8 timestamped notes explaining the Korean cultural context in this episode — customs, idioms, food, honorifics, and history, at the moment each appears on screen. These notes discuss events across the whole episode. To see them revealed scene-by-scene as you watch, use the episode page to find an airing.
A 풍어제 (pungoje) is a shamanistic ceremony held by coastal fishing communities to pray for a big catch and safe voyages. The rituals typically involve a mudang (shaman), drumming, dancing, and offerings to sea spirits. Villages along Korea's east coast have held these ceremonies for centuries, and they remain common in fishing towns today.
화평's uncle explains that in local folk belief the possessing spirit is called '손' (son), literally meaning 'guest' — a polite word used so as not to provoke it by speaking its real name. Calling a dangerous spirit a 'guest' is a classic Korean folk strategy of respectful deflection. This is the origin of the drama's title, 손 (The Guest).
The shaman's chant asks the spirits to bless each household with peace, abundant harvests, and nets full of fish — standard petitions in a 풍어제. The formal, rhythmic speech style is called 무가 (muga), ritual song-text, and it switches between prayer and direct address to the spirits. A skilled mudang is said to literally channel the gods' voices during this section.
The mudang shouts out categories of spirits to expel: 혼귀 (soul-ghosts), 잡귀 (miscellaneous demons), 객귀 (wandering stranger-ghosts), 사살귀 (ghosts killed by misfortune), and others. 객귀 — ghosts of people who died far from home — are considered especially dangerous in Korean folk belief because they have no family to perform ancestral rites for them, leaving them hungry and resentful.
양 신부 is a 구마 사제 (guma saje), a Catholic priest officially trained in exorcism. The Catholic Church in Korea, as worldwide, requires evidence of genuine possession — things like aversion to sacred objects and superhuman phenomena — before authorising a rite of exorcism. His caution here follows real Church protocol, which frustrates 화평's family who want immediate action.
화평 orders 백반 (baekban), the humble everyday meal of a bowl of rice served with soup and an assortment of small side dishes (반찬). It's the Korean equivalent of a simple diner lunch special and is eaten everywhere from working-class restaurants to motorway rest stops. Ordering it signals 화평 is scraping by — it's the cheapest, most ordinary thing on any Korean menu.
When 화평 knocks on 육광's door, 육광 immediately rattles off a sharp character reading of the stranger — predicting a life of womanising and a shameful old age. This is a classic display of 신기 (shingi), a shaman's innate spiritual ability to read a person. Shamans and fortune-tellers in Korea are expected to demonstrate this gift unprompted as proof of their powers.
The murder victim ran a 용역 회사 (yongyeok hoesa), a labour subcontracting firm that supplies workers to larger companies for cleaning, security, and hazardous tasks like drain maintenance. These firms sit at the bottom of Korea's subcontracting chain: when workers are injured on the job, responsibility is routinely passed between the 하청 (subcontractor) and the 원청 (primary contractor), often leaving victims with no compensation — exactly what happened to the injured worker 영수.