Comparison to other cultures

While wearing white is not unique to Koreans, the extent of their commitment to the practice has been described as unique. For example, the clothing historian Soh Hwang-Oak wrote that while the Dai people often wear white, they generally layer other colored clothing or accessories on top of their white clothes. By contrast, the minbok was deliberately worn without decoration. The Japanese art critic Yanagi Sōetsu wrote in 1922 of the practice:^[2]

While China and especially Japan are using so many different colors in their dresses, there is no such trend in the neighboring country, Joseon. They wear no color but white. Even when they use a color, it's an almost colorless jade. What makes everyone, regardless of gender or age, wear white? There are many countries and nations in the world, but none are like Joseon.

For some period of time in the Chinese Song dynasty (960–1279), the average person was restricted to only wearing white clothing. However, the practice was eventually lifted.^[3] There are several records of Chinese observers ridiculing the Korean practice of wearing white.^[4]

Origin

Painting of Korean peasants showing deference to a nobleman on horseback, all dressed in white (1815)

Koreans have worn white clothing since the Three Kingdoms of Korea period. The earliest known mention^[5] of the practice is in the Chinese text Records of the Three Kingdoms, and dates to the third century CE. It reported that people of the Korean state Buyeo (2nd century BCE – 494 CE) primarily wore white.^[1][5] The text reads:^{[6][lower-alpha 1]}

In Buyeo, white clothing is revered, so they wear wide-sleeved dopo and baji made from white linens, as well as leather shoes.

The practice has also been attested to the Korean states Byeonhan (1st to 4th centuries CE), Goguryeo (37 BCE – 668 CE), Silla (57 BCE – 935 CE), and Goryeo (918–1392).^[1][7][8]

Uncertainty over time and place of observation

Painting of envoys from the Three Kingdoms of Korea (from left to right, Silla, Baekje, and Goguryeo) to China, wearing clothing of various shades (7th century)

There is some uncertainty over the times and places where the practice was observed. The practice is reportedly not clearly observable in Goguryeo-era tomb murals. Some documentary evidence suggests the practice was not consistently observed during the Joseon period; the scholar Yi Ok wrote in the 19th century that:^{[4][lower-alpha 2]}

[Joseon] reveres the color blue, so the average citizen wears blue. Men do not wear white clothes, unless they are wearing layered clothing or jangsam (Buddhist robes). Women cherish wearing chima and are reluctant to wear white, so the only color they wear other than blue is red or indigo.

Writings from the Joseon ruling class are often disparaging towards the practice. This may have, in part, been motivated by a preference for blue clothing because it aligned better with traditional color associations from China, where east is associated with blue.^[4]

Pre-colonial era prohibition efforts

Before the Japanese colonial period, there were at least 25 white clothes prohibition decrees (백의금지령; 白衣禁止令) across several centuries.^[7][1]

In spite of these efforts, white clothing remained widespread until the middle of the 20th century.^[1] These efforts may have sometimes been resisted by people dying their clothes in extremely light shades of other colors.^[14]

Joseon to Korean Empire periods

In a predecessor to Namdaemun Market (1904)

For much of the Joseon period (1392–1897), Korea was under a strict policy of isolationism. This finally ended in 1876, when Japan forced Korea to open its borders. Afterwards, Western clothing was introduced to Korea in significant quantities for the first time.^[7]

Resentment towards Western clothing developed, not because of its association with the West, but because of its association with Japan.^[15][7] During the late Joseon period and Korean Empire (1897–1910) periods, efforts were made to reform the Korean state and society.^[7] These were often led by pro-Japanese Koreans. However, in 1895, anti-Japanese sentiment exploded after Japan assassinated the Korean queen. The brutality of the attack sparked domestic and international shock and disgust.^[7][16] Shortly after the assassination, a series of orders (notably the Short Hair Ordinance) were issued, one of which allowed the wearing of Western clothes. These directly inspired violent resistance in the form of a righteous army (impromptu militia).^[15][7] The rebellion finally ended in August 1896, when many of these orders were suspended. The result of this period was the development of wearing minbok or other traditional Korean clothing as a symbol of resisting foreign influence.^[7]

By the late Joseon period, upper-class yangban families tended to dress children in color, while adults dressed in white.^[17]

In 1906, the Korean government, at the advice of the Japanese Resident-General of Korea issued a ban on white clothing during wintertime, but this order was largely ignored.^[18] More and more roles began requiring the use of non-white clothing. Officials were effectively prohibited from wearing white clothing in the Gapsin dress reform of 1884.^[7] Beginning in 1910, increasing numbers of grade schools began requiring that students wear black uniforms.^[19]

Koryo-saram wearing white in Primorskaya Oblast, Russian Empire (1904)

Also around this time, Korean emigrants moved into Russia. Russians gave them the nickname "lebed", meaning "swan", possibly in reference to their white clothing. These emigrants continued wearing white until the 1910s, when they assimilated more into Russian culture.^[20]

Japanese colonial period

Debates around the practice intensified during the Japanese colonial period. Some Korean intellectuals that opposed the practice saw it as a relic of a bygone era.^[21] Others noted that the time required for the clothes' upkeep hurt economic productivity, and that the labor particularly burdened women, who did the household's laundry.^[21] Multiple estimates of the economic cost of maintaining the clothes were calculated. These debates uniformly concluded that wearing white clothes was economically inefficient; these figures were later frequently cited by the colonial government to discourage the wearing of the clothes.^[22]

A drawing by American Constance J.D. Coulson of Korean women washing clothes and performing dadeumi to keep clothes clean (1910)

Japanese people generally had negative views on the practice. They viewed it, and many other Korean practices, as backwards and fixated on the past. Philosopher and art critic Yanagi Sōetsu, while seemingly sympathetic towards Korea, viewed the colonization of Korea as inevitable and even beneficial because of its backward practices.^[7]

According to a 1990 tally by scholar Nam Yun-Suk, between 1898 and 1919, there were fifteen policies enacted to either ban or discourage the exclusive wearing of white clothes. Four of these were between 1910 and 1919.^[23]

The scholar Hyung Gu Lynn argued that the clothes became a symbol of low social status by the 1920s. Magazines and newspapers displayed pictures of business owners in western-style suits, while factory workers wore white clothing.^[24]

End of the practice

Korean children during the Korean War, wearing varied clothing and searching discarded tin cans for food (1952)

Although Korea was liberated in 1945, it was immediately divided and placed under the rule of the Soviet Union and the United States. In an effort to combat the division, some nationalists appealed to symbolism of the white clothes that had once unified the nation. Reunification efforts, including North Korea's invasion of the South in the 1950–1953 Korean War, failed.^[7]

After the war, both Koreas were among the poorest countries in the world.^[31][32] Koreans could no longer afford to maintain their white clothes, let alone afford food.^[7] In the South, many Koreans relied on food scraps from the garbage and international aid for survival. In black markets, Koreans illegally traded and highly valued U.S. military clothes, which they inconspicuously dyed other colors in order to avoid detection. The practice of wearing white clothes ended around this time.^[7]

"White-clothed people"

In the early 1920s,^[7] the term paegŭiminjok (백의민족; lit. White-clothed People), sometimes paegŭidongpo (백의동포; 白衣同胞; lit. White-clothed Compatriots),^[7] began to be used to describe the Korean people.^[1]

Both terms express ethnic nationalism. The term minjok (race; lit. 'people clan') became popular due to the rise of the related Japanese term minzoku. Minzoku emerged during the 1880s to highlight the concept of a distinct and homogeneous Japanese identity. Koreans adopted and kept it, in spite of the fact that Japan ended up abandoning it in the short term to accommodate the assimilation of its non-Japanese colonial subjects.^[7] Dongpo also has a similar connotation; it can be literally translated as "born of the same womb".^[7]

These terms developed, alongside the Korean independence movement, as a reaction to the colonization of Korea. It symbolized a unique Korean identity, with millennia of continuity.^[7]

Sources