Korea

In Korea, paper fans are used in a traditional dance called buchaechum, which is often performed by groups of female dancers wearing colored hanboks (Korean traditional dress). Through dance choreography and movement, the fans express the beauty of nature by creating impressions of flowers, butterflies, and water.

The story “Tiger and Puppy” is about a village with five families, where a mischievous tiger would eat all the food. An unlikely hero, a small puppy, comes to the rescue and helps the villagers capture the tiger. Create your own paper plate animals to retell this Korean folktale.

Asian Art Museum Storyteller, Miriam Mills, engages pre-school students in the museum’s Korea galleries by telling a Korean folktale about a tiger and a puppy using artworks from the Asian Art Museum’s collection.

The Chinese Zodiac is based on a twelve-year cycle and each year is linked to an animal. Find your birth year and color in your zodiac animal.

Islam has been an important cultural force in much of Asia for more than five hundred years, and in some parts for more than a thousand. Today, far more Muslims live in other parts of Asia than in the Arab areas of Asia such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

In this activity, you’ll learn how to make no-sew bojagi that you can use to wrap a gift for a special person in your life.

Artist Kwangwoo Bae demonstrates the process of making Korean mother-of-pearl lacquerware.

Over the centuries, two main branches of Buddhism emerged: a transmission that traveled to Southeast Asia, and a transmission that evolved in East Asia. A further offshoot of the northern transmission also developed. All three branches began in India, and developed further as they moved across Asia.

Jar, approx. 1600. Korea. Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). Porcelain with transparent glaze. The Avery Brundage Collection, B60P110+.