The Korean Mind. Boye Lafayette De Mente
within their families, among their relatives, friends, and co-workers.
Demands put on Koreans by their etiquette resulted in the use of achom (ahchoam), “flattery” or “compliments,” becoming an integral part of the culture to the point that it took on a life of its own. Achom was a normal and required part of interpersonal relationships. Failure to use it at the appropriate times and in the appropriate manner was a serious transgression.
Newly arrived foreigners who are subjected to the effusive use of achom by their Korean contacts tend to be disarmed by the experience, all too often lower their standards and expectations, and become much more susceptible to manipulation by their Korean hosts. While newcomers need not become cynical about this traditional kind of behavior, they do need to be aware of its role in Korean society and not read more into it than is actually meant.
Another related word that can cause problems for the unwary is chansa (chahnsah), which means “compliment” or “compliments.” Korean men are constantly complimenting each other and their male associates and friends, and Korean women regularly compliment each other. But it was traditionally rare if not unthinkable for Korean men to compliment their wives, daughters, or other females on their appearance or their accomplishments. And it was certainly not the custom for women to compliment men.
This old cultural tradition is changing among the younger generations, but older men still tend to believe that it is improper to compliment women in the presence of others and especially for foreign men to compliment Korean women in the presence of Korean men. At the same time, there is a significant exception to this taboo. Korean men are especially pleased when foreign men compliment them on the beauty and desirability of Korean women. In fact, they often have an exaggerated opinion of both the virtues and beauty of Korean women because in the past the women were in such demand by upper-class Koreans as well as the imperial court of China and invaders as concubines and slaves.
Another general exception to the taboo about complimenting women on their appearance is when men are out at night drinking and enjoying themselves with kisaeng (kee-sang), Korea’s geisha, or hostesses in nightclubs and cabarets. In this setting, virtually anything goes.
Foreign males in Korea are especially well advised to refrain from making comments about Korean women, whether flattering or derogatory, to Korean men with whom they do not have a long and deep relationship.
Adul 아둘 Ah-duhl
The “Son” Culture
During Korea’s last—and longest—dynasty (which began in 1592 and did not officially end until 1910), the structure and ethics of society came to revolve around ancestor worship. It also became a matter of law that the primary rituals of ancestor worship had to be performed by the oldest male in each family, making it essential that each family have at least one adul (ah-duhl) or “son” to carry out these vital ceremonies.
The rituals of ancestor worship and the importance of having sons became the central theme in the lives of all husbands and wives, resulting in the appearance of attitudes and practices that were to have a profound effect on the culture, with women being held responsible for producing male children—it not being known at that time that it is the sperm that determines the sex of offspring.
In addition to virtually compelling men to take secondary wives when their primary wives failed to have sons, this cultlike custom resulted in females in general being treated as instruments of utility. Among other things, the process of selecting wives for sons took on a pseudoscientific air, with mothers judging the potential capacity for would-be brides to bear sons on the basis of a long list of physical attributes.
Eventually these attributes were codified into thirteen “physical requirements” that prospective mothers-in-law and other marriage go-betweens used to measure the potential for young girls to bear sons:
1 Eyebrows that were straight (a masculine characteristic) and slanted downward, along with flat, smooth foreheads
2 Large, wide buttocks and correspondingly large, wide stomachs
3 A voice that was even toned and a well-developed chest that indicated good breathing capacity
4 Smooth, silky skin that was translucent, “like water”
5 Hands that were shapely and tapered (instead of square and stubby)
6 An angular face that had the profile of a goose or flea
7 Rounded shoulders and a thick back that denoted physical balance and strength
8 Well-developed breasts, with dark, firm nipples
9 A nose with a high ridge and slanted eyes
10 A stomach muscle that was thick and well developed, and a deep-seated navel
11 Wide eyes with “long, slender” corners that were dry
12 Skin that was shiny and fragrant
13 Rosy palms.
These qualifications took precedence over beauty and other feminine features typically associated with women. In contrast, there were twenty-nine physical attributes that were believed to indicate that a woman was unlikely to bear sons. These features included a fragile body, a small squeaky voice, small breasts with pale nipples, a flattened nose bridge, ears turned inside out, a small mouth with a broad face, yellow or red hair, thin eyebrows, thin lips that were pale, a small shallow navel, protruding lips, and unruly coarse hair.
In addition to attempting to follow these physical qualifications in selecting brides, parents provided their sons and daughters with written instructions on how to perform sexual intercourse so as to enhance the possibility of conceiving sons instead of daughters. These guidelines were based on the belief that the uterus had two openings, one that resulted in the conception of a male fetus and one that produced a female child. It was believed that if the male sperm entered the left opening a son would be conceived; if it entered the opening on the right side, a female child would be conceived. This resulted in wives lying on their left side and remaining very still after intercourse in the hope that the male sperm would enter the left opening.
It was also believed that intercourse on the first, third, and fifth days after the menstrual period was most likely to produce male children, while intercourse on the second, fourth, and sixth days would result in female children. In their obsessive desire to have sons, most couples avoided having intercourse on these latter days. There was a variety of other beliefs and rules pertaining to conceiving sons, including the best time of the day or night and the best positions for intercourse, all of which were depicted graphically on colorful charts provided to newlyweds by their parents.
Special prayers and a number of ceremonial rituals were performed by mothers-in-law, brides, and their husbands in an effort to ensure the conception of sons. One of these practices was to place a mixture of blue salts, musk powder, and ground-up mugwort in the sonless wife’s navel and set it afire. Records show that this cauterization process was sometimes carried out as many as two hundred times by husbands anxious to have sons—and that the custom was still widely practiced until the mid-1900s. Also until modern times, women could not serve as midwives unless they themselves had given birth to several sons, and the more sons a woman had the more highly she was esteemed as a midwife.
Families celebrated the birth of sons with special fanfare. One of the customs was to attach red peppers, symbolic of penises, to ropes and leave them hanging outside their homes for several days for all the neighbors to see. It was common for adults to ask small boys to show them their “pepper” (penis) as public proof of their maleness. In the case of girls, pieces of charcoal were tied to the ropes.
Most of the superstitions and practices involving efforts to have male children have gone by the wayside in modern-day Korea, but sons are still particularly important because males continue to play a dominant role in Korean society.
Aeyok 애욕 Aye-yohk
Eroticism in Korean Life
Prior to the ascendancy of Neo-Confucianism in Korean society in the early 1400s, historical records indicate that Koreans in general enjoyed a relatively robust erotic life, not only