Korean Folglore Museum(2) Traditional Coutumes

Koguryo Tomb with Murals Unearthed

Folk dance Sangmo Dance

Historical Relic Suyangsan Fort

Natural Monument Anbyon Zelkova Tree

Good Custom of Helping With Each Other Among Neighbours

Our people have regarded it as an etiquette and a good custom to help with each other and live in a perfect harmony among neighbours since the ancient times.

They shared their special food with each other. When a marriage was held next door, they helped their neighbours making a quilt and clothes all night, offering rice, cloth and money, congratulating them altogether.

When there was a death next door, they expressed their deep mourning and helped them with their funeral putting up the nights together, making a coffin and digging up a grave.

This good custom of helping each other among neighbours were also expressed when making kimchi for winter.

Our people were accustomed to do together with neigbours all the work from preserving cabbages with salt, washing them, seasoning them with spices, and putting them into a large earthenware jar. After that, they sent their kimchi and spices to their neighbours to taste and exchange opinions.

Whoever built a house newly or repaired it, all the people of the whole village helped the house owner with his work sincerely and he took it for granted to serve them food such as rice cake, noodle and drinks.

Good custom of living in a perfect harmony among neighbours were clearly expressed in farming.

Our people organized the joint mutual-labour-aid organizations such as an ox-sharing team, a labour-exchanging team and a farmers’ cooperative group in order to do successfully the whole processes of hard farm work including plowing, rice planting, weeding and harvesting. By doing so, they created and developed a fine custom of working life.

Good Manners in Cooking and Serving Foods

Our people have created, inherited and developed noble table manners suited to our national characteristics for a long time.

The women always wore their headscarf and their apron when cooking foods in the kitchen.

They also observed their proprieties even when serving foods.

First of all, they did not serve foods in a faulty bowl or plate.

Then, daughters-in-law who lived together with the partents served boiled rice, soup and side dishes to them before everybody else.

They also paid particular attention to make it more presentable to serve food.

The boiled rice was served not to be pressed by the lid, and the soup to be a little lower than the bowl’s edge.

Otherwise, the women put vegetable foods fully on the plate and some foods such as fried dish, slices of boiled meat and roasted fish evenly on the plate.

Also, when setting the table, they put the bowls and plates on the table to be good to see and convenient to eat.

When carrying the table, they quietly came into the room and put it down on the floor carefully.

Our Nation’s Custom of Preparing the Table in Celebration of the Baby’s First Birthday

The table prepared in celebration of a baby’s first birthday refers to the preparation of the table to celebrate a baby’s first birthday.

Our people put the foods such as steamed rice cake, kaoliang cake, rice cake dumpling covered with bean paste, noodle, songpyon, jujube, apple, persimmon and pear for their children to eat while growing on this table and also put the things such as rice, spool, ink stick, brush, book and bow symbolizing the military arts, scholarship and talent before them.

The foods were the same regardless of the sex but the things different.

Our people put a sword, bow and arrow to the effect that he should become a strong warrior and the book and brush to the effect that he should be a famous writer on the table for a boy.

They put a spool, ruler and scissors to the effect that she should be good at needlework on the table for a girl.

The preparation of a table in celebration of the baby’s first birthday is the good custom marked with our people’s love for their children and with the aspiration of our people who wish them to be loyal to the country and their family as well.

Circulation of the Metal Currency During the Feudal Joson Dynasty

The united metal currency was circulated nationwide during the Feudal Joson Dynasty. It was one of the greatest changes in the development of commodity-currency relationship. It accelerated the production and circulation of commodities and the development of the commerce.

We have a long history of circulating metal currency.

It was circulated not only in the ancient states but also in the period of Three Kingdoms.

But at that time, it was only partial and spot currencies such as rice or cloth became popular.

During the Feudal Joson Dynasty, the metal currency gradually drove out the spot currencies and started to be circulated throughout the country.

The metal currency which was circulated nationwide this time was a metal coin made of copper. This coin was called Sangphyongthongbo.

Sangphyongthongbo was minted in Sangphyong Office which was one of the central offices of the feudal government. The term “Sangphyongthongbo” was originated from the name “Sangphyong Office”. Sangphyongthongbo was also called a brass coin.

A piece of coin was called one mun or one phun, and 10 pieces one jon and 100 pieces one ryang.

That time, people often passed one thread through 100 pieces of coin (one ryang) which was called one min. 10 ryangs of coins (1000 pieces) were equal to one kwan.

While further expanding and developing circulation of the metal currency, desire of the exploiting class for wealth increased more and more.

The feudal dynasty collected more and more tax from the people in the form of the metal currency and the landlords also exploited the farmers through the currency rent.

In such conditions, the farmers and handicraftsmen were forced to make their commodities to sell in the market not only to buy the daily necessities and farm products needed for their life but also to pay the tax to the feudal state or pay the rent to the landlords.

This increased the production of the commodity and also increased the circulated amount of commodity in the several sectors of the economy.

The circulation of the united metal currency accelerated the circulation of the commodity and stimulated its development by overcoming the limitation of spot currencies.

The spot currencies such as rice or cloth caused great inconvenience to the exchange of commodities due to its limitation as the currency.

As the metal currency was circulated throughout the country, limitation of exchanging commodities by means of spot currencies was much overcome.

The circulation of the united metal currency accelerated the appearance and development of the capitalist economic relationship.

The feudal rulers additionally exploited the working people by minting the coins in large quantities.

They gained a huge profit by minting the low-grade and underweight coins and circulating them by force.

Bows and Arrows of Koryo

The bows used during Koryo Dynasty included Donggung, Jangomgung, Segung, Kakgung and so on. Sejon, Ryuyopjon, Taewujon, Pyonjon, Jukjon, Choljon were arrows in this period.

Kakgung was made of mulberry tree, cow’s horn and tendon. Ryuyopjon was consisted of the arrow shaft made of willow branch and lanceolate arrowhead. When shooting Ryuyopjon with Kakgung, it flew away up to 120 steps and its rate of hits was very high.

Later, the arrows of Koryo got bigger and more powerful. As powder horns were installed in the arrows at the beginning of the 12th century, they developed into more powerful arrows with fire wicks.

Recipe for Pancake of Feudal Joson Dynasty (3)

-Hwajon (flower pancake)-

Hwajon is made by attaching several kinds of flowers or petals to glutinous rice flour dough and frying in in oil.

Its first record can be seen in Ho Kyun’s (1569－1618) book “Tomundaejak”.

This record introduced the foods for each season. That is, people took azalea and pear flower hwajons in spring, rose hwajon in summer and chrysanthemum hwajon in autumn.

The above record gives so detailed recipes of different seasonal hwajons that we can presume that such kinds of flower hwajons might have been there during Koryo Dynasty, too.

Later, the record of flower hwajons was introduced in several old books such as “Umsikjimibang”, “Tongguksesigi” and “Rimwonsipryukji” written during Feudal Joson Dynasty.

According to the old book “Umsikjimibang” written in the 17th century, the hwajons were made by mixing glutinous rice flour with a dash of buckwheat flour and floral leaves of azaleas and roses, kneading it, frying crisp the dough in the oiled pan and spreading honey on it.

According to the old book “Jubangmun”, the buckwheat flour and glutinous rice flour were mixed in the ratio of two to one, the mixture was kneaded and a lot of azalea petals were added to the dough.

In the books written after “Enlarged forest economy” of the end of the 18th century appears only the glutinous rice flour without buckwheat flour and there appears mung-bean flour in the book “Tongguksesigi” written in the 19th century.

According to the old books “Puinphilji (Housewives’ Handbook” or “Kyuhapchongso”, it is good to knead grain flour in light salt water and to add many floral leaves of azaleas and roses to the dough but, if many chrysanthemum flowers are put to the dough, hwajon tastes bitter.

In the 19th century, hwajon was widely eaten, too.

Of the hwajons of that time there was angelica hwajon, too

The reason why our people ate a lot of flower hwajon was that the foods with different kinds of flowers for each season were very peculiar in taste.

Our people loved hwajon as unique pancakes, for they were the foods that symbolize the seasons with flowers.

The old book “Haedongzukji” says that hwajon is very beautiful in color and very strong in fragrance.

Recipe for Pancake of Feudal Joson Dynasty (2)

-Jonbyong-

Jonbyong is made by kneading rice-flour with water into round dough and frying it in the pan.

The first record of jonbyong can be seen in the book “Rimwonsipryukji” which says:

“… Jonbyong is made by kneading wheat flour with water into damp-dried pastry which is made into the shape and size of a big thin bowl mouth and fried in oil. In case of using the glutinous rice flour, corn flour or adlay flour as the ingredient, the size of jonbyong gets as small as a wine cup mouth. When it is stuffed with the filling of red-bean powder, it is also called jonbyong.”

The above-quoted record says that jonbyong is made of wheat flour, which shows that a major variety of jonbyong was made of wheat.

It also says that what is stuffed with red-bean filling was also called jonbyong and it shows that jonbyong could be classified into two kinds: with and without stuffing.

And the fact that only red-bean was emphasized as the ingredient of stuffing shows that red-bean was mainly used.

Jonbyong is classified into several kinds such as wheat jonbyong, glutinous rice jonbyong, corn jonbyong and adlay jonbyong according to their main ingredients, regardless of the secondary materials.

So we can see that several kinds of main ingredients were used to make jonbyong and that in case of using the stuffing, red-bean was used mainly as the secondary material.

Wheat jonbyong, which is a kind of jonbyong, became a part and parcel of milssam (stuffed wheat cakes) -- a kind of modern fast foods.

Milssam, which were popular at the beginning of the 20th century, were different kinds of processed vegetables wrapped in wheat jonbyong. The first record of milssam can be seen in the old book “Joson mussang sinsikryorijebop (Recipes of Best Modern Foods of Korea)”.

They were introduced as “miljonbyongbyolbop” or “milssam” in the old book “Josonryorijebop (Recipes of Korean Foods)”.