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Near the start of last week Gord Sellar wrote a post of a few questions that had come to mind recently. While I was unable to offer any help involving shower practices in Korea, the questions concerning cats and cat-naming habits in Joseon-era Korea (1392-1910) were not only very interesting but also an area where I felt like I could add to the ( Read more... )

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Today is the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, also known as Chuseok or the "mid-autumn harvest festival" in Korea. According to my copy of Annual Customs of Korea the holiday's name comes from a portmanteau of the Chinese chu-jung (秋中; "middle autumn") and weol-seok (月夕; "month's evening"), although it was once known by the "pure Korean" ( Read more... )

Continuing the discussion from my previous entry on Chilseok, it may be worth noting two of the culinary customs of this time of year. The first is an emphasis on wheat-based foods, including wheat noodles and a type of wheat-based pancake called milijeonbyeong (밀전병). Despite its description as a pancake though, the online pictures that I've come ( Read more... )

I caught an interesting article from BBC Earth News last night that involves a study of 'super-colonies' among Linepithema humile (Argentine ants). The general idea behind the report is that transplanted ants from the Paraná River basin have set up massive-sized colonies stretching along the coasts of the Mediterranean (6,000km), southern ( Read more... )

A recent post from Brian in Jeollanam-do highlighted this article from the JoongAng Daily on tigers in Korea and the efforts made to add them to the "International Tiger Studbook" mating registry at Leipzig Zoo. Brian's post also mentions the Leopard Cat, subspecies Prionailurus bengalensis euptailurus, an indigenous wildcat listed as 'vulnerable ( Read more... )

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Would you believe that it's already time for another 명절 - an important traditional event - in Korea? Thursday of this week, 28 May, is the fifth day of the fifth month in the lunar calender (음력), which is called Dano (단오). The origins of this day go back to the Warring States period of Chinese history, 476-221BCE, before cultural transmission saw ( Read more... )