• Genre and Sub Genre –  Customary folklore (superstition)

• Language – English

• Country where Item is from – South Korea

Informant Data:

Jun Ho Lee is a 23 year old male, and junior at Dartmouth College. He grew up in Korea and until he came to Dartmouth. He is currently a neurosciene major. He is a class of 2016 but he enlisted in the South Korean military in 2014 after finishing two years at Dartmouth. He served from Aug 4, 2014 to May 3, 2016 under the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army Special Forces Command International Peace Reinforcement Support Services. He worked as a logistics admin until he was deployed to United Arab Emirates as a translator for 8 months. Now he is back at Dartmouth to resume his studies.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context – The interview took place one-on-one in the informant’s dorm room. The event described in the interview took place with a senior soldier (2 people involved in total; the informant and his senior soldier). It was in the October of 2014 at night time. The informant could not recall the exact date at his unit in Incheon.

• Cultural Context – The night post duty is something all South Korean soldiers do, whichever unit or job they have been assigned to. Becuase it happens at night and always in pairs or more, there is some social aspect to it as it is a chance for people on duty together to bond over the night.

Item:

• The informant was on his first ever night guard duty with a senior soldier. It is a rotation duty where everyone stayed at a post for 2 hours for the night. He had to do it every 3-4 days. There were 5 posts in total around the boundary of the base. He was a little nervous, because he had to prove myself to the senior soldier and others in the platoon that he was a capable soldier. On his way to the third station, the northern most corner of the base. Before entering the guard post, the corporal stopped him in front of a big tree. He told the informant to hold his breath and follow him. Holding his breath, the informant went around the tree three times and entered the guard post. After closing the door, he told the informant someone had committed suicide by hanging himself to the tree while on night duty. Ever since then, soldiers on duty started walking around the tree three times without breathing to “deceive” the spirit of the dead soldier which was supposedly still residing in the tree and have become malicious against other soldiers coming to stand duty at night. The informant was told to do it every time he arrived at this post in future duties and teach it to new recruits when it becomes time for him to go on duties as a senior soldier in the pair.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript of Associated File:

We had to go through five posts per night. And on our way to the third station, our third post… my senior soldier suddenly found a tree and he started going around the tree holding his breath. And then, after he finished going around three times, he told me that I had to do the same thing too. So, a newbie I was, I did what he told me to do. I held my breath walked around that tree. Three times, counterclockwise. And then we got into our post station and he told me that the reason behind all this weird ritual that I just finished doing was someone had committed suicide on that tree and it was that walking around three times was a method of deceiving the spirit of the dead soldier who supposedly… still residing in that tree and haunt soldiers coming up to guard the post.

Informant’s Comments:

Informant was said that he did not really give much thought to it in the first place. But he found himself doing it every time he went on duty and later passing it on to the new recruits whom he went on duty with.

Collector’s Comments:

It is very interesting to see this unit folklore that is definitely anonymous in authorship but yet lives and thirves so well over many geneartions of soldiers, although each “generation” in South Korean military system is only 21 months.

Collector’s Name:

Jeong Tae Bang