• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.39
• /
• pp.127-152
• /
• 2015

This thesis comparatively looks into folklore faiths, expecially child-birth gods related to child-birth customs and aims to find out both nations' faith in child-birth gods and their features. It looks into birth gods protecting delivering mothers and babies by appearing at the delivery sites at time of delivery and child-rearing gods intervening in growth of babies after they are born. In both nations, many gods are believed in for selection of babies, safe delivery and their healthy growth but those appearing at delivery sites are only birth goddesses called Samsinhalmony and Obugami. What make this phenomenon appear in both nations' folklore faiths? Seeing the reason in the fact that common negative concept regarding childbirth exists in both nations' established faiths, the writer comparatively analyzed various cases of delivery-related defilement in both nations' delivery customs. Its result showed that Japan is stronger in delivery-related defilement concept than Korea is. For instance, Japan regard child birth-related defilement more horrible than that related to funeral. Pursuantly, in Japan stricter regulations on childbirth rooms and stricter taboos for babies have been passed down. Besides, in the process of its comparative study on both nations' divine images and appearances, the writer paid attention to the fact that unlike Japan's mountain gods and restroom goddesses appearing at delivery sites, they don't get involved in childbirth in Korea and discussed Japan's theory of reincarnation and its mountain goddess' marginal nature working behind the curtain. I also discussed the phenomenon that both nations' childbirth gods are passed down as Three gods, which means that their faith in childbirth gods has to be seen as a result of the faith in childbirth gods interacting with the faith in Three gods or the Three-gods theory, accordingly I indicated that it is worth re-consideration to see the Three-God Theory as the core of the faith in Samsinhalmoni. Lastly, though in both nations' childbirth faith underlies their fear for divine beings, the faith in childbirth gods, strongly coupled with death heritages, is distributed throughout the nation, which is because Japan's childbirth gods intervening in birth and growth of a new life also actually involve themselves deeply in the sphere of death as well.

• Journal of Christian Education in Korea
• /
• v.72
• /
• pp.49-70
• /
• 2022

The purpose of this study is to suggest a response and solution through Christian educational care to the crisis and change of the era of low birth rate faced by Korean society and the Korean church. This study proposes to find an alternative to the biblical aspect of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood as God's blessing for the demographic cliff and low birth rate problem that have become a reality in Korean society and churches. Being a parent in an age of low birth rate is very difficult, but on the other hand, it gives happiness and joy. Being a parent is a blessing from God, and is the most important and valuable thing in life. However, modern society emphasizes the right and necessity to choose one's own parenthood status. In the nuclear family, the decrease in the number of children, and the development of child research, parents feel more responsibility and economic burden for raising children than ever before. Therefore, it is a reality that the number of people who delay becoming parents or voluntarily do not have children is gradually increasing. To improve the perception of becoming a parent due to a decrease in responsibility for raising children, it is necessary to shed light on marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing from a Christian educational point of view. In addition, it is necessary to understand the recognition of being a parent and the characteristics of childbirth and rearing, and to analyze past and present value changes. This study will also discuss the causes of low birthrate and try to provide Christian educational care for childcare including solving the low birthrate problem.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
• /
• v.25 no.6
• /
• pp.43-57
• /
• 2007

The objective of this study is to identify the significance of haying many children, their motive of childbirth, patterns of investment in human capital, and their expectations of their children. For this purpose, thirteen mothers of multi-child families have been interviewed in depth. Key findings of the study are as follows. First, the significance of children in many-child families varied. The fundamental features were: symbol of strong ties between God and humans, proud existence displayable to others about their level of happiness, and a means of defining their identity. Second, the typical motives of the majority of interviewees to have many children were "unplanned" but "natural accommodation and adaptation." Third, striking aspects, in terms of many-child families' investment in human capital were to consider many-child families to be a community in itself as a great environment of teaming and to have to deal with issues of limits and impartiality when allocating resources of a limited income and parents' time. Fourth, expectations of parents for their children were "normal growth" and mediocrity, and they cited intangible human assets as the greatest gift to their children. This study will hopefully offer a new analytical perspective to the growing concerns of low birth rates and excessive zeal of parents for their children's education, and thereby lay the groundwork of methodological approaches for resolving such social problems.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.1-11
• /
• 1979

This is a study on angels' costumes in religious paintings, especially as this relates to the questions of concepts and theological symbolism. Angels, as spiritual creatures in Christian thought, play the role of praising God's glory, as messengers of God, the role of guarding Israel and the Church, and protecting or punishing human beings. Sometimes the angels appear in incarnate form. They display no sexual differences and are not able to procreate. The angels' funtional classification being thus; nevertheless, they are pictured in various costumes and appearances according to characteristics of the paintings. The angel Michael appears as a man of dignity when pictured as a guard; the angel Gabriel in the annunciation is often portrayed as a woman of mystical beauty. Under the Renaissance, the mighty cherubim and seraphim at Yahweh's throne are degraded as plump child-angels, or winged child-heads looking alike Eros or Cupid. They have become playful and all too obviously non-heavenly chrubs, accepted features of the Temple decorations. However, cherubim are often depicted as naked or wrapped around with a piece of cloth and accompanied with wind, which symbolizes the Glory of God. The angels, costumes without seam are hung over or wrapped around the body, and when sewn they are simple and ample enough that they fall in a great many folds. However, by the 14C. angels are mostly dressed in costumes common to all Europe, and after that angels gradually appear in folk costumes; for example Italian, Flemish, etc. Dalmatic, the typical costume of Byzantine often shows up as angels' dresses even after the period. Originally the dalmatic was the Roman tunic to which Eastern influences added. The Roman clavus on the tunic had gradually lost distinction until, by the Imperial epoch, it was worn by the lowest servants. It was proudly therefore, as 'The servants of God', that the early Christians are shown wearing the clavus on their wide, ungirdled, sleeved dalmatics. In addition to their costume, angels have some other distinct charateristics. First, angels have a halo around their head; this symbolizes their holiness. Second, angels wear a narrow diadem or a queen's crown that seems to denote their glorious status close to God's throne. Third, the cloth band across the breast resembles a priest's stole, which suggests the sacred role of a priest and symbolizes the grace santified. Fourth, lilies in the annunciations are symbols of Mary's virginity. chastity, innocence and heavenly bliss. Angels hold palms or olives in their hands. The former denote prosperity. beauty and the Christians' reward after death; the latter represent peace and amity. the imperial crown made of olives means victory. Fifth, angels in paintings always have a pair of wings, which can be traced to scripture where cherubim and seraphim are described as having pairs of wings. Angels' wings often have colors of the rainbow, and the rainbow is compared to God's glory. Sixth, generally artists paint angels' costumes as white, blue, green, gold and purple. Other colors such as red rarely appear. According, to scriptures it is believed that angels should be depicted 'as white as snow'. According to the biblical expressions of angels as lightning, sun or a pillar of fire, angels should be described as creatures of light. Nevertheless being a form of art, religious paintings may differ in their presentation according to an artist's inspiration and intention. Since religious paintings illustrated above were almost all done before the Reformation, symbols of colors used in the Catholic Church will also be mentioned. The white color symbolizes chastity, purity, brightness, delight and divinity. Green represents new birth, eternal life, spiritual revival and the expectance of the grace of God. Blue, the color of sapphires, denotes chastity and truth. Red, the color of rubies, represents divinity, love and religious passion. Violet is the color of dignity, indicating the sovereign, royal or imperial power and the great Sacrifice of Christ. As mentionad above, angels' costumes were expressed in accordance with contemporary patterns or as indicated in the Bible, and accesories and colors correspond with Christian symbols. Therefore these facts should be taken into consideration when it comes to the study of costume history.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.430-458
• /
• 1990

Care is a central concept of nursing. Nursing would not exist without caring. Care and quality of life are closely related. Human behavior is a manifestation of culture. We can say that caring and nursing care are expression of culture. The nurse must understand the relationship of culture with care for ensure quality nursing care. But knowledge of cultural factors in nursing is not well developed. Time and in - depth study are needed to find meaningful relationships between culture and care. Nurses recognized the importance of culturally appropriate nursing There are two care systems in culturally based nursing. The folk care system and the professional nursing care system. The folk care system existed long before the professional nursing care system was introduced into this culture. If the discrepancy between these two care systems is great, the client may receive inappropriate nursing care. Culture and subcaltures are diverse and dynamic in nature. Nurses need to know the caring behaviors, patterns, and their meaning in their own culture. In Korea we have taken some first step to study cultural nursing phenomena. It is not our intent necessarily to return to the past and develop a nationalistic of nursing, but to identify the core of traditional caring and relate that to professional nursing care. Our Assumptions are as follows : 1) Care is essential for human growth, well being and survial. 2) 7here are diverse and universal forma, expressions, patterns, and processes of human care that exist transcul - turally. 3) The behaviors and functions of caring differ according to the social structure of each culture. 4) Cultures have folk and professional care values, beliefs, and practices. To promote the quality of nursing care we must understand the folk care value, beliefs, and practices. We undertook this study to understand caring in our traditional culture. The Goals of this study were as follows : 1) To identify patterns in caring behavior, 2) To identify the structural components of caring, and 3) To understand the meaning and some principles of caring. We faised several questions in this study. Who is the care-giver? Who is the care-receipient? Was the woman the major care -giver at any time? What are the patterns in caring behavior? What art the priciples underlying the caring process? We used an interdisciplinary team approach, composed of representatives from nursing and anthropology, to contribute in -depth understanding of caring through a socicaltural perspeetive. A Field study was conducted in Ro-Bong, a small agricultural kinship village. The subjects were nine women and one man aged be or more years of age. Data were collected from january 15 to 21, 1990 through opem-ended in-depth interviews and observations. The interview focused on caring behaviors sorrounding birth, aging, death and child rearing. We analysed these data for meaning, pattern and priciples of caring. In this report we describe caring behaviors surrounding childbirth. The care-givers were primarily mothers- in -low, other women in the family older than the mother - to- be, older neighbor woman, husbands, and mothers of the mother-to- be. The care receivers were the mother-to-be the baby, and the immediate family as a component of kinship. Emerging caring behavior included praying, helping proscribing, giving moral advice(Deug - Dam), showing concern, instructing, protecting, making preparations, showing consideration, touching, trusting, encouraging, giving emotional comfort, being with, worrying about, being patient, preventing problems, showing by an example, looking after bringing up, taking care of postnatal health, streng thening the health condition, entering into another's feelings(empathizing), and sharing food, joy and sorrow The emerging caring component were affection, touching, nurtuing, teaching, praying, comforting, encouraging, sharing. empathizing, self - discipline, protecting, preparing, helping and compassion. Emerging principles of. caring were solidarity, heir- archzeal relationships, sex - role distinction. Caring during birth expresses the valve of life and reflects the valued traditional beliefs that human birth is given by god and a unique unifying family event reaching back to include the ancestors and foreward to later generations. In addition, We found positive and rational foundations for traditionl caring behaviors surrounding birth, these should not be stigmatized as inational or superstitious. The nurse appropriately adopts the rational and positive nature of traditional caring behaviors to promote the quality of nursing care.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.78-85
• /
• 2014

Europeans experienced the horror and cruelty of war through the first and second World Wars. They began to raise fundamental questions and doubt about the preexisting World Order of God and humans leading to the birth of Existentialism. The Theater of the Absurd is one of the genres in theater resulting from the existentialist theories. The Theater of the Absurd has a format opposed to the traditional Realist Theater and emphasize the absurdity of human and society's existence. In particular, Fernando Arrabal who is a French Absurdist playwright, expressed the absurd human conditions using his unique forms and contents and his work 'Fando et Lis' depicts the absurdity of the adult world through the eyes of a child. Many unrealistic elements typical and inherent in the Absurdist plays are present in his work. Especially, the actors were required to apply not only the realistic acting approach but also to study and analyze characteristics of all Absurdist plays and internalize them based on the creative foundation of recreation. Then, they were asked to examine the characters' personality, emotions, and actions and think hard about creating an unrealistic action of voice and movements. This creative process by actors is a must in developing the reliable and trustworthy Absurdist acting.