There have been many ups and downs in 2021. The year 2021 was the year of the white cow which is an animal that symbolizes honesty faithfulness and patience and 2022 in Korea is the year of the black tiger.
Tigers are nowadays the most endangered animals but five Siberian tigers (=Quintuplet tiger cubs) was born at Yong In Zoo (Inside the Everland amusement park). This is a really rare case, tigers usually produce a litter of 2~3 cubs. In celebration of 2022 New year, they were introduced to the public for the first time after their birth and many people visited the zoo to get feel tiger's spirit or energy.
Symbol of Korea.
The tiger symbolizes bravery and strength and was considered as a mountain guardian for the Korean people from ancient times. Therefore, people would have paintings or talismans of tigers to defeat misfortune or drive evil spirits away.
The tiger of Korea has long been with Koreans from the very beginning. A tiger also appears in the founding myth of Korea. In the legend, a tiger and a bear wanted to become human. Therefore, they asked their wish the son of heaven and he said they could transform human if they could eat only garlic and mugwort during 100 days. However, the tiger gives up after 20 days, while bear made it and turned into a woman. This woman got married Hwanung who is the son of heaven and gives birth to Dangun who is known as the founder of Korea.
In the legend, the main character of the founding myth is a bear rather than a tiger, but there are far more stories of tigers in Korean folklore. There is a reason.
In the past, there used to be a lot of tigers in Korea where there were surrounded by 70% of the mountains but many tigers came down to town and attacked people. Therefore we have been tiger hunters called Chakho Gapsa (착호갑사) in Joseon Dynasty. After that, the number of tigers has declined sharply and is now an endangered species. Nowadays Koreans consider tigers to be fearful but also auspicious creatures and tigers appeared frequently in traditional fairy tales and paintings of Korea, probably because of familiarity with what our ancestors saw often.
Tigers started being a symbol of Korea around the early 20th century, thanks to Choi Nam-son who was the first person to draw a map of the Korean Peninsula in the shape of a tiger.
The map has since sparked a plethora(수많은) of re-creations.(재창조). Since then, tigers have been used as mascots at numerous international events such as the mascot Soodoli in the year 1988 Seoul Olympics and Soohorang is a white tiger the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.
