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<body class='hmmessage'><div dir='ltr'>Hello Frank and all,<BR>Here is one of the pictures, taken in the 1890s when many English books on Korea began to be published, which shows that brass spoons were widely available and used for the ordinary people in Seoul in 1890s. See the display on the table. It is in <em>Everyday Life in Korea</em>, by Daniel L. Gifford, printed in 1898. See <a href="http://archive.org/details/everydaylifeinko00giff">http://archive.org/details/everydaylifeinko00giff</a><BR>You can find more similar pictures of the brassware shops in Seoul from 1895 to 1910.<br>Best,<BR>Sung-Deuk Oak <BR><div><hr id="stopSpelling">Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 16:32:57 -0700<br>From: mjpettid2000@yahoo.com<br>To: hoffmann@koreanstudies.com; koreanstudies@koreanstudies.com<br>Subject: Re: [KS] spoons<br><br><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hello all,<br><br>I am tardy with this, but spoons were commonly used in premodern Korea by folks of all status groups There is a brief record from 1604 that indicates that this was a habit of the ChosOn people in comparison to the Ming armies assisting with the earlier invasions (1592-98). Certainly the materials used to make spoons were reflective of status, but wood, brass, silver and so on were common. I can't speak of the 20th century, but for ChosOn and earlier, spoons were commonplace.<br><div><span><br></span></div><div>Best,</div><div><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: garamond,new york,times,serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; background-color: transparent;">Michael Pettid<br></div> <div style="font-family: garamond, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <hr size="1"> <font face="Arial" size="2"> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann@koreanstudies.com><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> koreanstudies@koreanstudies.com <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Tuesday, September 10, 2013 5:47 PM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [KS] spoons<br> </font> </div> <div class="ecxy_msg_container"><br>Hello Bill:<br><br>Seems nobody wants your wooden spoons. Not sure why so, as there are <br>several who know much better than me.<br><br>Here the little I can say about wooden spoons:<br>Other than what you imagine, I think Koreans did not, at least not <br>since the later colonial period, use wooden spoons at home. Maybe <br>wooden spoons were used for prisoners or in the army, but not <br>elsewhere. (If anyone
knows otherwise, please do post.) In KOREA spoons <br>were of metal, what metal depended on the social status of the families <br>and also the historic period we talk about. When you read descriptions <br>from older texts, 1910 or before, you can find some hints that wooden <br>spoons were used by the lower classes though: "Meals are served on low <br>tables, the family and the guests squatting on the floor, and wooden <br>spoons and chopsticks are used." (Constance J.D. Coulson, _Korea_, <br>London: A. and C. Black, 1910, p. 10.) Wooden spoons where also part of <br>Korea's funeral culture, used to prepare the dead for burial, for some <br>sort of ritual meal: see Im Kwŏn-t'aek's movie _Ch'ukche_ (1996) for <br>such a scene, if you have not seen it in actual life. That movie is <br>pretty good at depicting a traditional funeral: <br><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNXf_ibPc7o" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNXf_ibPc7o</a><br>Wooden spoons were and are of course also used in Buddhist monasteries.<br><br>In any case, you talk about the very late colonial period and <br>post-liberation period in North Korea. Of course did Koreans would <br>Koreans want to replace their spoons and other tools and utilities the <br>Japanese had confiscated during the war.<br><br><br>Frank<br><br>--------------------------------------<br>Frank Hoffmann<br><a href="http://koreanstudies.com/" target="_blank">http://koreanstudies.com</a><br><br></div> </div> </div> </div></div> </div></body>
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