#103. 대나무숲 -- Tell me your secrets

It must be human nature to want to talk about your deepest secrets. Relationship troubles, secret crushes, and inner turmoil. Some of us pour our hearts out to our closest friends, some of us to our dear diaries. Yet some others, wanting impartial feedback and advice, turn to anonymous online forums. Whatever your method of choice may be, there is the feeling of relief and catharsis after having gotten something off your chest.

Koreans are no exception to this rule, and this is well-documented in our history.

There was a king in Unified Silla (remember that the three kingdoms were unified thanks to the efforts of the General 김유신) named 경문왕 (King Gyeongmoon). While he is not a notable king in terms of politics or military tactics, he leaves behind many mysterious legends. One says that whenever he slept, hundreds of snakes appeared out of nowhere and formed a blanket across his body. When his surprised servants tried to chase them away, the king stopped them, telling them that he couldn't sleep as well without the snakes. Another says that he is the father of 궁예, whose terrible reign led to the downfall of Unified Silla and to the establishment of the Koryo Kingdom (고려).

 But the most popular story of all says that 경문왕 developed very long ears shortly after becoming king, like those of a donkey. Even circa 850, people were insecure of their appearances, it seems, and this was a very well-guarded secret, as the king never took off his crown-hat.

Really?

 Even the servants and his wives didn't know about it, and the only one who knew was his hat-maker, as he had to take off his crown-hat to get his measurements taken when it was time for a new hat.

For what it's worth, I always imagined that his hat was slightly bigger than his actual size, so that he could stick his ears into the hat!

While the poor hat-maker tried his best to keep this a secret, legend has it that he started getting sicker and sicker from not being able to get this secret off his chest.  Eventually unable to bear it any longer, he went to a bamboo forest (which was fairly common in Korea) nearby, and yelled out into the forest his deepest secret:

"임금님 귀는 당나귀 귀!" (The ears of our king (임금님) are donkey (당나귀) ears!)

Bamboo groves are usually fairly dense, and uninhabited.

But ever since days, whenever the winds rustled through the leaves, it seemed to the listeners that the leaves were whispering the secrets of the king, saying that "임금님 귀는 당나귀 귀." So the rumours spread, and eventually even made it into history books of the Unified Silla era! It is said that eventually the king got wind of it, and ordered to have all of the bamboo cut down. The bamboo grove was replaced by small berry bushes, after which they only whispered "임금님 귀는 길다!" (The ears of our king are long).

Anyway, this story is so famous among the Korean public that the phrase "대나무 숲" (bamboo forest/bamboo grove) almost always evokes this story. Furthermore, the need to speak your mind hasn't decreased at all in the past 1200 years since Unified Silla, so the Korean internet users have created a safe space to whisper your secrets to, much akin to the bamboo groves from the days of Unified Silla.

In the Western world, the easiest thing to do would be to create a throwaway account and talk about your troubles online; however, in Korea, most account creation requires some form of an ID; they usually ask for your 주민등록번호 (resident registration number) which is a form of your government ID, or your cell phone number. So it hardly feels like a safe space to spell out all of your secrets.

So, the Korean alternative works like this. Some page (whether it be a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or a separate website) is created, along with an email address to which you can send your secrets to. When the creator/moderator of the webpage receives your email, your email is posted to the webpage, to which people can react or comment.

The most famous bamboo grove (대나무숲) belongs to the prestigious universities; for example, here is a post from the SNU Bamboo Grove (SNU is Seoul National University; possibly the most prestigious university in Korea):

January 1st, oppa (in this context, boyfriend who was older than the poster) wished me a lot of happiness and luck. January 2nd, oppa dumped me.

People seem to be interested in these university-level 대나무숲, because of several reasons. First, most internet-savvy people belong in this generation; they are either still in university, or university is a recent memory. Secondly, many Koreans have fantasies about the students in these elite universities; it is interesting to see that even an SNU student deals with the same everyday problems as the rest of us. Finally, these well-educated students tend to be more eloquent in their writing, and more interesting posts show up in these bamboo groves of the prestigious universities.

Aaaah, Bamboo Grove! I accidentally accessed Instagram with my boyfriend's phone! I opened my Pandora's Box... I knew that he [used Instagram] often... As I tried to access my own account by searching, I saw that his search history had "Sextagram," "hot body,"... etc.  He followed a lot of accounts that post hot body pictures... It's not like he's contacting them privately, so I'm trying to ignore it, but I can't... Is this common? It's not that common... is it?

I enjoy accessing these 대나무숲 every once in a while. Koreans tend to be extremely polite; I have pretty much never met a Korean who would say rude or risqué things to my face. So it is nice to know that even the Koreans think about the same things that I do. Also, I feel that the writings in these bamboo groves are very representative of the everyday Korean language, talking about mundane things. It's a way for me to keep current on the language trend of an average Korean, while getting my gossip fix of the day! For those who are interested, here is the link to the SNU Bamboo Grove. You can access many others via Google, of course!