Given how popular Netflix KPop Demon Hunters was last year, a large portion of you already know about the Jeoseung Saja ( Saja boys) though unlike the movie the folkloric version is not evil they are basically underworld civil servants working for the king of the underworld, they guide souls to the afterlife, and Huntrix, the main girls are essentially a sensationalised version of shaman/ exorcists. Then we have a fan favorit, Derpy the blue demon tiger.....(not actually a demon)....
But just like the rest of the characters, he and his bird companion are also based of Korean folklore and traditional art work..The tiger in general is well regarded in Korea.
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The tiger is considered a symbol of courage and strength, he is also revered as a guardian that drives away evil.
During New Year, people would hang paintings of tigers on their doors to ward off bad luck and invite good fortune.
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In (Hojakdo 17th century) traditional Korean folk paintings the tiger was usually shown in a more goofy, comical or even foolish looking depiction. this was done as a form of social Satir to make fun of aristocrats..
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In these minhwa paintings, its often accompanied by one or more magpie. The foolish tiger symbolized the corrupt aristocrats nobile's or government, while the magpie represented the common people mocking his authority.
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Tigers and the Mountain Spirit.
In Korean mythology, the tiger was viewed as a companion of the Mountain God Sanshin, holding absolute authority in nature and can be found in many paintings accompanying him.
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One more fun fact, the Korean peninsula also resembles a Tiger....
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Ok, now on to today's main topic the Blue Tiger, also known as the Maltese Tiger ..
Though this blue kitty is more of a cryptid then a folkloric creature
Most sightings come from the Fujian province of south east China it has also been seen northern Korea.
Witnesses claim it has bluish fur with dark gray stripes.
The south Chinese tiger is critically endangered today, due to its illegal and continued use in traditional Chinese medicine, and the "blue" variation may be already be extinct .
Though most sightings have taken place in south china, the Blue tigers have also been reported in Korea and Burma.
The term "Maltese" comes from domestic cat terminology for blue fur, and refers to the slate grey coloration. Many cats with such coloration are present in Malta hence the name Maltese, however two of the more well known blue cat breed are the Russian Blue, and a variety of the British Shorthair, the British Blue, but blue bobcats and lynxes have also been recorded, and there are genetic mutations and combinations that result in a bluish hue, or at least the impression of a blue-gray animal. And black tigers where once considered nothing more then mythical at one point through pelts have proven this to be a real creature, Not thought it's not actually a fully black tiger, like a panthers fur, most of the time it's stripes are simply much wider then average which obscure most of the orange fur. Though a fully melanistic tiger isn't impossible for the same reason white tigers exist, its just a rare genetic trait.
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A mostly black tiger has been spotted in Odisha, India .......
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The first reported sighting of a blue tiger was in 1910...
In 1910, a big game hunter named Harry Caldwell who was doing missionary work at the time, claims to have seen and hunted a blue Tiger outside Fuzhou. He describes his encounter in his book Blue Tiger (1924), and by his hunting companion Roy Chapman Andrews in his Camps & Trails in China (1925, chapter VII). Chapman cites Caldwell thus:
"The markings of the beast are strikingly beautiful. The ground color is of a delicate shade of maltese, changing into light gray-blue on the underparts. The stripes are well defined and like those of the ordinary yellow tiger."
— Caldwell, Chapman (1925)
A more recent report, given to Mystery Cats of the World author Karl Shuker, comes from the son of a US Army soldier who served in Korea during the Korean War. His father sighted a blue tiger in the mountains near what is now the Demilitarized Zone. This account takes place in 1953. It is also the last know sighting of the blue tiger.
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Two apex predators used to roam the wilderness of Korea, up until the 1900s. The Amur or Siberian tiger, the largest species of tiger, which became extinct on the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945, during the Japanese occupation large portions of the tiger population where wiped out. Then the Amur leopard went extinct in Korea some time in 1970s. This leaves the Asiatic brown bear and grey wolf as the only two apex predators left in the Korean peninsula, both said to be found in North Korea..
Officially, there are no more wild tigers in Korea today.
The Siberian Tiger is also critically endangered, they can still be found in the Sikhote-Alin mountain region in the Russian Far East, with smaller numbers extending into Northeast China.
Unfortunately there are only around 500 - 750 Siberian tigers left in the wild because of illegal hunting and habitat lose ) deforestation most living in eastern Russia or Northern china, though some could still be make there way into Korea now and then.
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