In (Tiger)

Koreans have long believed that a person's fate and character are to some degree set by the animal of their birth year, and that those born in the year of the Tiger take on the tiger's nature. Tradition describes them as independent: they dislike working under others and cannot bear to lose. That confidence gives them room for others, and they are said to be born to lead many people, with the dignity of a leader, a strong sense of responsibility and an early rise in life. Because the tiger of the tales repays kindness, the Tiger-born are said to be just and generous, to repay every help, and to take up the work of others as their own.

The same tradition sees the tiger's faults in them. Just as the tiger often misses its prey, the Tiger-born are said to overrate their strength; impulsive and full of energy, impatient and eager to settle everything at once, they often fail in business, and they can be suspicious and hesitant. The museum adds that, for all their impetuousness, they are also serious, warm and generous, and that a dejected Tiger-born needs real sympathy — and will repay it twofold.

Folk beliefs follow from the tiger's life. Because the tiger lives alone, great monks were said to be born in a year, month or day of the Tiger, and people with the tiger in their four pillars to become religious figures or artists with ease. Livestock was said not to thrive in a house with a Tiger-born, two Tiger-born spouses not to get on, and a Tiger-born boy to be better born at night, when the tiger is strongest — and a girl the opposite.

Korea was long known as the "Country of Tigers": its land is mostly mountains, and tigers were many. The museum dates the first appearance of tigers on the peninsula to some 30,000 years ago and finds them in Korean art from the beginning — in the petroglyphs of Bangudae Terrace in Daegok-ri, Ulju, on a tiger-shaped belt buckle of the Bronze Age, on roof-end tiles and on ceramics. For its powerful body, its agility, its intelligence and its grace the tiger was called the "living grace", the "mountain god" and the "mountain hero"; it became a symbol of holiness and of Korea itself, and in 1988 Hodori the tiger was the mascot of the Seoul Olympic Games.

Only one part of Korea had no tigers: Jeju Island, which, it was said, had become isolated because no tigers lived there. Newspapers of the Japanese colonial period record its gradual extinction on the peninsula, and photographs of the time show the last tigers lying dead under the feet of hunters.

In folk belief the tiger is the king of the beasts, a symbol of courage and wisdom, of solitude and of a hidden life; it guards the mountain spirit and is sometimes taken for the mountain spirit itself. It was believed to protect people, at times with authority and at times with great kindness, and its face mattered above all: Koreans drew it in countless ways, tied it to the spiritual pride of the people, and say that they can see the tiger's face in the faces of great leaders.

Its whiskers stood for authority. A man's coarse beard was called hosu (虎鬚), "tiger's whiskers", and real tiger whiskers adorned the red hats of military officers; the tiger was thought to see a person's previous life through its whiskers, and to recognise an ascetic and carry him on its back. Its power to drive away evil spirits, the museum notes, was present throughout the everyday life of Korean ancestors.

A legend of the Joseon statesman Han Myeong-hoe (韓明澮) shows how Koreans once judged a person. His study hall was far from home, and when he returned long after sundown a great tiger would appear and carry him home on its back. One day the tiger stopped coming; Han went to look for it and found it caught in a trap. He paid the hunter and set it free, and the tiger, deeply moved, wept in his arms.

Grandmothers told children of the tiger that appeared and roared: "Give me a piece of rice cake, and I won't eat you alive" — and there was only one piece left. In the tales the tiger is chivalrous and knows how to repay a kindness, but it can also be outwitted, and the museum ends its account with that voice: the Korean tiger lives on in the tender voice of Korean grandmothers.

In the nineteenth-century mountain-god paintings (Sansindo, 山神圖) a white-haired old man with a gentle smile strokes a tiger, the god's messenger or the god himself. In folk painting (minhwa, 民畵) the tiger appears beside a magpie, the kkachi horangi or "magpie tiger": the magpie, Korea's national bird, is a bird of good omen, and the tiger is sometimes drawn ridiculous, as if outwitted by the bird, sometimes as a messenger carrying the god's will that the magpie brings. These paintings also speak of gratitude repaid.

The tiger was the emblem of the warrior. Military officers formed the Hoban (虎班), the "Tiger Division"; tigers were embroidered on their breastplates and painted on white flags, signs of dignity, authority and bravery; a tiger skin was the seat of authority. The houses of warriors were decorated with Horyeopdo (胡獵圖), folding screens showing great tiger hunts.

The tiger watched over everyday life. Children of three or four wore a gulle hat embroidered with a tiger, a mother's wish that her son grow strong and upright, and the hogeon (虎巾), a hat shaped like a tiger's face, kept evil spirits away and brought good health. A real tiger claw or tooth, or its likeness, hung from women's norigae ornaments; the hojokban table stood on tiger's feet; and the bride's palanquin and the inlaid ox-horn boxes of noble women (hwagakham, 華角函) were decorated with tigers.

On the East Coast villages held the beomgut, the "tiger exorcism", to console the spirits of people killed by tigers: a play between a tiger that has eaten a rooster alive and the hunter who catches it, performed for the safety of the village. It has since become a festival for good catches and the safety of fishermen.

The Tiger, the Horse and the Dog form one of the four harmonious triads (samhap, 삼합): the tiger's roar, the dog's metallic bark and the horse's neigh, the museum says, are in harmony. In feng shui tales even the most powerful "crouching tiger" burial site is perfect only with a "dog rock" — the tiger's prey — nearby.

The Rooster is the Tiger's wonjin (원진), the animal in conflict with it: the tiger hunts by night and hates the cock's crow that announces the dawn; a rooster crowing long, people believed, could drive even ghosts and tigers out of a village. The symbols encyclopedia adds that the Tiger is in serious conflict and rivalry with the Ox and the Monkey, and in mutual respect and cooperation with the Dragon, the Horse and the Pig.