Tag Archives: Korean

「蛍の光」– Japanese Oicotype of “Auld Lang Syne”

Nationality: Japanese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Naha-shi, Okinawa, Japan
Performance Date: 3/6/12
Primary Language: Japanese

「蛍の光」

Above is a recording of the song「蛍の光」(hotaru no hikari) taken at the Shuri High School graduation ceremony in Naha-shi, Okinawa, Japan.

「蛍の光」(light of the firefly) is a Japanese folk song sung to the music of the Scottish “Auld Lang Syne.” However, the lyrics of 「蛍の光」are vastly different from “Auld Lang Syne,” and unlike the latter, which is often sung on New Year’s Eve, the Japanese oicotype is almost always used to conclude graduation ceremonies. It has become so integral to Japanese society and culture, in fact, that most Japanese people do not realize that it originated outside of the country, and those who hear it overseas mistakenly think they are hearing a Japanese song. My informant said she has even heard instrumental versions of 「蛍の光」broadcast at restaurants and supermarkets to indicate that it is almost closing time–a practice so engrained in their society that everyone automatically knows, when the music comes on, that it is time to leave.

My informant, whose best friend had been present at the Shuri High School graduation ceremony, said that she would never have thought of the melody as being derived from a Scottish folk song. She had heard and sung it at every single graduation from elementary school on, as had her parents, and her parents before that. Simply hearing this song, she said, was enough to bring back all the nostalgia of graduation, and her mother had said that, even a few months after my informant’s graduation, listening to the song brought tears to her eyes.

Technically speaking, though they learn that the song has four verses, the last two are almost never sung, if only because the latter half contains decidedly nationalistic characteristics–and nationalism has been discouraged in Japan since the American occupation after World War II.

The lyrics of the first two verses, then, are as follows:

蛍の光 窓の雪
書読む月日 重ねつつ
いつしか年も すぎの戸を
開けてぞ今朝は 別れゆく

とまるも行くも 限りとて
互みに思う 千万の
心のはしを ひとことに
幸くとばかり 歌うなり

And translated, they go something like this:

Light of fireflies, and snow by the window
Many suns and moons spent reading
Years have gone by without notice
Day has dawned; and in this morning, we part.

Stay or leave, it doesn’t matter
Hold my memories, in so many
corners of my heart; in one breath,
while we are happy, sing.

Very different from “Auld Lang Syne,” the lyrics are definitely geared towards the ceremonial rites of graduation, and initiation into a new kind of life. No one truly knows the composer of this song, though it is often said, according to my informant, that it had risen out of some college professor’s attempt to set Japanese words to the Scottish tune, and had spread from college graduations all the way down to elementary school moving-up ceremonies.

Strangely enough, however, this is apparently not the only variation or oicotype of “Auld Lang Syne” that exists across the world. When speaking to a Korean friend and mentioning this folklore find, he told me that Korean students sing a Korean oicotype of “Auld Lang Syne” at their graduation ceremonies–singing it for me a little bit so I could hear that the melody was exactly the same though the lyrics, of course, were different. My Taiwanese friend, furthermore, chimed in with, “us too!” and told us that they did the same at their graduation, singing another version of Auld Lang Syne, this time in Taiwanese. Upon doing some research, I found that there are hundreds and perhaps thousands of variations of this song all across the world, used as national anthems, farewell songs (Peru), funeral songs (China), and so on. A common thread that seems to tie most of these together, it seems, is the theme of ending something–ending a relationship, a life, or a part of life.

ANNOTATION: There is a song in Japan by a popular pop band called いきものがかり (Ikimonogakari) titled 「ホタルノヒカリ」(which reads and sounds exactly the same as 蛍の光, though it has been changed into another form of the Japanese alphabet, called katakana). Though the lyrics and the melody are completely different, the meaning inherent in the song is very much that of the original 蛍の光–it alludes to graduating, to leaving behind friends to venture into the summer and into the path towards your dreams. “Like the light of the firefly,” The lead singer sings, “the memories will forever glow in my heart, even if the fire of experience eventually fades away.” Japanese pop singers like to churn out these sorts of graduation songs, probably because they have such a wide and receptive audience. 蛍の光, which was birthed out of a Scottish folk song, has become an oft-used symbol in the Japanese pop music world to represent a nostalgia-tinged departure.

<いきものがかり. ”ホタルノヒカリ.” ホタルノヒカリ. ERJ, 2009. MP3.>
<Ikimonogakari. “Hotaru no Hikari” Hotaru no Hikari. ERJ, 2009. MP3.>


Pepero Day — Korean Singles Awareness Day

Nationality: Korean
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: 2/17/12
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English, French

Pepero (빼빼로) is a cookie stick, dipped in chocolates syrup, manufactured by the Lotte company in South Korea:

Pepero (빼빼로)

Pepero Day is an observance in South Korea similar to Valentine’s Day. It is named after Pepero and held on November 11th, because the date “11/11” resembles four sticks of Pepero.

My informant spent her childhood in Korea and moved to Irvine, California upon her entrance into high school. Irvine as a city has a significant Korean population–as such, Korean and other Asian-American students at her high school celebrated Pepero Day every year. However, though it is unclear whether this is a regional or a Korean-American variation, Pepero Day at her high school focused more on people who were single than couples, because they saw the Pepero sticks as symbolizing people standing upright, on their own, without need for another person. This could be because of the nature of her high school, which, while ranked in the top ten of the best high schools in America, with its ultra-high SAT scores and proliferation of AP classes, was apparently sadly lacking (according to her) in the area of romance and relationships. “People were always too busy to date,” She said. “They were married to their grades, basically, and any other kind of relationship was a sort of cheating because it might bring their grades down.”

This was, obviously, not the case for the entire school, and she may have been exaggerating; however, it is clear that her Korean and other Asian-American friends had somehow shifted this day to reflect their own plight, making it a joke about their studiousness by labeling it a kind of “Singles Awareness Day.” Traditionally, my informant said, in Korea, the holiday is observed by young people and couples, who exchange Pepero sticks and other romantic gifts. At her school, people walked around with boxes of Pepero, handing them out to their friends and saying things like, “Better luck next year!” or “Happy Singles Day!” Oftentimes, people who were in relationships were denied Pepero sticks, and jokingly told, “You’re in a couple, you don’t need a Pepero for companionship!”

 

“코피” and Others — Korean-American Pun Jokes

Nationality: Korean
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/13/12
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

My informant is a Korean student attending the University of Southern California. He lived in Korea until the fourth grade and then, for familial reasons, moved to the Bay Area, where he went to school until coming down to Southern California for college. When I asked him to tell me a Korean joke, he thought for a bit, laughed, and said, “Weird. I only know Korean-American ones now,” which is understandable considering he has not gone back to Korea in the past five years. Mostly pun jokes, they were composed of Korean and English and require an understanding of both languages for them to be even remotely funny. For instance:

What is a vampire’s favorite drink?
코피 (kopi)!

This is funny because 코피 in Korean means nosebleed, while the way it is pronounced, kopi, sounds a lot like the English word coffee. So while the real answer is nosebleed, kopi adds another dimension to it by making it sound like vampires like coffee. In this case, the audience would need to know English to understand the question, but also the Korean word for nosebleed, and understand that its humor comes from kopi‘s similarity to an English word–a complex, bilingual understanding.

Another example:

Which celebrity likes to hold the most luggage?
Jim Carrey!

Now this is one that, if you did not know better, you would think was an American joke because of the lack of Korean words. However, this is only funny because Jim (or jeem) in Korean means, more or less,  “luggage,” while Carrey just sounds like “carry.” Jim Carrey’s name in Korean-American terms then, could be seen as Luggage Carrey.

These jokes are deceivingly simple, actually requiring a pretty advanced understanding of both languages for them to be immediately funny, as they are supposed to be (my informant could not stop laughing while he told these jokes, while I stared at him blankly, especially the second one). In that way, it can be seen almost as a rite of passage, or a kind of test, for Korean-Americans. To be truly bilingual, to be truly Korean-American, is to be able to understand these kinds of jokes. The fact that these jokes exist at all, in fact, makes it clear that Korean-Americanism is its own culture–that Koreans living in America are not just displaced peoples, losing their culture to America, but an entirely new, emerging culture that thrives on its distinction from both Korea and America.

 

 

Korean myth: Tiger and bear

Nationality: Korean-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (Architecture)
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

“So there was this prince-king who was living in the area that is now Korea. And one day, a bear and a tiger came along and wanted the king to turn them human. The king said he would do it if they went into a cave for a hundred days and ate nothing but onions. I think there’s another version where they have to eat only garlic. But anyways, they take on the challenge. But the tiger quit partway through. The bear made it through all the hundred days, and when it came out, the king turned it into a beautiful woman and married it, and their children became the Korean people.”

My informant thinks she first learned this myth at home, but she heard it again recently in a class on Korean culture. She suggested that the bear’s perseverance reflected Koreans’ conception of themselves as an overall determined culture. Also, Koreans use a lot of onions in their cooking, and onions are healthy and a very natural food. She does note, however, that tigers seem to be more important in Korean culture, and are generally portrayed as more fierce and noble in Korean art, while bears sometimes represent laziness.

This is an origin myth and its details reveal how the Koreans think of themselves. They come from the union of a powerful, magic-wielding king and an animal that proved its determination and commitment by eating healthy but not necessarily pleasant food for an extended period of time.

Korean-American Joke: Sausage

Nationality: Korean-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (Architecture)
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

“So there were these four brothers, and they came to this cliff, and there was a genie. And this genie said, I can turn you into anything you want to be, so the first brother said, I want to be a cow so I can work really hard. So the genie turned him into a cow. The second brother said, I want to be a bird so I can be free. So the genie turned him into a bird. The third brother said, I want to be small and hide and be secure, so he became a rat. Now, the fourth brother had always been jealous of the other three, so he said, I want to be all three. So the genie turned him into a sausage. Because in Korean, cow is so, bird is se, and rat is ji, so-se-ji, sausage.”

My informant learned this joke from another Korean-American friend. Only a Korean-American (or someone who knew both Korean and English) would understand this joke without needing to have it explained to them, since the joke is told in English, but the punchline is delivered in Korean. The joke therefore strengthens Korean-American group identity.