A. Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) has a Ph.D. in Korean Studies and lectures at Seoul Women's University and Hanyang University. He is a social-cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the "Korea Deconstructed" podcast, which can be found online.
When Koreans take off their clothes
32
1
19.05.2024
Courtesy of Dynamic Wang
What you’re doing right now doesn’t feel like culture. It’s just real life. Culture is what other people do. Culture is exotic, mysterious: something to be preserved, treasured, and protected from unfair use and exploitation. Korean culture features intangible concepts such as han, jeong and nunchi. It is represented by artifacts such as the hanbok, the hanok and pansori.
And so we pour over photos of the past, looking at the clothes, the backdrops, drawn in by elements of what Roland Barthes called “punctum.” Something which rises from the scene, shoots out like an arrow, and pierces us. Look at the old man’s hat. Look at the way the kitchen is arranged. See the children play. We can see the culture of the past alive in these photos. Images of old Korea receive huge fanfare on social media for offering us a window into a life we can recognize but not fully understand.
But what if someone took a photo of a Korean coffee shop or a university classroom today? That wouldn’t feel like culture; just a bunch of twenty-somethings sat around in hoodies, Crocs and baggy t-shirts drinking ice-americanos before going back to their apartments. There’s nothing special about that. People wouldn’t want to analyze or immortalize such a trivial scene. Such photos are not subject to analysis or devotion.
But then imagine that photo of the lecture hall or coffee shop we took was being looked at by someone 200 years in the future. Imagine a group of sociologists and anthropologists discussing the meaning of the hoodies, how baggy t-shirts were a symbol of what people at the time called individualism, and........
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