Pighead Ceremony

It is rare that I am surprised by anything anymore in Korea, but this one had me on my toes just a little bit. I was meeting with the architect to go over new designs for the hospital when he interrupts and states "More importantly, there will be a pighead on your loading dock at 1100." Now, in most scenarios this would prompt someone to ask for additional details or release a little chuckle followed by "whaaaat?" Instead, I knew I just needed to be there.



You see exactly what I saw, I was quite surpised at it's elegance. Especially on my loading dock. I started talking to the Korean locals and asking them why they ceased construction to build such an elaborate "shrine." It translated roughly to "it will make our construction period safe." How could I argue with that? I had no proof that it would fail to make it safe...no one was going to trip over this pighead, they put cones up around it. They told me to go up, spill the rice wine to the left and right of the table, bow three times, and stuff money into the pigs mouth, nostril, and ears. I did all of those things without question. The thought did cross my mind that this could be on "Korea's funniest home videos" and that they truly got me this time, but I decided to play along.



End result is below. A pighead with about 200,000 Won shoved into every hole. We all went to the reception area and ate rice cakes, pig meat, and the construction workers drank rice wine (seems to be a good idea, afterall, they are going to be safe now).



Overall a pretty good Tuesday. This was never on my bucketlist, but I am going to add it in there and cross it off.