I’m spending a quiet Friday night here in Seoul, Korea after my first week of summer Korean language classes at Yonsei (I was at Seoul National University’s program the last two summers). I have gotten into the habit of watching the 9pm news on Korea’s MBC channel and was especially amused by one of the stories for tonight:

Could it be that the familiar image of a 도깨비 (a kind of goblin or monster that appears in various Korean folk tales) is not the real Korean goblin but in fact a foreign goblin?

The MBC investigative reporter visits an elementary school and opens up the students’ textbook to an image showing a bunch of horned monsters. She asks the students, “Which country do these goblins come from?”

The students all happily shout, “우리 나라!” (Our country!)

But, are the children being deceived? Are they being spoon-fed images of the foreign demons of their former colonial overlord and being told that they are really Korean goblins?

The screen cuts to a book filled office where a professor of folklore compares the various familiar images in contemporary Korea of the goblin, shown with one or two horns and a spiked club, with…very similar looking images of Japanese demons or Oni (鬼). We are then shown authentic Korean representations of the 도깨비 figure, shown without any horns, but with a distinctly Dragonball-like haircut.

How can it be that these Japanese 오니 (Oni) images have come to replace the images of the true Korean goblin? Something must be done to prevent the corruption of our children! Can we not recover the subaltern Korean goblin from the grasp of Japanese imperialism?

Read related articles on this shocking discovery (Doesn’t have all the picture comparisons shown in the MBC version, however):
Yeonhap Article
Hankooki.com