Lee Soo-geun Says He Was Hit at School After Writing His Mother’s Occupation as Shaman

Comedian Lee Soo-geun opened up about a painful memory from his school days, saying he was once scolded and physically punished after writing that his mother was a shaman in a school form asking for his parents’ occupations.

On the June 8 broadcast of KBS JOY’s Mueosideun Mureobosal, Lee shared the story while listening to a man in his 60s who appeared on the program with a concern that his occupation as a shaman might hurt his child. Hearing the guest’s worries, Lee said he understood the situation personally, telling him, “I grew up seeing my mother’s shrine.”

Lee looked back on how children were once required at school to write down what their parents did for a living. “In the past, we had to write our parents’ occupations at school,” he recalled. “If I wrote it, I got scolded and hit on the palm. They asked if I was joking. So I changed it and wrote commerce instead.”

He then suggested that the guest might choose a less stigmatized way to describe the work in everyday conversation. “These days, there are also many programs related to shamans,” Lee said. “What if you just say freelance?”

Lee explained that he had lived through the same kind of anxiety from the child’s position. “I lived as that child. I know it best,” he said. He remembered that when his mother performed gut rituals at her shrine, she would send him to the arcade because she did not want him to watch.

According to Lee, a child eventually comes to understand the situation on their own. “At some point, you become aware of it,” he said. “If people react that way when I say it, you end up changing it and writing commerce.” He comforted the guest by saying that, despite the father’s fears, his son would likely find his own way to handle the matter.

The guest explained that he had remarried his current wife and had a child later in life. His son is now in fifth grade at elementary school. After entering elementary school, the child apparently faced questions from friends about what his father did. When he answered that his father was a shaman, one friend reportedly said, “So your dad is a cultist?” The guest said that after hearing the comment, his child came home and asked, “Dad, what is a cultist?”

The man said he had spent several days crying alone under a blanket, overwhelmed by fear that his occupation might cause his child difficulty at school. He also explained that after being diagnosed with blood cancer at age 31, he underwent a shin-gut ritual, regained his health, and entered the path of becoming a shaman.

He said he had tried telling his child to say that his father was a chef when friends asked about his occupation. But the child’s response made the dilemma even harder: “He asked me, ‘Dad, should I lie?’” The guest said he was at a loss over how to answer honestly while also protecting his child.

Seo Jang-hoon advised him that social attitudes have changed considerably, but that old prejudices have not disappeared. “The world has changed a lot, in fact,” Seo said. “If it were like the past, we would not be able to sit here like this either. Even so, it is still difficult to speak about it openly in the mainstream. Many long-standing prejudices are intertwined. It is not something that can be changed in a short period of time.”