There's A Reason Why Many Korean Folk Tales Open Their Stories With This Same Phrase

According to the National Museum of Korea, tigers have a profound cultural significance in Korean folklore. There were once many tigers in Korea because of the country's topography, which features numerous valleys and mountain ranges. In Korean folk tales they maintained an interesting duality; both guiding heroes on their quests as the physical manifestation of

According to the National Museum of Korea, tigers have a profound cultural significance in Korean folklore. There were once many tigers in Korea because of the country's topography, which features numerous valleys and mountain ranges. In Korean folk tales they maintained an interesting duality; both guiding heroes on their quests as the physical manifestation of benevolent spirits, or as a snarling adversary blocking their path (per ”A Tiger by the Tail and Other Stories From the Heart of Korea”).

On a slightly more political level, tigers in Korean culture became metaphorically connected with strength and the establishments that wielded varying levels of power over the people. Tigers, for example, were widely used in paintings or statues as a symbolic guard of royal graves and murals (per National Museum of Korea). As we'll see, this made them well-suited for satirical humor.

Sadly, the Korean, or Siberian, tiger populations are now extinct in Korea, owing to poaching and conflict between North and South Korea. This is owing, in part, to the environmental consequences of Japan's conquest of Korea, which saw Siberian tiger populations hunted to extinction. After the Korean War and the creation of the Demilitarized Zone, most of the woodland was damaged irreversibly, making it impossible for these tigers to roam their ancestral territories.

Although they can still be found in eastern parts of Russia and China, their numbers are critically endangered (via Russian Geographical Society). Therefore, this nostalgic tinge to this folktale expression carries a certain tragic poignancy in the modern day.

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