Stories brought to South Korea during the Korean War mainly came from Japan and America.
It
was when Koreans were colonized, suffering, and migrating to China, and later gained their
independence with the help of Americans. The most standing work that was created in the midst
of this was Arirang, which is a song that symbolizes Korean resilience. Even now, Koreans
continue to remember this time by making more films like "Gyeongseong Creatures" and "Hotel
Del Luna" to remind newer generations about Korea's past with Japan and not to forget the
suffering they had to go for Korea to be Korea. Despite no current war with Japan, Koreans still
stand grudged since the Japanese government has not officially apologized to the 'comforting
women' who were young women who were lied to with an offer of a job and were brought to
sleep with Japanese soldiers forcefully many times daily and other crimes. Aside from Japan's
influence, western fairy tales also impacted Korean culture as Koreans started to adopt English
words into their vocabulary and adapted fairy tales. For example, Cinderella was adapted to a
story called "Red Shoe," which was rewritten as an orphan who was adopted and gifted a red
shoe by a grandmother. They spent time making shoes, cleaning the house, and taking care of
other orphans. Until one day, the girl was invited to the palace. However, on that day, the
grandmother fell into a terrible illness, and the girl took care of her but fell into temptation as she
swore she would only visit the palace for a few hours and return before midnight. She arrives and
loses herself in the fun as she dances in her favorite red shoe. The next day, she returns to
walking through the woods, where the wizard who once warned her not to wear red shoes to
church and to be grateful to her grandmother curses her for dancing with her red shoes the whole
day. For the whole day, she dances nonstop as she bleeds in her red shoe, tired and hungry. In the
end, she dances her way to her grandmother's funeral, who did not survive the illness. The girl
begged and apologized to the wizard, and once the wizard felt she had learned her lesson, he
stopped the curse, and the girl fainted on the spot. A few years later, the red shoe girl continued
to help the orphan, going to church with a black shoe, and continues to remember her
grandmother. Likewise, in this adaptation, I feel like the story can once be changed again to fit
our modern time, by changing how she was bullied in school for being an orphan but continues
to study and work hard and becomes successful.
Aside from that, in our discussion, we first talked about how the spider could offer his mother to
the sky god. Although he was desperate, we all commented how dare he, as his mother, should
be respected as she cared for him and is older. However, considering the geography, Africa is a
country that had many wars within; so many people were enslaved, and there is no doubt that
women were not as valued as today. Moreover, the possibility that his mother was a mere mortal
and he is a Demigod makes more sense as to why he would give his mother away. Thus, we
concluded the discussion by saying that it was either an expression to show how much he wanted
the stories or that he was a horrible son. Sun bin Son then asked when he offered his mom to the
sky god why he said "Nsia, the sixth child." Based on the professor, it could possibly be that six
is a lucky number and indicates that she could have been the youngest daughter, thus living a
better life, also meaning a better sacrifice. However, after deeper research, we learned that
literally word for word, the mom was the sixth child of her family, showing how African tribes
introduce individuals by their birth order and place value in family structure and description.
Min Jong Kim lastly questions whether this fairy tale has a lesson and whether it is relevant to
children. She argues that the main character offering his mom as a sacrifice should not even be
mentioned or exposed to children; fighting creatures all for the sake of stories seems quite
irrelevant and questionable. I answer that possibly likewise to "With Hair of Handspun Gold,"
which teaches her readers to be clever and determined even when it seems impossible.
