We’re going to the mattresses…well, kind of (Korean sleeping arrangements)
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008Korean sleeping arrangements
Let’s draw a picture. I prefer pencil and paper.
It’s a nasty hot summer night. I’m in a one room hotel room with twelve (count them) twelve other people in a room smaller than anything Holiday Inn has to offer. Air conditioning comes in the form of a thick piece of paper attached to a wooden handle. I’m on the central west coast of Korea in a small resort town with a bunch of warm and friendly Koreans aged anywhere from newborn to unmentionable. I’ve got a single buckwheat shell-filled pillow the size of a large ziplock bag and a tissue-thin blanket to keep me covered. Everyone is occupied with something. The older people are up late playing card games while the younger ones are watching a variety show. I’m trying to shut my eyes. I dream of oscillating fans. Then suddenly, like out of a made-for-TV Christmas special, by some miracle, I drift into a calming state and sleep like a baby (well, actually the baby kept waking up but I slept wonderfully).
Why on Earth were we all crammed in that little room? And why were there no beds?
Traditionally, Koreans sleep on the floor. That’s just their thing. Hey, I’m not judging. Ask me where I sleep.
I like it. It saves space, it’s cozy, and it’s more comfy than a memory foam bed I went halvsies on.
For whatever reason, Koreans seem to be on the floor a lot. Be it watching TV, eating fruits, drinking, - If somethings going down, it’s on the floor.
In this case, “going to the mattresses” refers to a classic line in the Godfather. According to Clemenza, when the Corleoni family goes to war with another family, they have to accommodate more people to stay with them temporarily. This is to keep the hitmen safe within a single household so that nothing happens to them during this hostile time. To accommodate the increase of people, makeshift mattresses are laid out on the floor spread throughout the house.
So, Korean sleeping arrangements are kind of like that, but just no one is speaking Italian or fighting with another family. So when Koreans go to the mattresses, they just fall asleep.
But don’t let that fool you into thinking that western-style beds don’t exist. Expect all Korean hotels and most newer apartment buildings to have one western style bed. Western style pillows and sheets though are in short demand. Sheets can be of a lower thread count than what you may be used to and the pillow itself might look more like a stuffed animal than a pillow.
Either way, expect to sleep in a shared space and don’t expect much privacy. Ironically, you might get more privacy sleeping in your birthday suit at a 목욕탕 or 찜질방 than at home. Just a thought.
I wonder. What other cultures sleep on the floor (traditionally)? What are the typical sleeping arrangements of your culture? I’ll even extend this to my neighbors to the north: Anything different going on in Canada that we should know about?
Thoughts?
Posted by Matthew in How Koreans Do It |
December 16th, 2008 at 7:15 am
As an expert on all things Canadian (or perhaps more accurately, as an expert on a small corner of Canada’s larget city, Toronto), it seems like there’s nothing different going on. Beds, sheets, and comforters are the order of the day, though some students and other transient populations may opt (out of necessity) to sleep on a mattress on the floor.
From my limited experience being a guest in Korean homes, it seems like many people have Western style beds, but they’re furnished with more traditional 이불 than what I’m used to in Canada. I’d like to try that kind of sleeping arrangement, but I’m just curious as to how they’re laundered and kept clean…
December 16th, 2008 at 9:50 am
the other thing i find interesting about korean sleeping arrangements is the amount of people that can cram into one bed. i often see (on t.v. of course) 3, 4, even 5 people sleeping in one bed. we americans are often reluctant to share a full size bed with one other person.
December 16th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I’m just curious about how many Koreans today still sleep on the floor. Is this more common if they’re living with their parents? Let’s say they get married and move out, do they still sleep on the floor, or do they get Western-style beds?
December 16th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Maybe that’s the matter of preferences.
I usually sleep on a western style bed though,
sometimes prefer (especially on winter time) to sleep on the floor.
But what Emily said is not common anymore I guess.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Manyakumi, why do you prefer to sleep on the floor during winter? Isn’t it colder to sleep on the floor??
December 17th, 2008 at 2:32 am
houses in korea are heated through the floor, so it’s much warmer to sleep on the floor in the winter.
and what i’ve seen on t.v. is only common when people go on MT or if there are lots of friends staying in one place i guess (:
December 17th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Yeah, exactly.
Hot water pipes from the boiler are built in the floor so that we could warm the whole room and we call the system as 온돌.
If you get any chances to be on a 온돌방 in a cold winter time, you’ll never forget how it feels.
December 18th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Oh I see! That’s a really smart heating system..then you are warm no matter which part of the room you are in.
I wish I could experience a 온돌방! Seems like there are more and more reasons to visit Korea
December 18th, 2008 at 3:17 am
nice blog! I had to laugh at this post.
I did something similar when I went on a ski trip with my Korean friends.
I am Korean, but I live in the US.
Yes, in Korea the sleeping arrangement is a matter of choice. Some people like floors, some like beds. However even in Korea, the “beds” most often used by Koreans are different from beds in the US. They are more like futons then the traditional box spring, mattress, bed frame set up Americans are used too.
Ondol (the floor heat) system is actually the most efficient way of heating a house. Luxury homes in the US often times install floor heating systems not because of efficiency but because of comfort of having warm feet all winter long.
It takes a little getting used to sleeping on the floor (especially a hard floor, with no carpet), but once you get used to it, its unbeatable!
December 21st, 2008 at 6:44 am
In the day of high cost of heating oil, I am sure a lot of Korean people miss the cheap way of heating system, Ondol.
The Ondol used to cost a lot less than an oil boiler.
2 or 3 round sleeve type chunk of charcoal with bunch of wholes in it, called 연탄, can burn 24 hour to heat a room, and help cook meals.
It could make a cold feet happy, turning the cold one into a happy warm one in no second.
Who would resist to sit or lie down on a warm floor when it is freezing outside?
Nowadays, maze of pipe line buried under the floor, with hot water running through it heating the floor evenly.
But in old days, the floor had chimney-like tunnels covered with many sheet rocks and smoothed with mud paste or cement then oily papers glued as the top layer.
In those tunnels hot exhaust gas from wood burning at the fire place in the kitchen heated the rocks and then went out of the chimney outside.
In hot summer days, the sheet rock worked as cooling pad on your hot back.
You will lose heat in your body a lot quicker than a thick paper on a stick.
I miss those days when a lot of people sleep in a room but had no issue of ‘privacy’, except concerning for one another.
We thought ‘we’ first, not ‘I’ first in those days.
No people of the new ‘I-pot’ generation can understand those good old days.
Maybe dirt poor but plenty of caring for each other, in those ‘going to mattress’ days.
Being happy was so simple back then.
With a big bowl of ‘white’ rice can make any poor people happy for a few days, maybe months.
I knew because I was one.
With this serious financial crunch time and no solution to the bad global economy , we may have to get used to ‘mattressing’ and deal with no privacy in a room full of people as part of the real time survival game, with the earth getting hot or cold.
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