Korean Rite that Brings Out the Fake Arm Cast
I know. The title sounds like a clickbait. But stay with me as I explain why this really happens.
“Saving face” is a big thing in East Asian culture. Japan, China, Korea, it doesn’t matter. For many of them, it’s more important than the life itself. You’ve all seen old Japanese movies where samurai commits harakiri, suicide by stabbing himself in the abdomen. This was an “honorable” act—rather than being captured by the enemy, commit suicide to save face for himself and his family name.
There is a revolving storyline in the popular K-drama “별에서 온 그대” where the main female character when she was a child 400 years ago (you have to watch the drama for any of this to make sense) is ordered to be killed by her own father to save the family name’s honor.
There’s also an oft-quoted line from a movie that goes…
돈이 없지, 가오가 없냐 (I may not be rich, but I still have my kao.)1
That word “kao” is one of those Japanese words that’s become a part of the Korean vernacular, meaning literally “face.” Not all, but a certain type of Koreans often invokes this word to say something to the effect of “saving face is more important than anything else.”
Paying respects to your ancestors by practicing non-violent, non-grotesque rites is an honorable thing, wouldn’t you say?
On the New Year’s Day (설날), Korean Thanksgiving Day called Chu-seok (추석), and on the anniversary day of your immediate ancestors’ passing, most Koreans prepare and follow through with a traditional ritual called cha-rieh (차례) or jeh-sa (제사).2
In its essence, it is paying respects to your ancestors by preparing and offering the best food that you can and bowing to them. Nothing more, nothing less. But somehow Christianity in Korea has labeled that practice as “worshipping another god, idolatry, or superstition” and has forbidden it. I have said this before and I’ll say it again. It is NOT worshipping anything, and your ancestors are not considered god by anyone or any means.
We have an ordained Presbyterian minister in our extended family and he will not participate in the ancestral rites citing these very issues. That’s his choice and I don’t fault him for what he believes in. Although… Pope Pius XII in 1939 explicitly has said (I’m aware that Presbyterians don’t necessarily follow Catholic rules) that the Confucian-style observation of ancestral rites is a way to honor one’s ancestors (something very important to Italians, I understand), and not superstitious or serving another god. So, there you have it, if you had any religious qualms about either doing it or not doing it.
But I digress. Let me get to today’s point.
This was my mom’s preparation of jeh-sa for her parents-in-law, my dad’s parents. Other than the fruits, my mom made everything from scratch. It’s about the effort you put into it, right? It usually takes her a couple of days to get everything in order—sometimes I help out but most of the times I don’t. Not to be chauvinistic about it, but this would be the responsibility of my wife, but (let’s keep this between you and me) she barely knows how to boil water, so…
Anyway… there is actually a method to madness in arranging the various types of food. Fruits are to be arranged in 홍동백서, meats in 어동육서 and 두동미서, and other items in 좌포우혜 order.
fruits in 홍동백서 = red items on the east (right side of the table) and white items on the west,
meats in 어동육서, 두동미서 = fish on the east and beef on the west & head (of the fish) on the east and tail on the west,
other items in 좌포우혜 = dried items (jerky-like things) on the left and rice drink (식혜, shik-hieh, similar to horchata de arroz) on the right
Confused? You bet. And as you can see in the above picture, my mom didn’t exactly follow the rules—I don’t know anyone who does!!
Some families take pride in themselves in continuing with the rich traditions of their past and go out of their way to prepare a downright feast. Look what we’ve done for you, ancestors! The person in charge of making these preparations—it’s usually the wife of the head of the household—will require her daughters-in-law to come and do a lot of the work. But not her daughters. Funny how that works?!
By all accounts, the toughest part of the food prepping is making the different types of jeon (전).
And if I say so myself, I can definitely vouch for that. It’s not a terribly difficult thing to make—it’s just that it’s busy work that can take hours to make enough for everyone (it being finger food, people always come by and keep eating it), can’t leave the griddle (the moment you take your eyes off of it, it can burn), can be murder on your shoulders and lower back (because you have to be hunched over for hours), and you get sick of that smell of cooking oil.
I’ll get to the shocking truth about all this jeh-sa rituals at the end of this post, but let’s take a look at the this first.
Coupang is a Korean online retailer, Korean Amazon.com, if you will. A few years ago, there was an item that became an instant hit that was all hush hush among a certain group of consumers, namely married women in their 30s and 40s.
That product description says, Fake Cast for Daughters-in-Law during the Holidays. How comedic, yet oddly tragic, is this? Apparently you just slip this thing on like a glove and it looks authentically like you have a broken arm. Many, many daughters-in-law would take pictures of themselves wearing it and send it to their mother-in-law, freeing them from the jeon-making responsibilities. The catch is of course you couldn’t use the excuse twice. Look at the product review—overwhelmingly positive!
Now to the shocking truth. All this song and dance around the jeh-sa ritual is false tradition! Take a look at the jeh-sa table of the direct descendant of Yi Hwang, a scholar from the noblest of the noble families of all of Joseon dynasty.
Traditional Korean rice wine, tteok-guk (떡국), a few jeons, dried fish, and a few fruits. That’s it.
The official book from which this whole jeh-sa requirements originate from3 tells us that all it needs is a cup of rice wine, a cup of tea, and a plate of fruits. Again, that’s it.
Sungkyunkwan (성균관), THE authority in Korean traditions and rituals, has clearly said that what’s currently in practice has no historical basis and is not the proper way of going about it. It has been proselytizing simplification of jeh-sa preparation and has shown us what it *should* look like.
A few fruits (bottom row), kimchi (the white kind), grilled meat, a few vegetables (middle row), and rice wine and tteok (떡, rice cake) in the back row. No jeon to be found anywhere.
So, where have all these outlandish rules about jeh-sa come from? The prevailing theory has two independent developments coming together starting 120~180 years ago. First, when people of nobi class started becoming common class or even yangban class, they started overcompensating for their new social status by spending a lot of money and effort on it. This one-upmanship kept escalating.
Second, it’s a remnant of the Japanese occupation of Korea. This “red on the east and white on the west” thing supposedly comes from a Japanese civil war known as Genpei War in the late 12th century in which one side fought under a red flag and the other white. Not unlike the War of the Roses between the York clan (white rose) and the Lancaster clan (red rose) in England. (some historical parallels are too interesting to ignore.)
So, what is the purpose of all this laboring and uncomfortable situations created between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law when the holidays approach? Is it really to honor ancestors, or is it to satisfy their own ego and to “save face”?
One of the well-known Neo-Confucian scholar Yi Hyeon-il during the mid 17th century writes…
Never pay any attention to what others may think of you. It is far more important to have the respectful mindset for your ancestors, not how many food items are on the jeh-sa table.
I’ve told my mom about all this couple of times but she thinks that I’m making this up because I don’t want to spend the money and effort on preparing the jeh-sa table for her when she passes. The conversation just stops at that moment and the awkward silence ensues. Sigh…
It’s one of those sentences that makes you sound vulgar. If you’re a Korean learner, it’s best to stay away from expressions such as this.
These two traditional rites are the same in terms of paying respects to the ancestors but they are actually slightly different. We won’t go into detail here because even most Koreans don’t know the difference anyway.
주가제례, from the Chinese Song Dynasty scholar Zhu Xi, late 12th century.
I am Italian, and I can say that the notion of respecting the elderly is quite strong (even though I am not so sure nowadays how it is, I haven't lived there for 20 years). I would say that in the South is more felt than in the north, and you can see it in the fact that many children are named after one of the grandparents. My second name is indeed the name of my father's mother. I never use that name, but it is on my birth certificate!
I personally adopted and adapted the Asian custom of having a shrine at home. As my father has been cremated and his ashes scattered on a rose bed at the cemetary in Torino, I have a place at home to remind me of him. Either on his birthday or on the day he left us, I prepare from scratch some Italian ravioli. I then put one on my small shrine and allow the cat to eat it, when it finds out. My father loved animals and I think it is also a way to rembember him.
That cast... OMG. That's some honor-bound Asian tradition, we've got to escape, yo. I sense a comedy where this backfires.