EAST ASIAN FOLKLORE

Long before written history, the Korean Peninsula was alive with spirits of the wind, mountain, and sky. Mountains breathed with gods. Shaman dances opened doors between the visible and invisible. Our artists and writers channel these beliefs to honor ancient truths through new voices.

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In ancient East Ancient countries (China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Taiwan), myths shaped not just identity — but who was valued. Some stories implied that physical difference meant punishment. Others equated perfection with purity, silence with respect.

At Down to Work, we’re challenging those narratives. Our artists and writers explore the very beliefs that once deemed disability shameful, and they transform them into stories of dignity, strength, and pride.

Korean Folklore

Learn About the History of Beliefs in East Asia

We explore the ancient beliefs that shaped the shame around disability and reimagine them as tools of pride, creativity, and truth.

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Reclaiming East Asian Folklore: Stories That Shaped the Stigma of Disability

At Down to Work, we believe that to challenge stigma, we must first understand where it comes from. For generations, East Asian folklore, mythology, superstition, and spiritual belief shaped how disability was perceived — often with fear, silence, or shame. Below are foundational stories and belief systems from each East Asian country that contributed to those views, and how our artists and writers are reclaiming them through reimagination and resistance.

The Tiger and the Bear

In Korea’s foundational creation myth, a tiger and a bear pray to become human. The heavenly prince Hwanung offers them a challenge: live in a cave for 100 days, eating only garlic and mugwort. The tiger gives up early. The bear endures, transforms into a woman, and later gives birth to Dangun, founder of Gojoseon, Korea’s first kingdom.

While this tale is celebrated for honoring patience and perseverance, it subtly embeds the message that worthiness is achieved through silent suffering. The bear’s reward is tied to her isolation and obedience. The tiger, representing resistance or restlessness, is dismissed. This binary reflects how society often judges disabled individuals — valuing those who quietly comply over those who resist, speak out, or exist outside the mold of perfection.

Gut Rituals – The Exorcism of Difference

Gut is a traditional Korean shamanic ceremony where a mudang (shaman) invokes spirits through dance, drumming, chanting, and trance. While some gut are celebratory, many were performed to expel bad spirits thought to cause illness, misfortune, or erratic behavior.

People with epilepsy, mental illness, or neurological conditions were often considered possessed or cursed. Gut rituals were not meant to understand these individuals but to “cleanse” them. This spiritual framing transformed disability into a moral failure — something to purge, not embrace. In the eyes of the community, disability became synonymous with danger, chaos, or ancestral punishment.

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Gwishin (Ghosts): The Fear of the Unresolved

Gwishin are female spirits who died before fulfilling their societal roles — often unmarried, childless, or wronged. They appear as pale figures in white burial garments, haunting thresholds like school halls, bathrooms, or mountain paths. They are mourned, feared, and sometimes mocked.

The gwishin reflects cultural discomfort with those considered “incomplete.” Historically, people with disabilities were perceived as spiritually or socially unfinished — unable to fulfill expected life milestones like marriage, work, or ritual duty. In this worldview, to be different was to be unfulfilled, and therefore ghost-like: trapped, burdensome, and unspoken.

Born Under a Bad Star: Lunar Shame and Fate

Korean folk astrology associates certain birth dates, lunar phases, or eclipse seasons with misfortune. A child born during these times was thought to bring hardship, deformity, or early death. These children might be labeled as unlucky or cosmically flawed.

As a result, disabled children were sometimes hidden, abandoned, or denied public recognition. They were believed to bring shame to the family line or disrupt ancestral harmony. This fatalistic view made disability a symbol of karmic imbalance — an omen rather than a human experience.

"Shame Begets Shame": Confucian Silence and Status

Confucian philosophy, deeply rooted in Joseon Korea, emphasizes social order, filial piety, and external behavior as reflections of internal morality. A child’s visible difference — whether in mobility, communication, or cognition — was viewed as a mirror of family failure.

Disabled children were seen not only as individuals with needs but as moral flaws made visible. They were excluded from family ceremonies, denied inheritance, and treated as liabilities. Their very presence threatened the family’s reputation, particularly in a society where maintaining honor and public image was paramount.

Switched by Spirits: The Myth of the Goblin Child

Changelings, or dokkaebi-switched babies, appear in Korean folktales as strange infants who cry uncontrollably, fail to develop normally, or behave erratically. Parents were told their real child had been taken by spirits and replaced.

This belief, meant to explain developmental or intellectual disability, dehumanized affected children. Instead of care, they were feared, hidden, or subjected to superstitious remedies. The changeling myth displaced blame onto supernatural causes — making it easier for society to deny responsibility or compassion.

Silence as Virtue: The Problem with Obedience

In traditional Korean society, especially under Confucian ideals, a “good” child was obedient, quiet, and deferential. Children who spoke too loudly, interrupted adults, or expressed emotion publicly were seen as unruly. This value system privileged verbal control and composure.

For children with speech delays, stutters, or who were nonverbal, this expectation became a double bind. If they were silent, their needs were ignored. If they expressed themselves differently, they were considered disobedient. Their communication — or lack thereof — was not seen as a language to learn from, but a flaw to correct.