That Woman’s Final Supper

“Stories of Formidable Women ”: The Red Bean Porridge Granny and the Tiger

 

By Jo-won Shim

Published: December 12, 2021

Translated by Seung-a Han

 

The protagonist of the fable “The Red Bean Porridge Granny and the Tiger” is a poor woman. The story is about her victory—with the help of things like an A-frame carrier, an awl, an egg, a straw mat—against a tiger who harasses her, and it is satisfying and entertaining to see the king of the mountain suffer helplessly at the hands of such insignificant things. Its framework is comparable to that of the movie Home Alone (directed by Chris Columbus, 1990), but unlike that lighthearted movie, this story has a deeper metaphorical meaning.

Stories of Formidable Women: The Red Bean Porridge Granny and the Tiger (source: pixabay)

Long time ago, an old woman was working in a red bean field, and a white tiger came down from the mountain and told her he’d eat her up. (Story told by Jun Ryong Yoo of Pyongbuk in Sonchon-gun in 1934, Korean Oral Folktales: The Pyeonganbuk-do Province Edition, Book 2, from The Full Collected Works of Seokjae Im )

You don’t particularly need to picture the protagonist as an extremely old, white-haired woman with no teeth. In the past, it was quite common for women in their 40s to be called “granny,” and today, “ajumma” [a term for middle-aged women, usually who are married] or “granny” are used to call “any woman that is no longer sexy.” Recently, I even heard about a male first year college student calling a female fourth year student an “ancestor” [josang] while gossiping about her.

In brief, the protagonist is the weakest of the weak—who for some reason could not manage to have a ‘normal family’—and lives alone on a remote mountain, without a guardian (?) or so-called ‘erotic capital’. There is no such thing as a safety net for an old woman who gets by one day at a time working a field or day-laboring somewhere else. She has to survive on her own.

The tiger said, “Granny, if you finish weeding the field first, I’ll leave you alone, but if I finish weeding the field first, I’ll eat you up.” And of course, the tiger won the bet since he weeded the field with his claws. So he said, “Granny! I will eat you up.” (Story told by Eunsoon Kwon in 1982, Complete Works of Korean Oral Literature: Gyeonggi Province)

One day, a tiger came to the mountainside and told the granny to make sure her lights were on brightly that night since he would eat her up. (Story told by Lee Tak of Yangpyeong, Korean Oral Folktales: The Gyeonggido Edition, from The Full Collected Works of Seokjae Im )

The tiger’s target is the woman’s body. The tiger is depicted differently depending on the text: sometimes it is heinous, attacking her out of nowhere; and sometimes it is sneaky, using the weeding bet as a trap. Even worse, it belittles her by telling her to “make sure [her] lights are on brightly” as if the woman is waiting and desiring to be eaten. It is sheer shamelessness implying that she should be thankful that he's about to eat the body that no one even cares to look at. Well, the truth is that tigers in real life are much more complicated and varied. In the story, the tiger is set as ‘the bad guy’ from the start, but in reality, there are more devils who seem proper and decent. It is very difficult to reveal the abusiveness of ‘someone who’d never do something like that,’ and even when it does get revealed, it is hard to name it as violence. Absurdly, in this world, there are many more words prepared to defend the tiger than the red bean granny.

People in the past believed the crimson color of red beans prevented disasters and cast out evil spirits, and made red bean porridge on winter solstice, when the night is longest and the day is shortest. (Source: pixabay)

Then the old woman told the tiger, “Since porridge is my favorite, why don’t you eat me up after I make myself some porridge.” So the tiger told her to do so and walked away.  (Story told by Jun Ryong Yoo of Pyongbuk in Sonchon-gun in 1934, The Full Collected Works of Seokjae Im)

"Hey, hey, tiger, why don’t you eat me up after I finish weeding this red bean field and make some porridge for myself?" (Story told by Youngsook Sohn of Jinju-si in 1973, Korean Oral Folktales: Gyeongsangnam-do Province Edition, Book 1, from The Full Collected Works of Seokjae Im)

The woman does not seek help from anyone, since she knows what responses she will get. ‘Why did you even go near the mountain?’ ‘How did you behave to make the tiger come around?’ ‘Why would the great king of the mountain even bother to eat up such an old woman?’ ‘What’s your problem [with getting eaten up] when you probably have a lot of experience being eaten?’

The protagonist knows that the world’s eyes and words are on the tiger’s side and thus she cannot run to the village for help. Since she’ll die either way, she negotiates to fill herself with red bean porridge before the job gets done. Having narrowly won this reprieve, the woman boils all of the red beans she worked on all summer and fixes herself a final supper. Her sorrow and rage boil like lava in the huge iron pot. The hot steam leaves her kitchen and shakes and wakes up her sleeping “neighbors”.

So the next day, after boiling and putting the porridge in the bowl, she sat down and cried.

Then an egg came rolling up and asked,

“Granny, granny, why are you crying?”

“I’m crying because I’ll be dead tonight.”

“If you give me a bowl of red bean porridge, I’ll help you.”

So she gave a bowl of red bean porridge to the egg.

“Hide me in the kitchen furnace.”

(This and remaining quotations are from the story told by Eunsoon Kwon in 1982, Complete Works of Korean Oral Literature: Gyeonggi Province Edition)

 

A bowl of red bean porridge © Ilda

Her neighbors are merely an egg, a chestnut, a needle, a carrier, a straw mat, a millstone, a mortar, a terrapin, a garden spade, a fly, watery poop… just filthy and insignificant ‘things.’ They either wait in the corner to be used or are considered useless excess that couldn’t even prove its usefulness. They are barely called ‘things,’ let alone treated as well as human beings. 

All these ‘things’ have are their bodies. They speak with their bodies. The words of their bodies are rough and crude. They are as annoying as a fly, sharp as an awl, double-faced as a mortar barrel, incapable and treated with as much discomfort as dog poop. There are even those reckless movements that risk self-destruction like suicide bombers, like those of the egg and the chestnut. The carrier that cannot even stand on its own but carries loads of stuff as heavy as a mountain, the straw mat that spends its life setting the stage for others’ lives —it is hard to tell whether such things have a mind of their own… 

None of these ‘things’ know how to comfort someone with affection. They just ask for some red bean porridge that’s already been made. They say they’ll take care of the tiger in return but it’s hard to take their words seriously. With what power can a fly or some poop confront a ferocious and powerful tiger? Maybe they were just empty words to get some red bean porridge. But the woman generously scoops the red bean porridge for them. Anyhow, she did boil so much porridge in her huge iron pot that she wouldn’t even be able to finish it alone. She probably intended to share with everyone before her death anyway. On a cold winter night, those ‘things’ that warmed their frozen bodies with some hot red bean porridge went back to their squalid corners and waited for the tiger.

The tiger came in.

So [the fly] turned off the light.

“Granny, why did you turn off the light when I’m coming in?”

“Oh, did I turn it off?

It turned off with the tiger’s wind.”

Handing him the long match, she said,

“Take this to light up the furnace and eat me up in the light.”

(...) So he lit up the furnace, but then the egg dropped on the tiger’s eyes and he almost fell into the fire. So he went to the water basin  to wash his hands, but the terrapin who had eaten the red porridge was sitting there. He bit the tiger’s finger and dragged him down. 

Then the millstone fell from the ceiling and broke the tiger’s head open.

Then the awl stabbed his bottom hole, and he died. 

Then the straw mat came in and rolled him up inside. 

Then the carrier came in, picked him up, and carried him out.

Then the spade dug a hole and buried him in it.

Isn’t this what’s called solidarity? No one pitied her or poured out questions in the name of sympathy. No one meddled as if they were to live the victim’s life for her or tried to teach her a lesson. These ‘things’ contributed with the single movement that each could offer. The tiger was destroyed by these insignificant things.

 

On the winter solstice when the winter reached its peak, the women shared their homemade feast with their neighbors, celebrated the promise of spring, and created a festive scene together.

And the red bean granny? She probably lived happily ever after. If Jesus had his twelve holy disciples, the woman who could not be destroyed—even when all she had was just her body—had her twelve neighbors. Her homemade final supper turned into a festival to celebrate the promise of spring after holding a memorial service for the tiger. The crimson-colored red bean porridge became the burning symbol of sharing and promise. On the winter solstice when the winter reaches its peak, the crimson-colored red beans boil in the women’s black iron pot.

[About the Writer] Jo-won Shim has been working as a children’s books author and editor for over two decades. These days she’s so fascinated with classics and ancient stories that she doesn’t even realize she’s getting old. She’s a member of the ancient story study club “Red Bean Porridge Grandma.”

*Original article: https://ildaro.com/9223