Your life cycle

Greetings again from Korea!

Today marked the 562nd anniversary of the proclamation of the Korean alphabet. To mark the occasion, I visited Seoul's main palace, Gyeongbok, where I saw the re-enactment of the royal ceremony marking the occasion; I will have photographs of it later.

For now, I have photos from a folk museum in the palace (National Folk Museum) where I learned a great deal about the life cycle of a royal-era Korean. So follow me on the journey called life - from your conception to well after your death.

Some photos are blurry as flash is not allowed here.

As I just said, your life begins here - even before you are conceived. Traditionally, Koreans sleep on the floor, in sheets like this; the floor is heated, so no bed is really necessary. A good setting is essential for your parents and their amorous moment. Of course, they also need to have good dreams; if they dream about dragons, you'll be a boy, and if they dream about flowers, you'll be a girl. More importantly, if they dream about pigs, you'll be rich, and if horses appear, then you'll not only be a boy, but probably also make a good soldier.

Once your mother is pregnant, she will probably set up a shrine to the Fertility Goddess in a format like this, and make regular sacrifices there to ensure that you'll be born healthy, and that she herself will live on to take care of you and raise you.

You're born! Time for an announcement to the entire village. These lines do the job, until you are 21 days old, at which time they are removed.

The left line has peppers hanging on it, and it means you're a boy (and your manhood looks as good as the peppers). In fact, relatives will gather to see you in all your glory, including your handsome manhood. Some of them will even touch it - a very creepy idea for us from the West, but in traditional Korean culture, the best way to bless a newborn boy, his masculinity, and his future.

The right line has pine leaves instead; it means you're a girl. Fortunately, you won't be paraded around naked. It's a lot like ancient Greek art - naked males, clothed females.

In royal Korea, infant mortality was a big deal, so another sumptuous celebration would have taken place when you turned 100 days old.

An even nicer celebration awaits once you turn one year old. You'll be dressed like a prince or a princess, as shown here. In addition, a number of objects are in front of you, and you'll have to pick one; what you pick will probably determine your destiny.

If you're a boy, picking a brush will mean that you are destined to be a great scholar, while picking a model sword will mean you'll probably be a warrior instead.

If you're a girl, picking a pair of scissors will mean that you'll be a good seamstress. Unfortunately, girls have fewer objects to choose from. Remember that in this Confucian society, it's much better to be a boy.

You've grown up a bit, so it's time to start studying to become a fine Confucian son or daughter. These books demonstrate, through easy text and pictures, good Confucian morals and values.

By the way, an old Korean saying states that by age 7, boys and girls are never to sit in the same place. It's another Confucian moral!

Proper penmanship was extremely important, so when you got old enough, you needed to start practicing your handwriting right away. These three sandboxes provide a quick way for a child, just learning his or her first characters, to practice; paper and ink were pretty expensive, so this saves money too.

The three practice characters above, from left to right, are Sky, Land, and Human.

In reality though, girls were often discouraged from learning to read and write altogether. My late grandmother, who would have turned 92 this year, was one such girl in her youth.

Some brushes used for fine calligraphy. After some practice, time for the real deal - brush, ink, and paper.

Some ink. Put some water into the reservoir, grind the ink stick on it, then you have the ink that you can dip your brush into for some calligraphy practice.

At this point (age 6 or 7), boys would start attending neighborhood schoolhouses to start learning Chinese characters, and continue there until about age 15.

In Confucian Korea, one never cut his/her hair; the hair was given to you by your parents and ancestors, so cutting your hair (or any other body growth) was a very serious show of disrespect. Children braided their hair.

At age 15, a girl becomes an adult woman, and goes through initiation. At that point, the hair will no longer be braided, but tied into a bun in the back and held in place by a large pin, as shown above. At that point, your fashion statement will also change; your shirts will have mature solid colored sleeves, instead of the childish multicolor striped sleeves.

At age 20, a boy becomes an adult man as well, and he will tie his hair into one small, dense knot on top of his head. While out and about, he will also wear a seaweed hat as well.

It was very common for a boy or a girl to be married before being initiated into adulthood; in that case, initiation would happen immediately before the wedding.

Under Confucianism, you were never a full member of the society until you got married. Marriage was to be arranged between family elders, based on the needs of the families involved and various matchmaking astrological formulas; nobody married out of love. Even today, very few Koreans get married without parental approval.

This is the main wedding ceremony. All male relatives are behind the groom. All female relatives are behind the bride, though two older women do assist the bride.

(This hardcore lesbian would rather see two brides here... :) )

After the wedding, the couple will take a parade around their village. The groom leads on horseback. The bride will hide in this sedan, which is carried by four male relatives.

The newlyweds then honeymoon at the bride's family house, before returning to the groom's family house where they will serve the groom's parents for the rest of their lives.

I already said that it's much better for you to be a boy in Confucian Korea. Here's why. Family lineage always transfers from father to son, and women are merely incubators for your unborn baby. Here are birth records and tablets for the ancestors of a particular family. Only men are recorded here.

In Korean genealogy, tracing down one's male ancestors is very easy, as it's a Confucian duty to keep detailed records of all family men; on the other hand, tracing down one's female ancestors is next to impossible, as the only way for a woman to appear in a genealogy record is as the wife of some guy - in her husband's family records (as opposed to her own family records). Even then, her full name will not be there; usually she'll only be mentioned by her surname, as a footnote to her husband.

Life is hard in royal Confucian Korea. If you're a woman, you'll have to tend the needs of your husband, your father-in-law, and your sons, as they need your support to be successful. If you're a man, you will need to hopefully pass the civil service examinations (if you're from good enough of a family to qualify, anyway) in order to enter government service and gain tremendous respect.

You will need to pass the time to de-compress and relax. One way to do it is through this game, called Double Six, played by two teams with a pair of dice. I've never seen this game before, and although instructions were nearby, along with playable sets, I could never figure the game out.

This is a little more to my liking. Let's play chess!

Korean chess is based on an older version of Chinese chess, and the sets are nearly identical (though the names may be different). The strategy is completely different though, since the rules are different enough to require a whole new approach.

Key differences from Western chess are as follows. Instead of a queen, you have two advisors whose moves are identical to the king. The king and the advisors may never leave a 3x3 palace. The kings may never face each other; if your opponent's king faces yours, and you don't block the view, you will draw. You also have cannons, which have no equivalents in Western chess; they are required to jump over another piece to move/capture, and may not jump over/capture another cannon. (That's also very different from Chinese cannons.)

Today, this chess is still widely played - though it's a casual to a gambling game for the masses, and few women ever play it.

This is even more to my liking. This ancient game, originating in China, is called "baduk" in Korea, though it was the Japanese who popularized the game in its modern form, and the Japanese name of "Go" is more widely used in the West. Two players, one white and one black, start on an empty 19x19 board, and alternate placing their stones. The goal of the game is to use your stones to sketch out more territory than your opponent. Sounds simple, but this game can be so difficult that even the best professionals spend their entire lives just perfecting one concept. But the difficulty, and the enormous possibilities (since the board is so large), nevertheless keep me drawn. Go is a serious strategy game (much more so than chess), and has a sizable female following.

If board games are not your thing, music may be it. Take a look at some woodwinds in front, with a Gayageum, a 12-string instrument, in the back.

As you get older, you will start feeling ill. Traditional Korean medicine uses acupuncture, and its pressure and energy points, to treat you, by harnessing your inner body energy. These cotton figurines show various pressure and energy points on your body.

If you have a very difficult disease, like smallpox, you may want to hire a mudang to perform some ceremonies, summon the help of the shaman spirits, and hope that they will cure you.

You are also seeing the reflection of a video screen obscuring the face of the mudang in the display. The video happens to be showing a peculiar shaman ceremony, traditionally performed in western North Korea, which features a transwoman as a mudang.

Congratulations! You've lived to a ripe old age, and you're sixty. Your sixtieth birthday is important, because there are two zodiacal cycles in a Korean calendar, one that cycles every 12 years and another that cycles every 10 years, and after 60 years, you return to the original sign of your birth year. And it's also important because the average royal-era Korean never lived to be 60.

Look at all those fruits and treats to mark your milestone. Eat them, and please live a long, prosperous life for a long time to come.

But you can't live forever. One day, you will die. But fortunately, that's just a new beginning. Assuming that you've fulfilled your Confucian duties and produced many offsprings, they will first carry your remains away in this bier.

They will make sure to bury you in a very auspicious spot, as indicated by the principles of feng shui. These exhibits demonstrate some feng shui principles. This is important, because when you are buried in a good spot, your spirit will continue to live on, full of vitality, and bless your offsprings.

To ensure a comfortable afterlife, you will be able to take these bowls, dishes, and figurines into your grave. You've lived a good life; now, please rest well.

In a final show of respect, your children will quit their jobs, lock up their homes, and build this shrine and hut next to your grave. There, they will mourn for three years. You were a good parent to them; three years of mourning is the least your children can do for you once you are dead.

An extreme example of this happened in North Korea, when President Kim Il-sung died in 1994. The entire government went into mourning mode for the next three years, reducing its functions to a minimum; it probably contributed to the massive famines that killed millions, in conjunction with famines and floods. But nevertheless, it was more important to mourn Kim than to feed the people. During that time, there was no head of state. After the mourning ended, Kim's son, Kim Jong-il, head of the military, became the head of state, while a relative, Kim Young-nam, is the head of the civilian agencies of the government. The presidency remains unfilled, however, as Kim Il-sung has been re-designated as the Eternal President.

Even after your three years are up, and your children also pass away, you will not be forgotten. If your clan is any good, your descendants will continue to honor you, and house your tablets, in an ancestral shrine like this. This way, you will live on forever, in the spirits and minds of your successive descendants. May your clan live and prosper forever.