Byung shin chum is a Korean folk dance

Korean dance

Dance in Korea began with shamanistic early rituals five thousand years ago and now ranges from folk dance to newly created and adapted contemporary dance.-Overview:Korean traditional dance originated in ancient shamanistic rituals thousands of years ago...

 that was performed by the lower class peasants to satirize

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 the Korean nobility (Yangban

Yangban

The yangban were part of the traditional ruling class or nobles of dynastic Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. The yangban were either landed or unlanded aristocracy who comprised the Korean Confucian idea of a "scholarly official." In reality, they were basically administrators and bureaucrats who...

) by depicting them as the handicapped

Disability

A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...

 persons and sick

Illness

Illness is a state of poor health. Illness is sometimes considered another word for disease. Others maintain that fine distinctions exist...

 persons such as paraplegic

Paraplegia

Paraplegia is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek: παραπληγίη "half-striking". It is usually the result of spinal cord injury or a congenital condition such as spina bifida that affects the neural elements of the spinal canal...

s, midget

Midget

A midget is a short person with relatively average bodily proportions in comparison with other human beings. The term is often improperly used to describe a person with the medical condition dwarfism. The two terms are often used synonymously because both terms originate as words defining small...

s, hunchback

Kyphosis

Kyphosis , also called roundback or Kelso's hunchback, is a condition of over-curvature of the thoracic vertebrae...

s, the deaf, the blind

Blindness

Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...

, leper

Leprosy

Leprosy or Hansen's disease is a chronic disease caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Named after physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen, leprosy is primarily a granulomatous disease of the peripheral nerves and mucosa of the upper respiratory tract; skin lesions...

s, as well as characters from Pansori

Pansori

Pansori is a genre of Korean traditional music. It is a vocal and percussional music performed by one sorikkun and one gosu . The term pansori is derived from pan , and sori .- Overview :...

 and other Korean folklore

Korean mythology

Korean mythology consists of national legends and folk-tales which come from all over the Korean Peninsula. Even within the same ethnic group, myths tend to have slightly different variations...

. It originated in Miryang

Miryang

Miryang, often spelled Milyang, is a city in Gyeongsangnam-do Province, South Korea. Neighboring cities include Changnyeong to the west, Cheongdo to the north, Ulsan to the east, and Yangsan, Gimhae, and Changwon to the south. The city bird is the Korean magpie, the city tree is the pine, and the...

, Gyeongsangnam-do

Gyeongsangnam-do

Gyeongsangnam-do is a province in the southeast of South Korea. The provincial capital is located at Changwon. It contains the major metropolitan center and port of Busan. Located there is UNESCO World Heritage Site Haeinsa, a Buddhist temple that houses the Tripitaka Koreana and attracts many...

. During the Japanese occupation of Korea it was banned, since authorities considered it obscenely crude. In modern times Byung shin chum has been acknowledged to public by a Korean actress Gong Ok-jin (공옥진).

According to Chae Hui Hwan, Professor at Pusan National University

Pusan National University

Pusan National University is one of ten flagship Korean national universities and a leading university in South Korea...

, Byung shin chum is not a dance that simply mimicks and ridicules the handicapped. Rather, it is an expression of the liberation of men that enlightens the viewers that everybody is socially handicapped (byung shin).

In 2001, Byung shin chum played by a Korean theatrical group in Daehangno

Daehangno

Daehangno is a neighborhood in Seoul north of the Han River within Jongno-gu and Seodaemun-gu.Formerly known as Sunggyobang , meaning "high respect for teaching", its current name was designated when the 1.1km six-lane road from Hyehwa-dong rotary to Ihwadong crossroad was designated as a...

 has caused a controversy that the play could be discriminatory

Discrimination

Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...

and offensive toward the handicapped. The Research Institute of the Differently Abled Person's Right in Korea (RIDRIK) expressed that although the freedom of expression is important in art, the form that makes fun of the allienated is the problem, and that they will cut off the old customs of the Korean society that humiliate the handicapped.