You should all go read Ms. Lee To Be's thoughtful blog post about tradition, in light of the picture of a pizza on a jesa table, that made the rounds on Korea's internet recently:
the main gist: we preserve dead things. To make preservation (rather than practice) a goal is also, in part, to surrender the belief that tradition remains relevant to our lives.
The Korean from Ask a Korean! wrote about how to do a Jesa a while ago, and has a (short) response to the pizza jesa here.
I wrote about Jesa once, a long time ago, too, upon reflecting on my mother's death of cancer.
2 comments:
That's pretty cool, but I have to say that if you aren't going to respect traditions, it might not be the wisest thing to do to take a picture of it and then post it on the internet.
That said, like the bus beat down video, we don't know the context of the picture. It would be pretty disrespectful if this were a chuseok table where many generations of ancestors are being honored. On the other hand, if this were the Jesa of a guy who really liked pizza, it is quite touching.
I guess it's all in how you look at it. Me personally, I'm not a purist so I've no problems with it. The mere act of even holding a jesa signifies a level of respect regardless of how many generations are being honored.
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