And then they came for our goblin…

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

2 thoughts on “And then they came for our goblin…”

  1. I must say I’ve never thought about this before, but looking at your average 도깨비 my guess is that their appearance might be related to the iconography of Buddhism in Korea and Japan (there’s definitely a family resemblance with the Four Heavenly Kings, and even Bodhidharma). So perhaps this goblin has Indian heritage.

  2. It must also be mentioned that the 도깨비-esque figure found on Buddhist temples in Korea is actually
    an Indian deity known as “Kirttimukha” which was born of Shiva’s mid-eyebrow point in a fit of rage when
    a giant-king demanded that Shiva surrender his bride-to-be Parvati. This Kirttimukha was a monster of endless hunger and rage which devoured everything in sight; then, having nothing left to devour, ate its own body and his bottom jaw, leaving nothing bit its
    face and top jaw. This Indian monster is of ancient origin, and found its way into Chinese myth/folklore (masks of this monster, known as “Taotie” (“glutton”) that date back to the Zhou period (1111 BCE-900 BCE).
    Eventually this monster im,age found its way–via Buddhism–to the Korean peninsula. It has been known in Buddhist circles in Korea as “nathwi” or “kwimyeon,” but such names simply describe the image (“ghost face” for the latter) as opposed to the actual mythological being. This Kirttimukha has obvious differences in relation to the 도깨비 of present in hair, horns, countenance, lack of a full body, etc.
    I would be interested in a folkoloric history of the Korean 도깨비, and the inevitable outside cultures and folklores that influenced its development. I would have no doubts about the Japanese Oni being a part of this influence. I’m sure images of Western goblins also have had an effect on this creature’s folkloric development.

    Interesting topic!

Comments are closed.