Leap Month is Bad for Business

Dear Korean,

I recently read an article that stated the S. Korean economy only expanded 0.4 percent in 4th quarter 2014. This was the slowest growth in more than two years. The article attributed this slow down to leap month and Korean superstition. What exactly is leap month? And what are the Korean superstitions surrounding it?

Kirston

Traditionally, Korea has used a luni-solar calendar. In a lunar calendar, one moon cycle equals a month. Because each moon cycle is between 29 and 30 days, one lunar year is 354 days rather than 365 days in a solar calendar. Islamic calendar, for example, uses what might be considered a "pure" lunar calendar--that is, there is no adjustment made with the lunar calendar to make it fit with the seasons. Thus, in the Islamic calendar, over time, each month does not strictly correspond with the seasons.   

(source)

Not so with Korea's traditional calendar, which is luni-solar. Traditional Korean calendar also uses the moon cycle to measure a month--but it also makes adjustments such that the calendar does not drift away from the seasons. Compared to the solar calendar, lunar calendar is short by 11 days every year. To make up for the difference, a "leap month" (called 윤달 in Korea) is inserted every so often. (There are seven leap months in every 19 years.) That is to say: in traditional Korean calendar, a year with a leap month has 13 months, not 12 months.

Because the 13th month is considered an extra, superstitions developed around it. Koreans traditionally believed that good and evil spirits were present all around the world, helping or hampering the people's affairs. In a leap month, however, Koreans believed that the spirits could not affect the real world--because it is an extra month that the spirits were not aware of. And the presence of spirits was a big deal when it comes to the big events of the family, like weddings and funerals. The superstition goes that in a leap month, it is best not to get married, because there are no good spirits in the world to look after the newlywed. On the other hand, leap year is a good time to have either a funeral, or a moving of a tomb, because the evil spirits were not around to harm the dead as s/he was passing to the netherworld.

(One might ask: couldn't it be the other way around also? Wouldn't it be good to marry in a leap month because there are no evil spirits, and bad to have a funeral because there are no good spirits? If you are thinking this, you are thinking too hard. There is a reason why this is called a superstition.)

Did the leap year superstition hurt Korea's economy in Q4 2014? Maybe a little. In 2014, the leap month fell in September in the solar calendar--a prime wedding month. There is enough data to indicate that not-insignificant number of people consciously avoided getting married in September, such that all the related industries--wedding halls, jewelry, honeymoon travel, etc.-- suffered from reduced demand.

But make no mistake: it is not as if the wedding industry is one of the major drivers of Korean economy. The leap month superstition may have played a role, but not a big one in the context of the overall economy. Korea is in fact suffering from a long-term decline of domestic consumer demand--which is a much more serious problem that deserves more attention than the silly idea that superstition caused the slowdown in economic growth.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

50 Most Influential K-Pop Artists: 8. Deulgukhwa

[Series Index]

8.  Deulgukhwa [들국화]

Years of Activity: 1985-present (most recent album in 2013)

Members (Current):

Jeon In-kwon [전인권]:  Vocal, guitar

Choi Seong-won [최성원]:  Vocal, bass, synthesizer

Members (Former):

Heo Seong-uk [허성욱]:  Keyboard

Jo Deok-hwan [조덕환]:  Guitar

Ju Chan-kwon [주찬권]:  Drum

Kwon In-ha [권인하]:  Vocal

Discography:
Deulgukhwa (1985)

Deulgukhwa II (1986)

Deulgukhwa 3 (1995)

Deulgukhwa (2013)

Representative Song:  Only That is My World [그것만이 내 세상] from Deulgukhwa (1985)

그것만이 내 세상
Only That is My World

세상을 너무나 모른다고
You know so little of the world
나보고 그대는 얘기하지
That's what you tell me
조금은 걱정된 눈빛으로
With eyes shrouded a bit with concern
조금은 미안한 웃음으로
With a smile shaded a bit with apologies
그래 아마 난 세상을 모르나봐
Yes, perhaps I don't know the world
혼자 이렇게 먼 길을 떠났나봐
Perhaps I started this long journey all by myself

하지만 후횐 없지
But I have no regrets
울며 웃던 모든 꿈
All the dreams through which I cried and laughed
그것만이 내 세상
Only that is my world
하지만 후횐 없어
But I have no regrets
찾아 헤맨 모든 꿈
All the dreams that I have searched for
그것만이 내 세상
Only that is my world
그것만이 내 세상
Only that is my world

세상을 너무나 모른다고
I know so little of the world
나 또한 너에게 얘기하지
That's what I tell you, too
조금은 걱정된 눈빛으로
With eyes shrouded a bit with concern
조금은 미안한 웃음으로
With a smile shaded a bit with apologies
그래 아마 난 세상을 모르나봐
Yes, perhaps I don't know the world
혼자 그렇게 그 길에 남았나봐
Perhaps I stayed on that road all by myself

하지만 후횐 없지
But I have no regrets
울며 웃던 모든 꿈
All the dreams through which I cried and laughed
그것만이 내 세상
Only that is my world
하지만 후횐 없어
But I have no regrets
가꿔왔던 모든 꿈
All the dreams that I have grown
그것만이 내 세상
Only that is my world
그것만이 내 세상
Only that is my world

Translation note:  The switch in subject between the first line of the first verse and the first line of the second verse is my own interpretation. In the actual song, the subject is not clear, because the sentence does not contain a subject--as is common with Korean language construction. 

Maybe they should have been ranked higher because...  Deulgukhwa's first album is widely considered the greatest album in K-pop history.

Maybe they should have been ranked lower because...  They can't go lower. But they probably can't go higher either. Only the best artists of the genre are above them at this point.

Why is this band important?

In the late 1970s, Korean pop music suffered through a catastrophic dark age. The Park Chung-hee dictatorship, growing ever more authoritarian, decided that pop culture was harming the national discipline. Many pop musicians found themselves in jail for trumped-up drug charges. All albums required governmental approval before they were released. Park was later assassinated, but his replacement--General Chun Doo-hwan--was hardly any better. K-pop, which was at the forefront of world pop music trend in the early 1970s, regressed for nearly a decade.

Deulgukhwa was the ray of sunlight that broke through the dark ages. The band's first album is widely considered the greatest rock album in K-pop history, and with good reason. The album is a historical breakthrough that rebooted the progress of Korean pop music. In fact, Deukgukhwa kickstarted the golden age of Korean rock. It may seem unthinkable today, but in the mid- to late 1980s, Korean TV's pop music ranking shows would be routinely topped with rock bands, with Deulgukhwa being a routine presence. Although it is once again driven underground today, Korean rock music owes a great deal of its current sophistication to Deulgukhwa and the rock band of the 80s.

Interesting trivia:  Choi Seong-won also had a successful career as a producer. His most famous product is Panic, ranked 25th in this list.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

On Political Correctness

[What does this have to do with Korea? Nothing! As TK have said time and again: this blog is his, and he will write about whatever the hell he damn well pleases in this space.]

(Source. H/T to Rob.)

Criticism of political correctness has one valid point, which is: insistence of political correctness often degenerates into what may be called "Magic Word Racism." Because you used the Word X, you are a terrible person who must be disqualified from public interaction. In this space, I have repeatedly noted the danger of Magic Word Racism. It is simply no way to fight racism. Love, generosity and willingness to forgive are the correct foundations to combat racism, not more recrimination and bitterness.

One way to view the intra-liberal divide regarding political correctness is: whether liberalism is to be considered procedural or substantive. That is to say: one may consider liberalism to be (1) a set of procedural rules and be agnostic about the results of following such rules, or (2) a set of desired outcomes, and the procedure designed to arrive at those outcomes. These two points, of course, are archetypes that stand as poles. Our real-world attitude will usually fall somewhere in between.

I personally stand closer to (2), because I simply cannot bring myself to be agnostic about the result. Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said: "If my fellow citizens want to go to Hell I will help them. It’s my job." There is some merit to this saying if it is specifically limited to the role of judges, in certain circumstances. But applied generally, I find this attitude--which is a re-statement of position (1)--to be unserious. It smacks of the juvenile desire to feel principled and smart by claiming to the world, "consequences be damned!" Such proclamation is juvenile because it comes the type of people who rarely suffer the consequences--like, say, a white male editor of an elite New York magazine. 

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

That Horizontal Mambo Before the First Dance

Dear Korean,

Is it acceptable for Korean people that a girl has sexual activities before she gets married?

Karina Z.

Short answer: yes.

(source)

In a 2012 survey with young single Koreans, 82.9 percent of men and 66.3 percent of women considered virginity before marriage unnecessary. This represents a massive sea change: in a 1982 survey, 78 percent of women college students said one must keep virginity before marrying. 

The 1982 survey, with the sample consisting of students from Seoul National, Yonsei, Korea and Ewha Universities, is a story in itself. Only 3 percent of women college students had any sexual experience. Only 20 percent of the young women ever kissed. (The same number for male students is 33 percent and 60 percent, respectively.) Only 50 percent of the men said they would marry a woman who had sex previous to marriage; only 10 percent of the women said they would marry a man who had sex previous to marriage. Only 28.9 percent of all respondents said it would be ok to have sex after being engaged to be married--which is somehow a huge jump from only a year previous. In 1981, only 7.4 percent of the respondents said it would be acceptable to have sex after having been engaged.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Let's Play Criminals

Dear Korean,

In the movie Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, there was a scene where the main character had to reenact her crimes while cuffed and masked, with a slew of photographers around her. I was wondering if there is any real reason behind this. Is it simply for dramatic effect or does it serve a real purpose?

Curious White Girl

If you don't know what Curious White Girl is talking about, it looks like this:

Serial murder Kang Ho-soon, reenacting the disfigurement and burial of his victims. c. 2009
(source)

It is not necessarily typical, although not unusual, for Korean police to have the alleged criminal re-enact his crime at the site of the crime. Reenactment is a part of the police's field investigation, and the police can technically order any criminal defendant to participate in the reenactment. But since reenactment costs time and police budget, the police tends to save reenactments for significant cases, like murder. 

As a result, crime reenactment does resemble a media circus, with a legion of cameras trying to capture the most sensational moment. The picture above is the criminal reenactment of Kang Ho-soon, a serial killer who murdered at least 10 women between 2005 and 2008. At the time, Kang's crime caused such a sensation that many Koreans who shared the same name filed a court petition for name change. The picture above captures a chilling moment: Kang reenacting how he severed the digits of his victims before burying them, to make identification more difficult. For his crimes, Kang was sentenced to death.

Yet despite the sensationalism, crime reenactments do serve real purposes in criminal justice. The most important purpose, counter-intuitively, is the protection of the defendant who made a confession. By reenacting the crime, the police can prove to the court (through the prosecutor) that the defendant's confession is not falsely obtained, because the confession is consistent with the reenactment which gives a plausible account as to how the crime actually, physically happened. Reenactments can also reveal additional evidence, which may serve as a basis for additional crimes and/or crimes of a higher degree.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Leftovers from 2014: Serial

Until very recently, I did not even know Serial was a podcast. TK is an extremely visually inclined person, and very poor auditory learner. He hates listening to disembodied spoken words. He hates radio talk shows just as much as he hates talking on the phone.

All this is to say: TK has absolutely nothing to say about Serial. Stop sending questions about it.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.

Leftovers from 2014: The Nut Gate

Macademia advertisement poking fun at the "nut rage."
(source)

- This is probably not true, but TK will say it anyway: this may be the only news story that was driven mostly by the headline-maker's need for a pun. "Nut rage," "nut gate," "nutjob." We have seen every headline conceivable.

- In all seriousness, however, this was a really big deal in Korea, eliciting reactions that were almost disproportionate to the actual event. To be sure, what happened was definitely outrageous. But there have been more outrageous corporate misdeeds before--ones that actually caused loss of lives rather than a 20 minute flight delay. (One example here.) Yet this incident was the top-line headliner domestic news for two to three weeks straight. Why?

There may be some external factors. The prosecution has been blatantly leaking sensational investigative materials, possibly to help President Park Geun-hye's sagging approval rate. That Cho Hyeon-ah is a woman probably makes her a relatively easier figure to hate.

But TK thinks there is more: an interesting lesson about politics that is not obvious on its face. Perhaps nut gate was so resonant among Koreans because it was so easy to understand. Consider, for example, the Sewol incident. The ferry sinking had so many different angles and narratives that I had to devote four separate posts to the incident--which was still not enough to cover all the different aspects. To this day, Korean society remains divided over what lesson to be learned from the Sewol tragedy. 

In contrast, the nut gate? The entire event took less than 30 minutes with just three actors taking very simple actions. Yet the event managed hit a whole host of Korean society's sensitive spots: the chaebol oligarchy, nepotism within the chaebol, the contemptuous rich, humiliated employees, and so on and so forth. To TK, this is the real reason why the nut gate became such an issue in Korea. Never underestimate an event that gives an easy, neat narrative, no matter how trivial it is as a consequential matter.

- Although TK has a long history of complaining about American air carriers, he was never completely comfortable in Korean airlines--and this is why. The better service that Asian and Middle Eastern airline provides comes at a great psychic cost of the airlines' employees. TK is just fine with a service provider, but many airlines train their flight attendants to be servants.

- Of course, the real winners are the sellers of macadamia nuts. Koreans generally don't eat macadamia, although peanuts, walnuts and pine nuts are popular. In fact, most Koreans have never seen macadamia nuts, and have no idea how it tastes. (To this day, Koreans still refer to the incident as 땅콩 회항, i.e. "peanut return.") This scandal gave macadamia nuts publicity that no amount of money could have bought.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.