Lee Kyoung-hyun is part of a growing number of Korean shamans embracing social media to attract or interact with clients, riding a wave of popular culture that is quickly warming up to a homegrown tradition once viewed with distrust. - REUTERS
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00:00 Lee Ki-young Hyun is performing a ritual dating back centuries in South Korea.
00:08 The 29-year-old is a practicing shaman with a modern twist.
00:13 She's better known as aegisonyo, or baby fairy, her social media handle with a large online
00:19 following.
00:21 It's how she's educating a new generation of Koreans about the ancient traditions.
00:26 "I've been a shaman for six, seven years, and there's been a shift.
00:33 Shamans are more out in the open now."
00:35 South Korea is one of the world's most high-tech economies.
00:39 Polls show more than half of its population of 51 million are not religiously affiliated.
00:45 Yet, Google Trends show that searches on YouTube for "shaman" and "fortune-telling" in Korean
00:51 have nearly doubled over the past five years.
00:54 "Shamanism is deeply rooted for Koreans.
00:59 It was believed to be an invisible, mysterious, and spiritual world.
01:04 But now, with all of these YouTube videos, people are finding it more approachable."
01:10 Korean shamans typically answer queries after conducting rituals that span from ringing
01:14 bells and tossing grains of rice to dancing on the edge of a knife to call on divine intervention.
01:23 And consultations can be pricey.
01:26 They typically charge around $70.
01:29 Thirty-two-year-old Park Chae-bin says she comes to Lee for a peace of mind.
01:36 "I'm here to get counseling from someone who understands me a little more and sees me through.
01:47 With that, I think I felt a sense of peace during situations of insecurity like an unemployment
01:53 crisis."
01:54 Lee says many of her other millennial and Gen Z clients ask about affordable housing
01:59 and the cost of raising children.
02:02 In Seoul, where Lee's based, the price of a home was more than 15 times the median salary
02:06 in 2022.
02:08 The country has also suffered from high inflation and interest rates.
02:13 That may be driving the trend, according to Han Seung-hoon, an assistant professor at
02:18 the Academy of Korean Studies.
02:20 "With shamans who are from the same generation, share similar cultural experiences, and live
02:27 in the city, people can have deeper conversations than they might with their close friends.
02:32 We can see that it is one of the reasons why the shaman as a friend counselor has emerged."
02:39 It's even seeping into pop culture.
02:41 One of South Korea's biggest movie hits of 2024 is the supernatural film "Exuma," in
02:46 which shamans are tasked with lifting a curse on a family.
02:50 A culture ministry agency estimated in 2022 that there are around 400,000 shamans and
02:55 fortune tellers in South Korea.
02:57 But there's still a stigma around seeing them.
03:00 A 2022 study in the journal BMC Psychiatry noticed a huge gap between South Koreans needing
03:06 mental health treatment and getting it, which it partly attributed to stigma too.
03:11 "I believe the current state of South Korean society, which is tough, is a factor that
03:17 can't be ignored."
03:19 to be ignored."
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