Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies is a book of Korean folk tales translated in 1913 when Japan ruled Korea. Under that rule, Japan worked to eradicate Korean culture by destroying historical places, outlawing traditions, and much more. The telling and translation of Korean stories during that time feels especially significant.
About the South of Seoul Virtual Book Club
Looking for book recommendations? Welcome to the South of Seoul book club. We recommend a book every month. Such recommended books explore topics like 1) South Korean history or culture, 2) the complexity of cross-cultural life, 4) the exploration of life within the diaspora experience, and 5) lenses on Korean culture around the world.
Commitment to Accessibility
South of Seoul volunteers take book accessibility into consideration when recommending titles. We consider:
- Purchasable in English In Korea: Many translated titles can’t actually be purchased in English in Korea,
- Audio Version Available: Many people find audiobooks easier to consume.
- Online Versions.: International residents can’t afford to travel with many books. Also, many books may not be available in digital form from within Korea.
Commitment to Diverse Lived Experiences
South of Seoul volunteers seek to put lived experiences at the forefront of their recommendation choices. When considering authors we look for such things as:
- Korean authors writing about their lived experiences in Korea.
- International residents writing about their lived experiences in South Korea.
- Ethnic Koreans writing about their lived experience in other countries.
Reading about Korean culture from a variety of perspectives may provide readers with a greater understanding of the country and culture.
Commitment to Supporting Mental Health
South of Seoul also includes book recommendations that support the lives and mental health of our community. This means that books may tackle the issues related to living between cultures. This may include topics such as culture shock, language, relationships, and more.
Book Recommendation by Lanae Rivers-Woods
April’s South of Seoul Book Club recommendation, Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies, is brought to you by South of Seoul founder, Lanae Rivers-Woods. Rivers-Woods founded South of Seoul in 2015 and has lived in South Korea since 2011. She launched the South of Seoul book club in 2022 when volunteers suggested creating a reading list for those who just moved to Korea.
About The Storyteller
Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies come from a manuscript of recorded stories from Im Bang, born in 1640, and Yi Ryuk, who lived during King Sejo. Both men studied as scholars and documented the oral history of Korean imps, ghosts, and fairies. In 1911, a foreign translator acquired a manuscript of such stories and then translated the manuscript to English.
It’s interesting to note that the translation of this book occurred during the Japanese occupation of Korea and the original English translation was published in Japan.
Korean History During 1913
When reading Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies, understand the book 1) came into existence during a time of Korean cultural oppression and 2) the translator was a white Christian missionary who may not have fully understood the Korean concepts and terms he was translating. Understanding this will help you understand how some meanings may be lost in translation.
Additionally, such an understanding may or may not prepare you for the racist and colonialist language that peppers the translation of the text. Such knowledge prepares you to observe writing and word choices that may feel deeply uncomfortable. For example, at one point, the translator writes:
“Some think that love, strong, true, and self-sacrificing is not to be found in the Orient”
Such a statement contains many important talking points that need to be observed through a comparative historical lens. For example, the unfortunate myth that true love is not found in Korea is often still reflected in current Western society. The use of the term ‘Orient’ is also jarring and shows a certain worldview that certainly must have impacted the translation of the folk tales.
However, when you start digging into the history of the translator and his audience, your view of the statement may evolve. For example, when you complete the former quote more intention exists in the Translator’s words:
“Some think that love, strong, true, and self-sacrificing is not to be found in the Orient; but the story of Charan, which comes down four hundred years and more, proves the contrary…”
The translator James Scarth Gale had no intention of adding to the misunderstanding regarding Korean culture. Instead, he deeply loved Korean culture and did not want to see Korean culture destroyed and Westernized. He wanted to challenge the belief that Korean culture existed as less valuable than Western culture. When describing Gale, his biographer wrote:
“He and I share a passion for translating Korean literary texts, especially poetry, into English, although our notions of suitable poetic style might diverge! Gale loved Korea, and he deeply regretted its passage into the modern world (as his biographer Richard Rutt was also inclined to do). He tried hard to help his fellow missionaries understand and accept Korean culture and traditions.”
In Gale’s commentary surrounding the translated work, we witness his intentions getting lost in the grotesque and biased language of the time. While attempting to support the Korean culture, Gale’s own cultural bias in word choice still stigmatizes the culture. Understanding this dichotomy between intention and execution holds great importance when communicating about other cultures. Even with the best intentions, our words and actions may not stand the test of time.
In order to better unravel the intended history behind Korean Folk Tales, I highly recommend starting by reading the following pdf that covers the life and history of the translator James Scarth Gale:
Also, to prepare to read Korean Folk Tales, I would also recommend using the following resources. Such information will help you to learn more about the time period of translation. From 1910 to 1948, Korea lived under Japanese Colonial Rule and U.S.-Soviet Occupation. The following pdf provides a quick look at this time in Korean history, so you can read the book with that in mind.
In addition to understanding the history, having a visual concept of the period of translation also helps. The following YouTube video shares images of Korea between 1901-1913.
My Experience Reading Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies
When reading the Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies, I found myself caught between two states of being: 1) the lived realities of the translator trying to provide “insight” into Korean culture and 2) the stories themselves which give a sort of documentation of lived experience through a folk tales lens. I felt an intense mental and emotional push and pull as I moved between the translator’s notes and the stories themselves.
In terms of translation, Korean Folk Tales brought me face to face with the complexity of the “white savior” archetype in history. This hit me square in the chest because I live in this complexity in current times. Things change and yet stay the same. Both Korean and Western organizations come to me for help understanding “the other.” However, this cultural and social role makes me feel deeply uncomfortable. I can’t speak to the experiences of every ‘foreigner’, nor can I speak for Koreans. My words only represent my own interpretation of the world around me based on my own life and research into the lived experiences of others. It’s all flawed. Even as I “help”, I only see a hundred ways in which I fail because one person can not speak for complex societies made of millions of voices.
I also believe that the intention to “help” sits at the root of many social issues. I am quite sure that, like James Scarth Gale, things I do to “help” may not age well regarding either Korean or Western culture. Viewed under different lenses over time, words that I felt represented a situation without bias will come to reveal bias I never knew existed. Carefully chosen words will eventually reveal ways in which current society fails us all. That’s the complexity of words, lived experience, culture, communication, and life. We can not win, we can only listen.
In short, Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies spurred a lot of healthy introspection about my own existence within Korea.
This English translation of Korean folk tales holds a very important role in history. It brought a more diverse set of historical Korean stories to an English-speaking audience. Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies added to the voice and history of a culture during a time when they lived under oppression. Such cultural documentation is important.
Equally as important is looking at such a translation and asking, “How would this be different if translated by a native Korean speaker? What additional nuances would exist?” All translations exist as cultural and political acts and need to be questioned. Additionally, I highly recommend doing additional reading on this topic to better understand why translation is political. I suggest reading Translation, Power, Subversion to begin your journey.
After getting lost in the complexity of the translation, I started digging into the Korean Folk Tales themselves. I loved reading the stories collected over time and told within Korean culture itself. Some stories seemed to lose their obvious meaning through translation but still held interesting insight into social norms and structures. So often, we only get to hear a few carefully chosen tales associated with major holidays in Korea. This book takes you much deeper.
As a person who has read and studied translations of Roman and Greek mythology, reading the Korean Folk Tales had some of the same pitfalls. Sometimes the archaic use of English in Korean Folks Tales coupled with stilted translation makes the stories confusing. However, unlike when reading about the Roman and Greek stories, we don’t often have different texts to cross-reference all of the stories with in order to fully understand the story context. I wish that I had a reader’s guide for Korean Folk Tales. That would have been helpful in breaking down some of the imagery and symbolism.
Reasons to Read Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts and Fairies
After reviewing my notes regarding Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies I found a few important reasons to make this book, or at least stories from the book, part of your reading list:
- Learning more about Korean mythology to provide historical context to current thought.
- Observing the role of translation in politics and literature since this book includes translator’s notes that provided added insight.
- Opportunity to reflect on how we exist as foreigners in Korea and how we talk about Korea with the rest of the world. Are we telling Korea’s story when we communicate about the country to others? Or are we colonizing Korea through online conversations and using the pain of culture shock to justify biased or racist cultural commentary? Do we even care how we exist in Korea?
Regarding the final reason, when I read Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies, I think about Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, published only 14 years prior. The language used to talk about Korea and Africa mirror each other. Both make me feel uncomfortable and angry. But, of course, this observation digs into the fact we also need to know about a reviewer (in this case, myself) to understand the lens through which a book was read. Thankfully we don’t have time for that today.
Online Purchasing Link
You can purchase Korean Folk Tales: Imps, Ghosts, and Fairies in English on Amazon.
Find More Book Club Recommendations
Did you like this recommendation? Be sure to explore our other volunteer-recommended books.
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Lanae Rivers-Woods moved to Korea in 2011 where she lives in the countryside with her family, friends, and puppies. She holds a BSSW (Bachelor’s of Science in Social Work), a MAIT (Master’s of Arts in International Teaching), and registered by the Pyeongtaek Korean Times with the Korean government as a Cultural Expert.
Ms. Rivers-Woods used her 15 years experience as a social architect, UX/UI designer, and technology consultant to found South of Seoul in 2015. South of Seoul is a volunteer organization that leverages technological tools to mitigate cultural dissonance in multi-cultural communities.
Through South of Seoul, Ms. Rivers-Woods works with independent volunteers, non-profit organizations, businesses, local & federal government, universities, and US military organizations to develop solutions to support English speaking international residents in rural South Korea.
Additionally, Ms. Rivers-Woods founded the South of Seoul smart phone app available for Google Play and iPhone. The app provides information a resources for those living and traveling in South Korea.
When she isn’t in South of Seoul development meetings or working her day job, Ms. Rivers-Woods loves to be outside at skate parks, the beach, or playing in the mountains.
