my family are zainichi koreans living in japan. i was raised japanese and didn't know until i was older! one of the ways i've reconnected more with my heritage is by learning about korean culture and history. in particular, i'm interested in korean religious practices (such as buddhism), mythology, traditions, and pre-modern history. i also hold a huge interest in studying traditional clothing and representing it through my art. this page is dedicated to compiling resources that i find educational and good for reference.
a lot of these links are to wikipedia articles-- a lot of them are pretty thorough; even those that aren't very complete have nice external links for extra reading...but i found that some of the pages aren't connected to one another, so by putting them here, they'll be easier to access from one place.
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hanbok is the colloquial term used for korea's traditional clothing. i take a lot of interest in learning about the individual parts of it, including accessories and special hanbok that are only used for particular events. hanbok takes a lot of influence from chinese traditional wear, which i also think is a neat fact, since korea and china are neighbors :).
there are other clothings and accessories originating from korea that are not considered part of hanbok.
dancheong is a traditional painting technique that is most commonly used today to preserve historical buildings. the paint acts as a safeguard to the wood that historical shrines or buildings are build from. it utilizes motifs common in east asian art (such as dragons, flowers, and animals) alongside bright colors (white, blue, red, yellow, and black) to create intricate designs. dancheong is one of my absolute favorite types of cultural art, and is something that (to me) is emblematic of korea's rich history; the use of dancheong can be seen in the korean peninsula as far back as the three kingdoms era!
i've recently been reading up more on the many traditional forms of dance in korea-- there are a lot more than i would have guessed! they typically use different costumes and were developed for several purposes, so here i've listed some wiki pages and other resources to read about them.
it can be hard to find online resources in english with detailed descriptions on korean culture, with the majority of resources being books. i've compiled a few of the titles here, some of which are available to borrow for free on
i was researching the history of tattooing in korea for a character design that i was working on. i found these papers really interesting, and wanted to share. :)