Tag Archives: nationalistic sentiment

The Myth of Dangun

Nationality: South Korean
Age: 27
Occupation: PHD Student, Electrical Engineering
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Language: English

Informant: “This is a myth about how our nation was created. Our nation was first called Chosun. There was a god (Hwanin) and his son (Hwanung). Hwanung loved the people, humans, so he wanted to live with people in the city instead of the sky world with the gods. So, he brings some sky people to the earth and rules over the people. He then saw there was a bear and tiger who were friends and wanted to be human. So, he gave them garlic and herbs and told them: If you eat these things for 100 days and live in a cave without seeing the sun, then I will let you become human. The tiger gives up, but the bear does not. So, the bear becomes a human woman. However, there is no one to marry her, and she really wants to marry someone. She prays to god: Please let me marry someone. The son of the god hears that voice and takes her as his wife, and they marry.”

Me: So how did this result in the creation of Korea?

Informant: “Ah, not Korea, but the dynasty. We think they are the first dynasty in this myth. The bear turned to a woman, and the son of god were the leaders of this first dynasty, which led to our nation.”

Context: The informant is from South Korea and heard this myth from his parents. He had to look some things up to refresh his memory, but says that it is a very well-known myth in Korea. He says that he, “of course”, does not believe that any of that really happened, but still finds it to be an interesting and important part of his nation’s story.

Analysis: I think that this story is meant to make the people of Korea feel some kind of importance and significance towards the origins of their nation. The story seems to paint the origins of Korea, or at least this specific dynasty, as being divine. A long time ago, I imagine the story served to prop up that dynasty, like propaganda of sorts. However, as time moved on and the dynasty dissipated, the story became integrated with the birth of subsequent nations, giving the citizens a hopeful story that their nation could trace its lineage back to the son of god. As for the bear turning into a woman, I think there may be some symbolism of these gods coming down and civilizing people. As if to say that Korea, as a nation, turned animals into people, metaphorically.

A Pep-Talk… For War?

Nationality: Indian
Age: 82
Occupation: Retired Army Colonel
Residence: Gurgaon, India
Performance Date: 01/05/21
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi/Urdu

The Interviewer will be referred to as ‘I’, and the informant as ‘D’. Explanations and translations for Hindi words will be italicised and in parentheses. The Informant is an 82-year-old Punjabi father and grandfather, a former military man, born and raised in what is now Pakistan, but moving to post-partition North India.

D: I am a retired infantry officer. In the 1965 war against our neighbour, I was a young officer. I was not fully trained, in… in weapons. War started and I was sent to a picket called [X] picket, along with my hundred-and-twenty men. As a young officer, whenever the enemy fired their shells, I used to go on top of my bunker and see it, take reconnaissance. I did not know that the enemy had been firing star shells, those are the shells which are air-burst—they burst inside the air only, can kill a person who’s standing on his bunker. [He smiles] God saved me that I was not killed… but I kept doing it, out of ignorance and youth. There cannot be a bigger story than this from my many years in the military. 

I: Is there anything you would tell your men, something motivational, to boost morale in times of war?

D: I would raise the morale of my troops, I would say what I remember being told to me, what I hope to have been told to others in—in the future. “Mere bahadur gujar jawaanon, yaad rakhna ki jahaan bhi ham honge, jeet hamari hogi. Apni paltan ki aan aur shaan hamari zindagi se hamesha upar hogi.” (My brave, fighting young men/armymen, remember that wherever we are, victory will be ours. Our platoon’s dignity and pride/honour will always be above our life.) It was like… what you call a pep-talk, like that. 

Analysis:

The words in this may not be proverbial, as such, but I would classify them as folk speech because they are inherently a performance, and one that was passed on from person to person, echoing the same sentiment, even if the words were different. Even as an eighty-two year old man, my informant shone with the same honour and dignity that he spoke of, as he performed these words, while also admitting to his own faults, earlier on. He does state that these words were passed down to him and from him, a cultural idea of patriotism, one that arose especially strongly after the partition of India and Pakistan, and the ensuing decades-long, violent bloodbath. Putting my own not-so-favourable-or-popular views on the India-Pakistan feud and the military/militarism as a whole aside for a second (we would be here for hours and I’d probably get mobbed, I’m against both the feud and the military), just hearing him speak like this was especially intriguing because he spoke with what seemed like a hundred voices. There is more to this than simple patriotism for a motherland, because technically this was his motherland in name but the other was in place. There may not be a rhyme or a special poetic structure to what he said, but when performed live, this was a sentiment that could be felt, palpable, even though a video-call interview. Again, this is especially odd to think about, especially since he was a man that was born and raised partially in what is now Pakistan, but this same speech that was given to him, and this same overwhelming post-partition sentiment of patriotism, honour, and nationalistic pride, led him to fight in several wars over the years, against essentially what became of his birthplace.