Today I discovered something very interesting about the Korean culture.
The topic came up, as the good ones often do, when my coteacher asked me a question about American culture.
"Are names really important?"
I told her yes, but the how we treat that importance is different than in Korea. For example, it's rude to call a teacher by their name in Korea because a name is a special privilege. In America, it would be rude to call the teacher, "Teacher!" because names are important in a different way--not acknowledging someone's name is seen as impersonal and sometimes as a direct affront. People also often take pride in their family name, because it represents their personal and familial history.
She then proceeded to tell me why she asked this question. She said that in Korea, names are very influential on a persons life and sometimes an individual will bring a name to a fortune teller to see what future that name contains. If the future is not a welcome one, the name is then tainted and the individual will most likely take measures to change their name. She said to change your name is very easy in Korea. She followed up by expressing she knew that this was just a superstition, but it is often a superstition that is valued enough to take precautionary actions.
Apparently this last weekend, her mother went to a fortune teller and brought her brother's name into question. The fortune told was not preferred, so her mother will change her son's name. My co-teacher's brother is in college.
I asked then will everyone have to call him by this new name? He has to tell his friends and coworkers and acquaintances that his name has changed? The answer was yes--because if everyone acknowledges and uses this new name, it is believed that the bad fortune will change.
I have some follow up questions that I am planning on asking as soon as I get the chance:
How do they come up with the new name to ensure that one also does not have a bad fortune attached to it?
How many times might something like this happen?
I'm assuming they just change the first name, but I want to double check.
What is in a name depending on the culture and/or belief system is such a fascinating concept. In Thailand, I was told that parents often give their children "ugly" nicknames because they believe that the spirits will not bother an ugly child. All of my students had nicknames, and this superstition was definitely proven in a few. For example, one girl was called "Moo" which means "pig" in Thai. Or there was another with a nickname that meant "Baby Whale." (Both of these students were obese, which brings up a whole new set of questions about the impact of a name.)
Most of my students had positive, or neutral, nicknames so I'm assuming this is a superstition not all Thai families ascribe to. Some of them may have seemed odd, certainly, but not necessarily negative. Boat, Bank, Ploy, Beer, Meow, Viju, June, Opor, and Wei to name a few.
I've included a few quotes about names that I thought were relevant and provided something to think about.
“What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?'
'Cats don't have names,' it said.
'No?' said Coraline.
'No,'
said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know
who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”
~ Neil Gaiman,
Coraline
“I sound contemptuous, but I am not. I am interested--intrigued even--by
the way time erases real lives, leaving only vague imprints. Blood and
spirit fade away so that only names and dates remain.”
~ Kate Morton,
The House At Riverton
“A name can't begin to encompass the sum of all her parts. But that's
the magic of names, isn't it? That the complex, contradictory
individuals we are can be called up complete and whole in another mind
through the simple sorcery of a name.”
~ Charles de Lint,
Dreams Underfoot
“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and
emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages
and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our
society.”
~ Alan Wilson Watts
“Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”
~ J.K. Rowling,
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
“I’m not my name. My name is something I wear, like a shirt. It gets worn. I outgrow it, I change it.”
~ Jerry Spinelli
“Do you really want to know where we come from?" she said. "In every
century, in every country, they'll call us something different. They'll
say we're ghosts, angels, demons, elemental spirits, and giving us a
name doesn't help anybody. When did a name change what someone is?”
~ Brenna Yovanoff,
The Replacement
