IT’S OK TO NOT BE OK : Korean folktales.

Episode 5: Netflix translations.

KT-My face is all swollen, so I look like Mr Lumpy now. What do I do?
ST-Mr Lumpy? Where is Mr Lumpy? Mr Lumpy.
KT-(oh oh) My lumps are all gone. (Oh) I can’t believe it.
ST-Lying is bad. It’s deception. The cops will come and arrest you.

“HOKBURIYEONGGAM”
“Old Man With a Lump on His Neck”(瘤子老爷)
by Kim Jongdae

“Hokburiyeonggam” is the tale of an old man who, with the help of goblins, loses the big lump on his neck, and another old man who, instead of losing his deformity, was given another lump by the goblins.

An old man who had a lump on his neck went to the mountain to gather wood. He worked until after dark and on his way down, found an empty house where he decided to lodge for the night. Feeling alone and bored, he began singing a song, which attracted goblins (dokkaebi), who were moved by his singing.“ Old man, where does that beautiful singing come from? ” asked the goblin leader, and the old man answered, “ It comes from this lump on my neck.” The goblin asked the old man to sell him the lump in return for treasure, which the old man accepted, and the old man lost his lump and became rich as well. A neighbor of his, who also had a lump of his neck, heard the story and headed out to the empty house in the mountain and waited for nightfall. Night arrived and he began to sing, which again attracted the goblins. The goblin leader again asked where the singing came from and the old man answered that it came from his lump. Upon hearing this, the goblin said, “ The other old man was a liar and you’re one, too, ” and added a lump on the other side of the old man’s neck. This gave birth to the expression, “ Went to lose the lump but returned with another, ”

This tale belongs to the type of imitation tale spread around the world, but lacks in characterization. Many folk tales emphasize the theme of “punishing evil and rewarding virtue (gwonseon jingak), ” and many Korean tales highlight filial piety, but those themes are ignored in this narrative and the only clear plot is the old man overcoming crisis with a lie, for which he acquires wealth, which makes it difficult to position the tale within the Korean oral tradition. It is also notable that the structure of repetition is unrelated to the character’s virtue or vice and that reward and punishment is determined only by the order of who came first. The tale is included in the primary school textbook Chōsengo dokuhon, published in 1923, under Japanese colonial rule, and the inclusion of a story in which the protagonist is rewarded for lying seems to pose moral issues. The story’s plot is revised in the 1933 edition of the book, but the fact that it took ten years to change this reflects the Japanese colonial government’s attempt to distort the characteristics of the Korean people.

The tale was first documented in 1915 in the textbook Chōsengo dokuhon under the title “Old Man With a Lump” and has since been recognized as one of the most widely known Korean folk tales. In Japan, the story was published as part of the 1st-grade textbook Jinjō shōgaku dokuhon, which was copied onto the Korean textbook, including the illustrations, which depicted dokkaebi as the Japanese goblin oni, resulting in the similarity between the public image of dokkaebi and oni.
https://folkency.nfm.go.kr/en/topic/detail/6021

A bit of history.

During the Japanese colonial era, dokkaebi became subsumed by oni. This is how the Japanese story Kobutori Jisan turned into Hokburiyeonggam (The Old Man with a Lump on His Neck) in colonial-era Korean textbooks, a case of the oni being transferred wholesale into the dokkaebi tradition.

This story in colonial-era textbooks would have served to show that Korea and Japan have a single cultural root, an attempt at justifying colonial rule.

https://koreanliteraturenow.com/essay/musings/dokkaebi-goblins-korean-myth