The Korean word “갈등 (葛藤)” is a curious one. 

Literally, “葛” means arrowroot and “藤” means wisteria. According to the dictionary, the term refers to a state where individuals or groups clash due to differing goals or interests, just as arrowroot and wisteria vines tangle and twist around each other. This image—two climbing plants entwined in a struggle for support—struck people as an apt metaphor for human tension. Thus, the word galtteung was born.

Everyone encounters conflict in life. When it happens, it often brings pain and discomfort. But, as I’ve written about life and its everyday moments, I’ve come to see that conflict isn’t only negative. In fact, the relationship between arrowroot and wisteria offers a surprising insight into the nature of human struggle.

Both plants are climbing vines that cannot stand on their own. To grow, they must lean on and wrap around something—often each other. At first glance, they seem to be fighting. But in truth, the arrowroot performs biological nitrogen fixation, turning atmospheric nitrogen into a form usable by plants, enriching the soil.¹
Meanwhile, the wisteria, though slower-growing, climbs higher and disperses light through the upper canopy.²
Though they interfere with each other, each contributes to the ecosystem in its own way. This interwoven relationship—of competition and dependence, suppression and complementarity—captures the essence of conflict.

We find similar dynamics in nature.
Where tectonic plates collide, we see earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. But from that friction, mountains rise, continents uplift, and new ecosystems emerge.
Collision isn’t just destruction—it’s the unsettling of old order that allows for reformation and renewal.

Our lives are no different.
In late Joseon Korea, the Silhak (實學) movement emerged from tension with the dominant Neo-Confucian system.³ In the decades after liberation, South Korea overcame the trauma of division to achieve rapid industrialization.
At the height of social conflict, space opens for new perspectives, structures, and values to be born.

We often think of conflict as something to avoid or eliminate. But conflict is a sign of transition. It arises at the very moment something is trying to change—in the space where old structures and new orders overlap.

Like kudzu and wisteria climbing upward in a tangle, we too sometimes grow taller through collisions. That entanglement is not collapse, but a necessary transition toward a new balance.

So the word “conflict” must be re-read—not as mere discord, but as life’s struggle to coexist.
It is not just a term for opposition, but a language of survival—where different forces clash and learn to take root in shared ground.