Reply #59: "Tears for Mok'po" [View All]

[Snow]

I guess you'd have to be attuned to Korean culture to appreciate it, but it's a lovely song - I used to have it memorized. Here's the story:

http://www.pennfamily.org/KSS-USA/971001-1920.htm

"The Tears of Mokpo, lyrics written by Mun Il-sok, set to music by Son Mok-in, sung by Lee Nan-young: The boat song of the ferryman wafts through the air, Samhakdo Island hides deep below the waves, the bride on the wharf with a tear-stained dress, Are they the tears of fare-stained dress, Are they the tears of farewell? The sorrow of Mokpo. 'The Tears of Mokpo' was first sung by the famous singer Lee Nan-young in the 1930s, and it greatly comforted the Korean people under the yoke of Japanese colonial rule. Today, it still enjoys phenomenal national popularity. Famous for the song 'The Tears of Mokpo', Mokpo is located at the southwestern tip of the Korean Peninsula. The port city was opened to the outside world for foreign residency and trade on October 1, 1897, by imperial edict by Emperor Kojong, and the Mokpo supervisory Office was established to supervise the commercial trade there. "

The opening of the port that they refer to is another of those forced openings, very like the opening of Canton or Nagasaki. TO Kojong's credit, he tried his best to avoid this, and then went with Mokpo, which is down in the southwest corner of the country, rather than Inchon, near the capital. The president who ushered in the new era of elected non-dictator rule in Korea, Kim Daejoong, is from Mokpo. The song is, of course, metaphorical, like the other famous Korean rebel song, Arirang, and as they said above, rather politely, it's an anti-Japanese occupation song. There's a lot of similarities between Britain & Ireland and Japan & Korea.