by JIWAN BYUN
Nowadays, many South Korean college students are spending their free time in bamboo forests—and no, we’re not talking about the kind with pandas or Chinese action heroes.
Bamboo Forest (대나무숲, daenamu sup) is a type of online forum, usually on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, where Korean users can anonymously express their thoughts on various topics, including politics, romance and controversial social issues.
The name “bamboo forest” comes from a Korean fable in The Heritage of the Three States (삼국유사, 三國遺事), a compilation of historical records and legends of the Three Kingdoms of Korea: Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla.
The fable tells the story of Silla kingdom’s 48th ruler, Kyungmun, who had ears like those of a donkey. Kyungmun kept his ears a secret and only confided in his royal hatter. Unable to keep the secret any longer, the hatter went into a bamboo forest one day and yelled out that the king had donkey ears. From then on, whenever a wind blew, the bamboo forest would repeat the hatter’s words.
Similar to the function of the bamboo forest in the fable, an online bamboo forest serves as a safe place where Koreans can openly share their honest opinions to a wide audience, without the fear of backlash.
Online bamboo forests can be traced back to 2012, when an employee of a publishing company created a Twitter account to criticize his/her company. The account was deleted once the company learned about it, but it sparked a movement–other bamboo forest Twitter accounts soon sprung up and publicly shared their passwords to other users. In 2014, the bamboo forest pages on Facebook gained popularity among Korean college students.
Most Korean universities register their bamboo forest pages under the name of their schools. For example, Seoul National University’s bamboo forest page is called the “Seoul National University Bamboo Forest.” Although these bamboo forests are mainly used by university students, anyone who “likes” the Facebook page can see and share posts. The comments section is also open to the public, making it an active area of debate.
Bamboo Forest pages tend to have about 8,000 to 23,000 followers. Followers can anonymously submit their posts to page moderators, who are often students currently enrolled at the university. After filtering spam and explicit content, moderators can publish submissions of their choosing. However, there are concerns over the subjectivity of the page managers since they are no standard publishing guidelines.
Here are some popular topics being discussed on bamboo forest pages:
‣ Debate about the legalization of same sex marriage
“I am proud of the unbiased opinions of students upon LGBTQ people like me.”
“It seems that the whole bamboo forest page of our school supports the legalization of same sex marriage. We have to keep in mind that there are also people who disagree on the issue.”
‣ Worrying about one’s future plans.
“I am a sophomore, but I still don’t know what I want to do and haven’t decided what to do after I graduate.”
“It’s not late at all, and you still have plenty of time. We can do it!”
‣ Dating Expenses
“If you don’t date anyone for four years, you can save $9787.” (Pictured below)
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