Antiques are often quaint reminders of the past and sometimes proverbs and words are a less expensive way to experience the past by allowing us to sample a point-of-view that is no longer current, thus this antique saying:
여름 손님은 호랑이보다 더 무섭다.
Can anyone take a stab at deciphering its meaning?
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
I would think that the tiger represents an unannounced visitor (you never know when the tiger will pounce), whereas the summer guest is expected. In other words, don’t show up unannounced at someone’s home.
“여름 손님은 호랑이보다 더 무섭다”
It’s the summer guest that’s the more frightening.
I haven’t heard this expression before, but Benjamin’s comment above makes linguistic sense. Plus, it’s clear that ‘summer guest’ is the subject.
In the lesser developed days, Koreans were used to have barleys as their main source of food, as rices are today. It is really hard to cook barleys properly and the summer is right after the famishing spring–I guess you all have heard of 보릿고개 before at least once–so a guest in the summer is quite embarassing in those days.
The implication being the summer guest takes it all out of the host, so much so that several bowls of lead-in-your-pencil soup are needed weekly to restore the host to a good humour? Yeah, probably something like that.
Thanks Ben for the edit. I wrote the saying out from hearing it last night. For me, listening comprehension is still quite difficult.
#6,
What do you find difficult? You know all of the words (I still don’t get the implication of the summer guest, which, unless you live Seoul or the like…seems to me to be the summer that one would least like to travel, unless your destination is somewhere cool, like Kangnung in the summer (never been there then or ever, just heard about it). We’ve got some learned linguists here in order to help you learn an obscure proverb.
Well spiny-one, the proverb was explained to me as hosting a guest was very difficult in summer due to the lack of availability of foods due to the season (#4) and in summer, there was no way to keep bugs out of the food grain so it was not unusual to end up eating barley, rice AND bugs. Due to these problems, providing a decent table was not easy.
Due to global warning and accidents of nature, I predict that Koreans are going to have another nightmarish problem with bugs eating the pine trees and this is one problem I hope some Korean scientist can solve before the bugs eat everything as has happened in America.
Also, this is more than an “obscure” proverb. This way of living and thinking used to be prevalent in older times here and is an expression of what Koreans dealt with on a daily basis. It is a verbal antique that can bring one closer to experiencing what it was like to live here back in the day. As such, it is of interest.
Nor do I; but it’s interesting to note the resonance that the saying, as an element of traditional culture, adds to Hwang Sok-Yong’s novel The Guest. I don’t recall if Hwang ever referenecs the saying in the book. Jeff?
Anyway I would recommend fixing the title to match the content of the Korean proverb. Right now it says the exact opposite. (Also you can probably take out the “더” in the Korean version, it’s not necessary when you have the 보다. )
As for the reason, perhaps the food reason you cite is true, but according to this (and several other blog posts)
http://blog.chosun.com/blog.log.view.screen?logId=3205043&userId=morningside
The reason that summer guests were scarier than a tiger is because when they came, they generally spent the night and because they stayed the night you had to be a in a full state of dress (because you couldn’t wear shorts or breathable clothing in front of strangers during that time), and couldn’t refresh yourself with water as you’d wish and the wife/owner would have to slave away in the kitchen while enduring the summer heat.
The metaphor seems pretty transparent to me: a friendly relationship can easily become more taxing on your resources than an antagonistic relationship. Choose your friendships carefully.
Is anyone going to fix this headline? Bueller… Bueller…
I seem to recall people could arrive unannounced in Ol’ Chosun and stay for a while. Obviously, this could put one out a bit and I’d bet there are similar sayings across many cultures.
#8: Global warming: Is there nothing it can’t do? Now it’s infestations of pine-eating bugs.
My wife confirms what 깊은 구멍 속에 says…
And don’t worry about Global Warming and bugs… The waves of Chinese Pollution will make the bugs seem benign by comparison…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/20/measuring-china-pollution-from-space
Is this is a corruption of a phrase attributed to Confucious: “가혹한 정치는 호랑이보다 무섭다”?
Once you introduce “호랑이보다 무섭다” as a phrase in common use it is easy to substitute anything as the topic of this kind of sentence and you can see that happening all around the web as well as in publications.
Even 여름 손님 looks like it is a corruption of a more specific proverb.
“오뉴월 손님은” http://cue.imbc.com/Common/Publish.aspx?Idx=3053
or
“삼복에 오는 손님은” http://www.joungul.co.kr/meditation/meditation1/meditation3/%ED%95%9C%EA%B5%AD_5070.asp
(See http://hanja.pe.kr/tra_1/t1_062.htm for a discussion of 삼북”
Sperwer, I don’t recall any phrase like that in Hwang’s novel, but I of course read it in English. Interesting to consider . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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Sorry for replying to an old post…
This phrase is familiar and really old, reminding me of something from high school. The Summer Guest here, I vaguely recall, is referring to an illness, pox or mumps or some sort. Very old fashioned, and literary, I think.
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